Ancient Laws of Ireland - Volume 1: Senchus Mor

Next, we come to the farming class, the brewy (a hospitaller or wealthy farmer), and his qualifications and status, in his double aspect as a "hundredman" and "two-hundredman." Finally, we have an enumeration of the grades of the people, rising from the inol (servant) up to the bo-aire (the 'cow-lord' or head of a farming family) in his threefold division.

After this follows the section of the daer-nemed persons—smiths, doctors, brehons, etc.—the people of every art in general, with details of their status and privileges. Before entering into fuller details, the writer introduces the important question of dire (a form of compensation), which he equates as usual with eneclann ('honour-price'). He declares it to be dependent on a person’s desert (property), worth (of word), and purity (of deed). These daer-nemed persons include the various possessors of art, from the brehon onwards, who have honour-price by virtue of their art and are therefore saer (free). They may increase their honour-price by the acquisition of many arts, down to the practitioners of the "under-arts" or "mean arts," who have no honour-price at all for their art. Here, it is noteworthy that an exception is made: while the "people of music" are graded with buffoons and very queer artists indeed, the cruit (harp) is "the one art of music that is entitled to honour-price."

A few details, acting as an appendix, are added regarding the ollams (master poets or professors) of various grades.

II. HEPTADS.

This interesting tract is referred to in the Senchus Mor, and probably also in the verse quoted: "The dignity of the heptad—it follows the series." The treatise, as apparently extant when transcribed into the manuscripts, contains 65; but 17 more are added in whole or part, so that 82 are here printed. I have pointed out that about a dozen more are known from other sources; thus, it is quite possible that the schematizing tendencies of the brehons may have elaborated a "Hundred of Heptads" as a manual for reference. It can hardly be doubted that a work of this kind, in the hands or memory of a competent oral teacher, would be an effective medium for instruction in Brehon practice; though it must be admitted that the loss of continuity in oral teaching by trained brehons has led to no small confusion and misunderstanding.