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The idea of the three orders of society and social stratification in early medieval Ireland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
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The law tracts of early medieval Ireland are one of the most remarkable bodies of literature surviving from the middle ages. These tracts, written in Old Irish, date from the late seventh and eighth centuries and thus may be held to reflect something of Irish society not so very long after the introduction of Christianity. Their physical size and linguistic complexity alone have proved daunting, but once these difficulties have been surmounted the scholar is given a picture of society, albeit somewhat fragmentary in places, that suggests an astonishing degree of legal sophistication. One area in which this sophistication is most apparent is in the layers of grades of men for which the law tracts provide. If we are to believe the tracts, Ireland was an elaborately graded society. Even if we do not believe them, it is clear that those interested in law were also interested in the creation of systems of gradation around which to construct their legislation. Not surprisingly, given the importance of the subject, attempts have been made to make sense of social stratification in Ireland using the evidence provided by the law tracts. One of the more recent is by Neil McLeod. In a paper published in Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie in 1986–7 McLeod analysed the various ways in which the early Irish law tracts seem to depict social ranking. There has been been much dispute both over how accurately the law tracts portray social stratification in Ireland and how accurate a picture was intended, and McLeod takes issue with the line advanced by Binchy in his 1943 Rhŷs Lecture that the numerous grades found in the laws were of little or no practical significance and, implicit in his argument, were not really intended to be.
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References
1 The impact of Christianity on the content of the law tracts is a matter of debate. The traditional position is that the law tracts embodied pre-Christian tradition: see, for example, Néill, Eoin Mac, Early Irish laws and institutions (Dublin, 1935)Google Scholar; Binchy, D.A., ’Secular institutions’ in Dillon, Myles (ed.), Early Irish society (Dublin, 1954), pp 52–65.Google Scholar This view has been challenged strongly in the last few years, with some scholars arguing for a strong input from writers well-versed in the practices and beliefs of Christianity: see especially Corráin, Donnchadh Ó, Breatnach, Liam and Breen, Aidan, ‘The laws of the Irish’ in Peritia, iii 1984), pp 382–438 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Binchy, D.A., ‘The linguistic and historical value of the Irish law tracts’ in Brit. Acad. Proc, xxix 1943), pp 195–228 Google Scholar, esp. pp 224–5.
3 McLeod, Neil, ’Interpreting early Irish law: status and currency,’ pt 1, in Z.C.P., xli (1986), pp 46–65 Google Scholar; pt 2, xlii (1987), pp 41–115.
4 See Charles-Edwards, Thomas, ‘ Críth Gablach and the law of status’ in Peritia, v 1986), pp 53–73 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Georges Dumézil's ideas are presented in a number of important works; see especially his L’idéologie tripartie des indo-européens (Brussels, 1958)Google Scholar, and Mythe et épopée, i: L’idéologie des trois fonctions dans les épopées des peuples indo-européens (2nd ed., Paris, 1974)Google Scholar.
6 There is a problem in finding a suitable modern English word for the third order. The term ‘peasant’ or ‘commoner’ has implications in terms of status which the idea of the three orders did not automatically convey; the word ‘worker’ has twentieth-century connotations which render it undesirable for use in an early medieval context; and neither ‘farmer’ nor ‘labourer’ conveys the full extent of meaning in the term. Where I use the word ‘peasant’ or ‘labourer’ to denote a member of the third order, it should be understood that I simply mean ‘one who does manual labour on the land’.
7 Dubuisson, Daniel, ‘L’Irlande et la théorie médiévale des “trois ordres”’ in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, clxxxviii 1975), pp 35–63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Although reservations were expressed by Duby, Georges, The three orders:feudal society imagined, trans. Goldhammer, Arthur (Chicago, 1980)Google Scholar, Dubuisson’s work has been influential; his article, if not the actual content thereof, has been cited in connexion with Alfred’s version of the three-orders idea by more than one contemporary medieval historian, for example Brooks, N.P., ‘Arms, status and warfare in Late-Saxon England’ in Hill, David (ed.), Ethelred the Unready (British Archaeological Reports, British Series lix, Oxford, 1978), p. 81 n. 2Google Scholar; Keynes, Simon and Lapidge, Michael (eds), Alfred the Great (Harmondsworth, 1983), p. 298 n. 6.Google Scholar
9 Although Dumézil identifies the tripartite scheme in early Roman paganism, there were numerous influences during Rome’s development as an imperial power which weakened its strength. This is recognised in the title Dumézil gave to his study of this theme: La religion romaine archaïque (Paris, 1966).
