278 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



V 94. — 39. Blacksmiths aud brasiers and whitesmiths and physicians, 

 though it be a chief master of them, are entitled only to food-provision for 

 four men, eight chattels are their dire, and three days' protection. 



V 96. — 40. What gives dire to a person ? Answer : merit and integrity 

 and purity.' 



41. There are three divisions of (the measure of) a person's honour, 

 eneclann and enecJiniicce and enecligriss.^ 



V 96. — 42. The good arts are both free and subject, because they serve 

 and are served. Their distraints are free and their judgments are free over 

 their rightful customs and over their apprentices.' 



V 98. — 43. The jurist who is competent to give decision for the folk of 

 arts and crafts in regard of justice, in the estimation and measurement of the 

 work and the remuneration of every product, and who is competent to 

 reconcile custom and award, has seven chattels for dire, and three days' pro- 

 tection and food-provision for four men.^ 



V 100.— 44. The jurist of the language of the Feni and the lore of the 

 filidf ten chattels are his dire, and five days' protection, and thirty cakes 

 for liim.° 



Psahn is " Beatus." The first grade of pupil in a Latin school was coictach, one who had 

 learned the first 50 psalms (V 102, 18). 



1 By " merit " is to be understood the possession and worthy use of qualifying 

 wealth, by "integrity " the potential and actual fulfilment of functions and duties, by 

 " purity" being guiltless of misdeeds. See I 54 seqq. 



' Ainech, enech, in the legal technical sense of "honour, "is neuter plural, genitive 

 enecli, dative inchaib. The oldest form of the word found is in the ogham Ineqaglasi = Eiiech. 

 glais. In the early law tracts lug enech is much more frequent than eneclann, which 

 replaces it in later writings. Ace. to the gloss, there were two divisions of eneclann, full 

 honourprice and half honourprice ; two of enechruicce, half honourprice and a seventh of 

 honourprice ; two of eiiechgrhs, ^ and 2^ of honourprice. The seventli part of honour- 

 price is also called airer, II 204, III 538. These measures have reference to various 

 degrees of injury. 



^ " Their distraints are free ": ace. to the gloss this means that artists and craftsmen 

 are exempt from distraint for a kinsman's liability. " Judgments," riara : " judgment," 

 or the power of judgment over subject persons, is the usual meaning oiriar in the early 

 law tracts. The commentary here replaces riar by breithemnns, which in the text means 

 " jurisprudence." 



■> This is a low grade of jurist, having less honourprice than that of the craftsmen for 

 whom he adjudicated. "Product" : read haicde for hoic of the text [oigdi, gloss), any 

 article of skilled craftsmanship. Fuigell, a judicial decision, must have meant first a 

 pledge to subniit to adjudication, then submission to adjudication, lastly adjudication. 

 Fuighdlestar Sen r. fo-gelset Sen, I 78, 4, " they submitted the case to Sen." Cofuigled 

 Conchubur imbi, 1 250, "so they submit the case to C." 



' " The language of the Feni," belre Fene ; we may judge from the presence of this 

 phrase that already at the time of writing of this text the language of the laws was 

 recognized to be archaic. 



