Project:Bibliography/Early Irish law/By year
General and various
- Guides, introductions and bibliographies
- Editions and translations
- List of publications (by year)
- List of publications (by author)
- Bart Jaski’s supplement (2014)
Polity, people and law
- The túath
- external relations
- outsiders
- Rural character
- Rank and status
- dependant status
- unfree status (dóer)
- The kin-group (fine)
- maternal kin (máithre)
Law of persons (1)
- king
- lord and client
- clientship; base client; free client; fuidir (semi-freeman); bothach; senchléithe
- briugu (hospitaller)
Law of persons (2)
- cleric
- poet
- female poet; illegal satirist
- lawyer
- brithem; aigne
- physician
- druid
- manufacturers
- wright; blacksmith; other
Law of persons (3)
- woman
- child
- slave
- captive (cimbid)
Property
Offences
- Contracts, pledges and sureties
- Distraint (athgabál)
- Legal entry (tellach)
- Procedure
- Punishment
Law texts
- Comparative aspects
- early Irish law and narrative
- early Irish law and canon law
- early Irish law and medieval Welsh law
Early Irish law
List of publications by year (in descending order)
Bretha Comaithcheso, “Judgements on Neighbourhood”, is a tract forming part of the great law-book, Senchas Már, dating from c. 700. It expounds the law governing relations between neighbouring farmers, especially those who formed by contract a co-operative group. Already in the pre-Viking period it was attracting layers of comment, both glosses and a dossier of more extended texts that amplify or update or even contradict the main text. The result is a collection of material outstandingly rich among European texts on farming of a similar date.
Charlene M. Eska presents in this book a critical edition and translation of a newly discovered early Irish legal text on lost and stolen property, Aidbred. Although the Old Irish text itself is fragmentary, the copious accompanying commentaries provide a wealth of legal, historical, and linguistic information, thus presenting us with a complete picture of the legal procedures involved in reclaiming missing property. This book also includes editions of two other texts concerning property found on land, Heptad 64, and at sea, Muirbretha. The three texts edited together provide a complete picture of this aspect of the early Irish legal system.
Liam Breatnach’s Quiggin Lecture, The Early Irish law text Senchas Már and the question of its date, proposed that the Senchas Már was written in a single effort mounted by the church of Armagh within the date range c. 660 × c. 680. This revised and expanded version of a lecture given in 2017 accepts that there was a link between Armagh and the Senchas Már, sets the latter in the context of the written laws of Western Europe, 400–800, and investigates how the Senchas Már might have fitted into the sequence of seventh-century texts pertaining to Patrick. It also tackles two related issues: the relationship between evolving ideas of Irish nationality, the Patrician legend and the Senchas Már, and how one might bridge the gap between the Patrick of the saint’s own writings and conceptions of Patrick current in the seventh century.
This article provides a critical edition and translation of a dialogue between the mythical king, Cormac, and his son, Coirpre. In the first part, Coirpre confesses to raping a woman. Cormac asks why he did such a thing, and Coirpre’s excuses for his actions follow in a series of repetitive questions and answers. The second part of the dialogue is ascribed entirely to Cormac and forms his ‘instructions’ to his son. They describe the steps from flirtation to kissing to seduction to conception without resorting to violence. Cormac’s ‘instructions’ also touch upon the real legal consequences of begetting a child, whether by rape or consent.
The first chapter examines the foster father/fosterling relationship through the figure of Cú Chulainn and questions the received picture of multiple fosterage. The foster-mother relationship is the focus of the second chapter, in their role of mourning dead fosterlings and acting as guardian of memory.
The third chapter asks the question who is a foster-sibling and examines the boundaries of the fosterage terminology. The language is particularly fluid in the fíanaigecht literature.
The final chapters examine fosterage outside the foster family. Fosterage was employed as a metaphor in religious writings and chapter four analyses this metaphor to understand both the experience of the divine and the position of children in monasteries.
Chapter five turns to fosterage between humans and animals, extended the metaphoric use of fosterage seen in earlier chapters.
Looking at fosterage in this unusual setting makes the assumptions about the emotional ties it creates easier to address. Fosterage bonds were created by nurturing, educating and sharing experience and lasted throughout the participants lives. In order to appreciate the impact fosterage had on medieval Irish society we must appreciate the affective bonds it created and the affective way it was created.
The Old Irish word muirchrech (also murchrech and muirchreth) is found in law texts where it refers to the distance out to sea at which certain offenders are to be placed in a boat and left to the dictates of wind and tide. Uses of the word in literary texts either reflect this legal scenario or imply a convention of diplomatic protection within a muirchrech of a ruler's territorial lands. Although this general use of the term is clear, there has not yet been any agreement as to the literal meaning of muirchrech, or the actual distance referred to. This article sets out to explore possible literal meanings of muirchrech.
[EN] This paper examines the use of the abbreviation s.d. as it appears in various early Irish law tracts as printed in the Corpus Iuris Hibernici and compares its context and use to that of other forms of abbreviations used in Irish legal manuscripts. The pattern that emerges from the evidence of the abbreviation’s context and use suggests that the abbreviation stands for the title of a legal manuscript, perhaps associated with the MacEgan family, for which the contents may be partially reconstructed.
FURTHER RESULTS…
Textual sources
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