10 I wished for tools and resources for the task that I was commanded to accomplish, which was that I should virtuously and worthily guide and direct the authority which was entrusted to me. You know, of course, that no one can make known any skill, none direct and guide any enterprise, without tools and resources; a man cannot work on any enterprise without resources. In the case of the king, the resources and tools with which to rule are that he have his land fully manned; he must have praying men, fighting men and working men. You know also that without these tools no king may make his ability known. Another aspect of his resources is that he must have the means of support for his tools, the three classes of men.’ ( Sedgefield, W.J. (ed.), King Alfred’s Old English version of Boethius’ ‘De consolatione philosophiae’ (Oxford, 1889)Google Scholar; translation from Keynes, & Lapidge, (eds), Alfred the Great, p. 132)Google Scholar
11 Dubuisson, ‘L’Irlande et la théorie médiévale des “trois ordres” ‘, pp 39–40.
12 Van Hamel, A.G., Compert Con Culainn and other stories (Dublin, 1933), pp 1–2.Google Scholar
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14 In most versions of this part of Compert Con Culainn it is clear enough that Sencha lists his standing as a fighter among his attributes with the words ‘am athlom athargaib’ (Lebor na Hűidre, ed. Best, R.I. and Bergin, Osborn (Dublin, 1929), p. 322 Google Scholar; The Táin, trans. Kinsella, Thomas (Oxford, 1970), pp 23–5)Google Scholar. Dubuisson, however, uses one particular version of the passage (translated from a version edited by Kuno Meyer by Guyonvarc’h, C.J., ‘La conception de Cúchulainn’ in Ogam, xvii (1965), p. 379 Google Scholar) in which Sencha’s claim is either absent (in his view) or badly corrupted (in mine).
15 The law tracts Críth Gablach and Uraicecht Becc are translated by Néill, Eoin Mac, ‘Ancient Irish law: the law of status or franchise’ in R.I.A. Proc., xxxvi (1923), sect. C, pp 265–316.Google Scholar
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18 Plummer, Charles (ed.), Bethada náem nĖrenn (2 vols, Oxford, 1922), i, 23–43; ii. pp 22–43Google Scholar.
19 Mulchrone, Kathleen (ed.), Bethu Phátraic: the Tripartite Life of Patrick, i: Text and sources (Dublin, 1939), p. 93.Google Scholar
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21 Ibid., p. 53.
22 An extraordinary aspect of Dubuisson’s argument at this point runs as follows: admitting that the Life of St Berach survives only in a late (seventeenth-century) manuscript, Dubuisson argues that the fact that it contains this attestation of the three orders is an evidence that it is actually an early work! Even if the Life did show a concept of the three orders, this is no evidence of its antiquity; it could be used as evidence to show the intervention of later redactors, familiar with the idea of the three orders, who interpreted certain parts of the Life in terms of a social theory with which they were familiar.
23 The dating of the Tripartite Life is uncertain. However, Jackson, Kenneth H., ‘The date of the Tripartite Life of St Patrick ’ in Z.C.P., xli (1986), pp 5–45 Google Scholar, argues that the body of the work is a superficial eleventh-century redrafting of a tenth-century text. That the incident in the Life referred to by Dubuisson is early is suggested by the Notulae in the Book of Armagh, which makes reference to characters involved ( Bieler, Ludwig (ed.), The Patrician texts in the Book of Armagh (Scriptores Latini Hiberniae x, Dublin, 1979), p. 180 n. 9).Google Scholar
24 Dubuisson translates this as ‘L’amour d’un homme sera sur eux’, and the word grád (masculine u-stem) could indeed mean ‘love’ in this context. However, grád (neuter o-stem) can also mean ‘rank’ or ‘grade’, so it is possible that a deliberate ambiguity has been introduced, perhaps as a pun.
25 Dubuisson, ‘L’Irlande et la théorie médiévale des “trois ordres”’, p. 55.
26 The Old Irish terminology used in the Life—gaiscedaig, láech—does indeed refer to warriors, not nobles: see Sharpe, Richard, ‘Hiberno-Latin laicus, Irish láech and the devil’s men’ in Ériu, xxx (1971), pp 75–92.Google Scholar
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30 The separate assemblies and groups, as it were, of the people are called tribes, and they are thus named because, in the beginning, Romulus made a triple division of the Romans: senators, soldiers and the common people. These tribes, now increased in number, still keep the original name.’ ( Migne, J.P. (ed.), Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, lxxxii (Paris, 1878), col. 349)Google Scholar
31 Herren, Michael, ‘On the earliest Irish acquaintance with Isidore of Seville’ in James, Edward (ed.), Visigothic Spain: new approaches (Oxford, 1980), pp 243–50.Google Scholar Miller, Julian, ‘The oldest Irish manuscripts and their late antique background’ in Chatham, Próinséas Ní and Richter, Michael (eds), Irland und Europa: die Kirche im Frühmittelalter (Stuttgart, 1984), pp 311–27 Google Scholar, dates the earliest surviving Irish fragment of the Etymologiae to after 650, but there are strong suggestions that the work reached Ireland before then. Isidore died in 633 with the work incomplete; it was finished posthumously in 636.
