Brehon Law Research Paper

Early Irish Law describes women and children as ‘legally incompetent’. What does ‘Brehon Laws’ tell us about Early Medieval Irish society in general and about women particularly ?

Nowadays Ireland is ruled by common law jurisdiction which was established through Anglo-Saxon’s influence on political system. Since centuries, it was first, native legal system which managed everyday life on the island during the Early Medieval, knew as ‘Brehon Law’. This literary sources among others old Irish texts (wisdom-texts, sagas, annals, hagiographies …) give us some aspect of the Irish society at that time. Indeed, there were no foreign writings concerning the island before Giraldus Cambrensis’s topography in the late twelfth century (except some manuscript

(It remains difficult to translate). The law-texts survived incompletely and corruptly between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries’ manuscripts. The first set down on parchment of the law was inherited customs passed orally generation to generation. Brehon (Feinechus in Gaelic) were the lawyers or ancient irish judge who administrated the law. Strictly speaking, they were more arbitrator, expounder of the law rather than judge. Brehon laws stayed in force until the seventeenth century but started to be partially eclipsed and disturbed by Norman invasions and then English settlement in twelfth century. Moreover, this manuscripts which revealed character of ancient irish life - society and social institutions - was ‘quite progressive’ because it recognised divorce (authorised in 1995 in Ireland) and some equal rights between

Kings were on the top of tuath’s hierarchy and convened oenach (a regular assembly for politic, social and commercial purposes). All freemen owed to him their direct loyalty and paid him a special tax and could be summoned by the king to repel invaders or others. Rights of freemen strictly defined by lawyers were available only in their own tuath (except for a military service or pilgrimage) and they had no rights beyond its borders (except the lettered classes who appeared to be entitled to travel freely). Clearly reflected in laws, social status were significant and explained differences of justice and rights between high and low rank. Native Irish law did not subscribed to the roman policy that all citizens were equal before the law and gave importance to the ‘honour-price’, namely, the measure of a person’s status which derived from the rank (in Gaelic, log menech which mean ‘price of his face’). According to leftovers literary sources, three law-texts dealt with rank distinction differentiating free and unfree man, those who were privileged and not: Crith Gablach (‘forked purchase’), Uraicecht Becc (‘small primer’), Miadslechta (‘rank section’). Despite a severe stratification of society, there were many circumstances in which person’s ranking may be