266 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Aeademy. 



subject to great variation in detail Between the statement of the 

 grades of status in UB and the statements in later commentaries there is 

 no practical correspondence. This, perhaps, may explain why the tract on 

 status disappeared from the beginning of Senchus Jldr. 



The distinctive attribute and the measure of free status was "honourpriee," 

 called loff enech, rarely eneelann, in the oldest tracts, always eneelann in the 

 later writings. Most of the provisions of the law are such, or are so 

 dependent upon other provisions; that the element of honom-piiee entered 

 into almost every operation of law. Only one way in which a person's 

 honourpriee could be determined was known to the jurists, namely, by 

 assigning the person to a particular grade to which, in the doctrine of the 

 law, a particnlar honourpriee had already been assigned. Hence it is to be 

 understood that, however artificial the classification in grades may appear, 

 and whatever variations it may present in different documents, this classifica- 

 tion was no mere matter of juristic theory, bat was an actual and important 

 factor in the everyday practical working of the laws. 



One of the most obvious characteristics of ancient Irish law is that it is the 

 law of a limited and privileged class. It is so in its form and operation and in 

 the theory of the jurists, its accepted teachers and custodians. ITie writer of 

 UB says that Irish jurisprudence is based upon the class called nemeth, and 

 the various ancient tracts never weary of repeating that the doctrines and 

 rules of law which they enunciate are derived from the usage of the Feni. 



Kenneth is the Old- Irish form of the older Celtic adjective nemdos, 

 meaning " holy " or " sacred." In the process of transcription, nemeth has 

 taken the later form nemed. The dative plural nemihib and the derivatives 

 nemthiiis, nemikenchus, ncmthigud, preserve the older consonant, and the 

 interesting collection of glosses on the word in O'iluleonry's Glossary, 

 evidently coUeeted in part from a version of UB or some closely similar 

 law tract, shows that the glossators had the form nemuih before them. 

 It will be seen from UB that the term nemeth comprises all persons 

 of free status. The association of fi-ee status with "holiness" dates 

 from heathen times. Indeed nemeth in the sense of " holy " rarely enters 

 into the vocabulary of Irish Christian literature. TVe can hardly doubt that 

 freemen wei^e " holy " in the sense of being qualified to participate in public 

 religions rites, Caesar tells how those who refused obedience to the judicial 

 decisions of the Druids were exeludetl by them from the sacrifices, and how 

 this exclusion involved the loss of jus and honos. So (V 174) the Irish 

 jurists, who held their funerion in unbroken succession to the Druids, declare 

 that '■' the noble who does not yield judgment or due to man is not entitled to 

 judgment or due from man," and " is not entitled to honourpriee." 



