Clare Island Survey — Agriculture and its History. 5 15 



any rank and position. For the common people are treated almost like 

 slaves, who may make no venture of their own and who are not taken 

 into consultation. Most of them, when pressed by debt or heavy tribute or 

 injustice from the stronger, give themselves up in servitude to the chiefs, to 

 whom they stand just as slaves do to their masters."' 



The rulers were subdivided in two sections, a military and a learned. 

 The power of the former varied with their wealth and pedigree, for the 

 greater these the greater the number of vassals and dependents at their 

 command. 2 They corresponded with the kings and chiefs and their cousins of 

 later days. The learned class were also noble — equites — but they were 

 exempt from military service and tribute. Their chief functions were to be 

 lawyers and law-makers, judges and teachers. Maine identifies them with 

 the Irish Brehons. 3 



Among the British Celts of later times we find a development from a 

 state of affairs similar to that described by Caesar as existing among the 

 Gauls. There are still chiefs and kings, learned men and common people, 

 and fugitive and broken men little better than slaves to the chiefs they 

 serve. 



Whether in Ireland, Wales or Scotland, the outstanding features of 

 their civilization were based upon the tie of blood, and they entertained 

 a preference for grazing, scattered dwellings, and an itinerant and casual 

 tillage. The clan system and its bearing upon the land has been very 

 thoroughly investigated for Wales, where perhaps it suffered least from 

 external interference and, so, attained its highest complication. 1 There were 

 three grades of Welshmen : the true-bred Welshmen, " strangers " who 

 were aspiring to that position, and the servile class. The power lay with the 

 true-bred Welsh, that is with the princes, chiefs, and men of family; but 

 most of all with the princes and chiefs. Indeed, long before the English 

 conquest of Wales, the chiefs had attained a power over their clans that was 

 in some ways perhaps equal with that of the Norman lords over the English 

 people ; for not only did they command the tribesmen in war but they also 

 received some part of the produce of their fields and pastures. Each tribe had 

 a larger or smaller area of country in its possession. Portions of the nature 

 of home farms were reserved by the chiefs, and the rest was distributed 

 among the tribesmen and the aspirant tribesmen. Each tribesman was 

 entitled to four free acre strips of land (erwi), 5 to use of the waste in common, 

 and to the right of hunting. When a tribesman took up land, he did so 



1 Gallic War, vi. 13. - Ibid., vi. 15. 3 Early History of Institutions, vol. ii. 



4 See especially Seebohm's English Village Community and Welsh Tribil System. 



5 In earlier times five. 



