Preface to the Senchus Mor
The books I will be referring to for the original text of the Senchus Mor are the 6 Volumes of "Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland," save volume 2 because I couldn't find it. They are linked below in the references section.
Before analyzing the Senchus Mor, I will relay some useful information about Brehon Law in general that is presented in the introductions and prefaces for each of these tomes. First, a timeline of Irish Law would benefit the analysis of legal texts and historical Irish customs and culture. How Irish Law worked before the arrival of Christian monks, and thus writing, is widely disputed. There most definitely was some form of Law that was handed down orally amongst "judges." These judges were men, most likely of a fairly wealthy background. The role of judge was preserved in the family, so the father would train his sons in memorizing and interpreting the law. This created what is known as juristic families, a distinct class in society.
Before laws were written down, since they were just orally transmitted, it would be reasonable to assume that Law would vary greatly across the different regions of Ireland. It is difficult to determine whether or not this is true, though some claim this is somehow not the case. These early judges would have judged based on memorized, rhythmic verse, and precedents they learned firsthand or secondhand by other judges. It is possible that purely oral Irish Law was fairly similar across Ireland because, as apparent through mythology and the many hospitality laws, there was a lot of traveling and constant contact amongst Irish towns and settlements. Hospitality laws stated that every free person in Ireland had to offer hospitality to any person other than a criminal or an outlaw, otherwise they would be greatly punished. Every household had to be able to provide warm food and shelter, as well as entertain guests with music and stories. If any person failed to do this, they could lose their eric, or honor-price (like a wergild), or have their status degraded to outlaw. Kevin Flanagan makes the point that this allows for frequent and safe travelling across Ireland, which may have been the original intent of these laws. He also points out that since they could travel frequently and freely, they could interact with more people and exchange knowledge much more frequently and easily. This definitely assisted in transmitting oral Law.
Irish law schools were eventually created, although the exact time when they came about is unknown. What we mostly know is that, after the arrival of writing, these schools produced the monumental texts that made Law much more set in stone across Ireland. These texts were produced roughly sometime between the 5th and 8th century, after the arrival of Saint Patrick, Christianity, and writing. They are listed below:
>Di Astud Chor,
>Uraicecht na Riar,
>Berrad Airechta,
>Crith Gablach,
>The two Nemed texts: Bretha Nemed Toisech, and Bretha Nemed Deidenach (and its bastard sibling Uraicecht Becc, which will be discussed in another post),
>The Senchus Mor, and its components: Prologue (added long after the creation of each of the component texts), Cethairslicht Athgabalae, Cain Soerraith, Cain Aicillne, Cain Lanamna, Corus Besgnai, and Sechtae.
**The 'Early Irish Law' Wikipedia page has great, reliable descriptions of each of these. The 'Origins' section is also worth reading because it talks about Indo-European similarities, as I briefly touched on in another context in my post about Druids.**
Together, these texts make up the main body of Early Irish Law, collectively refered to as 'Brehon Law,' and cover a huge amount of material. The body of Early Irish law is considered by some to be the most sophisticated in Europe, or even the world, at its time. Together it is considered a civil code, meaning that it deals with the relation between individuals, rather than a criminal code, which deals with the relation of the state to individuals, in which the state is responsible for carrying out punishment. This in fact means that punishment for wrong-doing in Ireland was not taken care of by the state. The only "law enforcement" that was present was a king's army, which he could use for personal matters just as much as assisting in settling conflicts. It was mostly up to the parties involved in the case to resolve their issues according to how the judges prescribed. This was almost always through re-distribution of property somehow. Crimes could be paid off by paying an eric, or any other price of commodities as indicated by legal texts and/or judges.
What should also be noted is that it is unknown how many copies of these legal texts were made. There seems to be one of each of these surviving. If there was only one of each at the time, transmission of law would have mostly been oral, and judges would have had to memorize these texts, which means that there inevitably would have been a similar variance in Law across different regions of Ireland.
The introduction of Christianity also made some significant alterations in interpretation, and maybe even transcription of the Laws. Whether Myth or fact, it is said that Saint Patrick oversaw and taught a new interpretation of Brehon Law, removing what conflicted with Christian canon. On a micro scale, it probably varied how much a judge would lean on Canon Law versus traditional Brehon Law, but there was definitely an impact on all of Ireland, and probably an impact on the texts we have remaining.
The introduction and mingling of Christian Canon Law meant more punishment was introduced, including the novel ultimate one, the capital punishment (it is worth noting that revenge killing was commonplace and mostly allowed de facto, so this isn't an insane introduction).
The Norman invasion in 1171 was the start of the attempt to turn Ireland over to English law. This was mostly successful via force in the 12th century, though it was never fully successful outside of a region known as the English Pale. Even within the English Pale, its enforcement began to weaken in the 13th century (partially because King Edward I used most of the funds that the English government was using to fund his Welsh and Scottish skirmishes), up until the beginning of the 17th century. Although English Law was the de jure Law of the Land, Brehon Law was still the de facto Law. Many judges practiced primarily Brehon Law up until the proclamation of King James I., in which Irish Kingship was dissolved and ruling was replaced with Queen Elizabeth's reign. Many judges and even a Primate of Ireland at one point had to receive pardons for using Brehon Law instead of English Law when they got caught. In the border between the English Pale and the rest of Ireland (mostly called Gaelic Ireland when talking about the English Pale), a unique fusion of Brehon and English Law was created known as the March Law. This meant mostly English laws were in place, but judges were free to improvise some integration of Brehon laws for convenience. I have not found any legal texts dealing specifically with March Law, but I am looking through celt.ucc.ie's database of Hiberno-English Texts as of now (https://celt.ucc.ie//englist.html).
References
Useful lists of texts:
CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts' List of Captured Texts has Hiberno-English, French, Irish, and Latin texts, some of which are translated. https://celt.ucc.ie//captured.html
The Archive.org has volumes 1-6, but no volume 2, of Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland thanks to Harvard and the University of Toronto. https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Ireland.+Commissioners+for+Publishing+the+Ancient+Laws+and+Institutes+of+Ireland%22 [The long introductions in Volume 1 & 4 are what I drew most of the information for this post from.]
The 6 volumes of the Corpus Iuris Hibernici by D. A. Binchy, if you can ever find a copy.
The 'Early Irish Law' Wikipedia article has a decent list. Keep in mind that there are MANY more texts than this, these are just the most influential/longest/most popular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Irish_law
Unbelievable compendium of Welsh original texts from the Library of Wales. https://www.library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/archived-nlw-digital-resources
Other Sources:
https://stairnaheireann.net/2017/09/15/brehon-law-the-senchus-mor-2/
[Everything after the stolen old version of the 'Early irish Law' Wikipedia article is useful, because its all an excerpt from the Laws of Hywel Dda, an actually credible book. It's mostly about Welsh stuff.] Anon. (n.d.). Brehon Laws. The ancient Texts. https://theoldwelshbooks.webs.com/ancientcelticlaw.htm
[Here's the actual Laws of Hywel Dda text]. Anon. (13 Century-ish). Leges Hywel Dda. https://www.library.wales/discover/digital-gallery/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/laws-of-hywel-dda#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-2716%2C-382%2C9042%2C4545
Wikipedia:
'Primacy of Ireland'
'Redwood Castle'
'Early Irish Law'
'History of Ireland (400-800)'
'Bretha Nemed Deidenach'
'Uraicecht Becc'
'Celtic Law'
This one took a while because I came across my best sources yet. 6 volumes of translated original text each with 20-100 page introductions from important scholars. Definitely hit gold here.
ReplyDeleteThis is super cool! It's interesting that people would essentially self inforse punishment.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you've really struck gold with this source!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that judges were hereditary, like 'executive' leaders leaders and [I presume?] the priesthood, which sets up an automatic balance of power.