32 The impressive range of scholarship is itself a testimony to the importance of Isidore of Seville to Irish learning. The literature in English includes Maille, Tomás Ó, ‘The authorship of the Culmen’ in Ériu, ix 1921), pp 71–6 Google Scholar; Hillgarth, J.N., ‘The East, Visigothic Spain and the Irish’ in Studia Patristica, iv 1961), pp 442–56 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Visigothic Spain and Early Christian Ireland’ in R.I.A. Proc, lxii (1962), sect. C, pp 167–94; idem,’ Ireland and Spain in the seventh century’ in Peritia, iii (1984), pp 1–16; Herren,’ Earliest Irish acquaintance’.
33 Dubuisson, ‘L’Irlande et la théorie médiévale des “trois ordres” ‘, p. 44.
34 And the Etymologiae is the most used work of Isidore, found in the writings of at least ten authors in a wide variety of texts (Hillgarth, ‘Ireland and Spain’, p. 8).The likelihood of their being familiar to writers of the law tracts is considered by Charles-Edwards, Thomas, ‘The Corpus iuris Hibernica ’ in Studia Hib., xx (1980), pp 147, 161–2.Google Scholar
35 Wasserschleben, Hermann (ed.), Die irische Kanonensammlung (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1885), p. 171 n. cc.Google Scholar
36 Hughes, Kathleen, ‘Evidence for contacts between the churches of the Irish and English from the synod of Whitby to the Viking age’ in Clemoes, Peter and Hughes, Kathleen (eds), England before the conquest: studies in primary sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock (Cambridge, 1971), pp 57, 64–5.Google Scholar
37 Charles-Edwards, , ‘Críth Gablach & the law of status’, p. 54.Google Scholar
38 Kelly, Early Irish law, p. 9. The word ‘tied’ might be a better understanding of dóer than ‘unfree’, with its connotation of base servitude.
39 This is by no means an absurd idea, for we know that in early Ireland the conspicuous display of learning could take extreme forms—Hisperic literature for example.
40 How perceptive was Eoin Mac Néill in his introduction to the translation of Crith Gablach and Uraicecht Becc when he stated: ‘Honourprice was the valuation of the freeman’s status, not a valuation for life or for a year, but a valuation of the power and effect of his status at any given time’ (‘Ancient Irish law’, p. 270).
41 See Cana, Mac, ‘Regnum & sacerdotium’, pp 446-51Google Scholar.
42 Thus when Charles-Edwards, , ‘Críth Gablach & the law of status’, p. 58 Google Scholar, writes of a notion of ‘functional status’ existing alongside and as well as ‘incremental status’, I believe he is introducing a false division.
43 See Powell, T.E., ‘Clerical involvement in warfare in pre-Gregorian England and Ireland’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1989 Google Scholar) for a full discussion of this. I would note here, however, that the abbots are very often fulfilling these secular functions not for a higher secular authority (the king) but on behalf of their own monasteries.
44 Davies, Wendy, ‘Clerics as rulers: some implications of the terminology of ecclesiastical authority in early medieval Ireland’ in Brooks, N.P. (ed.), Latin and the vernacular languages in early medieval Ireland (Leicester, 1982), pp 81–97.Google Scholar
45 Dubuisson, ‘L’Irlande et la théorie médiévale des “trois ordres”’, pp 61–3.
46 Some of the themes outlined here and below are explored in greater depth in Powell, T.E., ‘The “three orders” of society in Anglo-Saxon England’ in Anglo-Saxon England, xxiii 1994), pp 103–32 Google Scholar.
47 I have argued elsewhere (see note 46) that Ælfric of Eynsham, writing a century later than Alfred, used the three-orders idea for a purpose different to Alfred, essentially to emphasise to the English clergy that they were not to fight. Ireland did have fighting clerics, but existing canonical prohibitions seemed to have sufficed. With a considerably less powerful ideology of kingship, the principal motivation behind the involvement of Irish clerics in war was not one that could be effectively addressed by reference to the three-orders idea. See Powell, “Clerical involvement in warfare’ for further discussion of this.
48 This is an extended and considerably revised version of a section of Powell, T.E., ‘Clerical involvement in warfare in pre-Gregorian England and Ireland’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham 1989)Google Scholar. Earlier drafts of some of the arguments presented here have benefited from comments of Nicholas Brooks, Angus Buchanan, Peter Harper, Janet Nelson and Chris Wickham, and my thanks also go to Avril Powell. Needless to say, they are not in any way responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation.