272 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 



each tuatli formed a distinct body politic. In the early law tracts tvAith 

 means this body politic, and the rendering " territory " of the official transla- 

 tion is misleading. From the "Book of Pdghts" it would appear that the 

 number of petty kingdoms in its time, the tenth century, was about ninety. 



The official translations bristle with errors. Many of these errors amount 

 to serious misinterpretation, and not a few are still more grave, tending to 

 conceal or pervert fundamental features of the laws. I have endeavoured by 

 study and comparison to arrive at a just interpretation or the ancient 

 terminology. By bringing together tracts and detached articles which are 

 connected in subject, I have sought to present a clearer view of the laws and 

 of the social, economic, and political conditions which they illustrate, often 

 with remarkable fulness and minuteness. 



Ueaicecht Begc.i 



V 2. — 1. "Wherein is the Jurisprudence of the Language of the Peni 

 found ? Answer : In proof and right and nature. 



Y 6. — 2. Proof is founded on rules and maxims and true testimonies. 

 Eight is founded on verbal contracts and acknowledgment. [The law of] 

 nature is founded on remission and joint arrangement.- 



' The title Uiaicecht Becc, "Little Grammar," is not as old as the text, since it is not 

 glossed. It is doubtless based on the passages of commentary (V 56-TO) which deal with 

 various grades of poets and the kinds of metrical composition held to be proper to them. 

 This matter was, we may think, of more interest to the men of letters of a later age than 

 the obsolete legal provisions of the text. It supplemented the similar matter found in 

 the versions of AnraiccecM na n'Eces, " The Grammar of the Poets." 



" Is found," agar, H aragar, gloss ahegar, read airecar. "Jurisprudence," brUhemniis. 

 Brefh means a judgment or judicial decision not only on a particular case but also on a 

 general principle or provision of law. The plural bretha means " rules of law," as in the 

 titles of various law tracts, Breiha Kerned, Bretha, Etged, Bechhretha, etc. Hence hrithem, 

 " brehon," means rather a professional jurist than a judge. In the court {airecht) of the 

 tuath, decisions were givenby the voice of those, nobles, clergy, men of learning, master 

 craftsmen, who had the right of speech — hence go airechta, go thuaithe, '' a false decision 

 by the airecht, by the tuath" ; but the decision was usually proposed by the king, who 

 presided, or by a hrithem who acted as legal adviser to the court. "Proof" : this is the 

 technical meaning of fir — see text, V 468, 470, " Right " : dliged, in the early usage 

 means "a right," later "a law." "^JTature," aicned : the Irish jurists seem to have 

 derived from Roman jurisprudence, doubtless through the Church, the idea of a "law of 

 nature," equated with " the law of nations " and with natural equity. From Biblical 

 Latin they learned to equate gentes with the lieathen nations, hence they say that the 

 '' law of nature," rechtaicnid, obtained in Ireland before Christianity (III 30). 



^ "Testimonies," testemiiaib : the gloss understands this term in its later meaning of 

 " texts," which could not have been the meaning at a time when texts of Irish law were 

 innovations. So the gloss explains that " proof," as regards jurisprudence (breithemnim, 

 hrethemnacht), is founded on principles of law and on texts, but that, as regards actual 

 decisions {re eonairih fuigill), the proof of the thing which he pleads is established by the 

 man who comes to plead. Altogether, the explanation in the gloss amounts to the 



