set 



it was in that use or reputation in any other country* barbarous or 

 civil, as it has been and yet is in Ireland ; where they put away all 

 their children to fosterers, the potent and rich men selling, the 

 meaner sort buying the alterage of their children ; and the reason 

 is, because in the opinion of this people, fostering had always been a 

 stronger alliance than blood, and the foster children do love and are be- 

 loved of their foster fathers and their sept, more than of their own natu- 

 ral parents and kindred, and do participate of their means more frankly, 

 and do adhere unto them in all fortunes with more affection and con- 

 stancy ;""f" with which definition of Sir John Davis Giraldus bitterly 

 coincides. J The like may be said of gossipred or compaternity, 

 which, though by the canon law it be a spiritual affinity, and a juror, 

 that was gossip to either of the parties, might in former times have 

 been challenged as not indifferent by our law, yet there was no na- 

 tion under the sun that ever made so religious account thereof as the 

 Irish."§ 



Relative to the marriages of this period, enough has been 

 said of those of the clerical order, and also of the proneness of the 

 laity to form such connexions within the prohibited degrees ; and the 

 letters of Lanfranc and Anselm touching these matters have been 

 already referred to. The distinctions between the " sponsalia de prae- 

 senti" and the " sponsalia de futuro,'' and the preference given by the 

 Irish to the latter form of contract, are very fully illustrated by Doctor 



• Fostering, however, was customary with other nations, see Anth. Hib. vol. iii. p. 266, 

 and in Forsyth's Antiquary's Portfolio, vol. ii. p. 220, instances are adduced of its prevalence 

 and influence in Wales. 



t Davis's Hist. Rel. pp. 78-9. 



X " Solum vero alumnis et coUactaneis, si quod habent vel amoris vel fidei, illud ha- 

 bent."— Top. Hib. Dist. 3. c. 23. 



§ Davis's Hist. Rel. p. 79. 



