Bretha Crólige
Bretha Crólige (Old Irish for "Judgements of Blood-lying") is an early Irish legal tract on the law of illegal injury and the institution of "sick-maintenance".
It is the 33rd text in the Senchas Már. It directly precedes Bretha Déin Chécht, a sister-tract on illegal injury.
Manuscripts
[edit]A single manuscript preserves Bretha Crólige (National Library of Ireland MS G 11), alongside three other texts from the final third of the Senchas Már.[1]: 90, 303 D. A. Binchy produced an edition of this copy, with translation and commentary, in 1938.[2]: 18 Binchy calls this manuscript a "remarkably good copy".[3]: 1 Other manuscripts contain fragments of the text or commentaries on it.[3]: 2
On the basis of some internal inconsistencies, Rudolf Thurneysen suggested the existing text of Bretha Crólige was the composite of two separate texts. Binchy rejected this hypothesis.[3]: 69
Content
[edit]Bretha Crólige deals with the law of illegal injury and the institution of "sick-maintenance" in early Irish law. After a party has been illegally injured, they are given nine days to recover. After these nine days, if the injured has recovered but has a lasting disability, the culprit pays for the disability; if the injured will not recover, the culprit pays a large fine called the crólige báis ("blood-lying of death"); if the injured will recover but has not yet, the culprit is forced to pay "sick-maintenance" (othrus). In "sick-maintenance" injured is taken to a neutral party and nursed back to health, with all expenses paid by the culprit.[4]: 129–130, 271 For any injury or disability, the size of the fine taken from the culprit depended on the status of the injured.[4]: 8
Bretha Crólige is the 33rd text of the collection of legal texts called the Senchas Már, placed in the final third of that collection.[1]: 304 The Senchas Már is generally dated between the late 7th and early 8th century CE.[5]: 33 The Senchas Már has two tracts dedicated to sick-maintenance: one is Bretha Crólige; the other is Slicht Othrusa ("The Course of Sick-Maintenance"), a text of only 35 words which directly precedes Bretha Crólige in the Senchas Már.[6]: 167 [1]: 303 A sister-tract on illegal injury Bretha Déin Chécht directly follows it.[1]: 303 [2]: 18
The problem of the date at which sick-maintenance ceased to be applied is an open question. The early 8th-century text Críth Gablach tells us that sick-maintenance had ceased to be taken; yet the contemporary Bretha Crólige describes this law as if it were a live institution.[6]: 163–165 As Fergus Kelly puts it, this discrepancy may "betray a difference of date, [...] reflect differences in local custom, or merely [reflect] a conflict of opinion between law-schools".[4]: 2
Binchy suggested that sick-maintenance was a feature of Indo-European law on the basis of comparison with Indian and Germanic laws. His suggestion was elaborated by Calvert Watkins through comparisons with the Hittite laws.[7] Lisi Oliver has argued that the institution of sick-maintenance in Anglo-Saxon law was borrowed from Irish law (rather than the two institutions sharing a common Indo-European heritage).[8]: 319
Beyond their value as a source for early Irish law, Bretha Crólige and Bretha Déin Chécht reveal much about the extent of medical knowledge and the kinds of treatment available in the period.[9]: 234 The other available medical manuscripts reproduce medicine of a much later date (mostly borrowed from Arabic sources).[10]: 5
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Breatnach, Liam (2005). A Companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici. Early Irish Law Series. Vol. 5. Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies.
- ^ a b Charles-Edwards, T. M. (1999). The Early Mediaeval Gaelic Lawyer (PDF). E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures. Vol. 4. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c Binchy, D. A. (1938). "Bretha Crólige". Ériu. 12: 1–77. JSTOR 30008071.
- ^ a b c Kelly, Fergus (1988). A Guide to Early Irish Law. Early Irish Law Series. Vol. 3. Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies.
- ^ Eska, Charlene M. (2022). Lost and Found in Early Irish Law: Aidbred, Heptad 64, and Muirbretha. Medieval Law and its Practice. Vol. 36. Leiden / Boston: Brill.
- ^ a b Murray, Kevin (2002). "Some Thoughts on the Operation of Native Law in Medieval Ireland". Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium. 22: 156–171. JSTOR 40285167.
- ^ Watkins, Calvert (1976). "Sick-Maintenance in Indo-European". Ériu. 27: 21–25. JSTOR 30007666.
- ^ Oliver, Lisi (2008). "Sick-Maintenance in Anglo-Saxon Law". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 107 (3): 303–26. JSTOR 20722636.
- ^ Kelly, Fergus (2002). "Texts and transmissions: the law-texts". In Chatháin, Próinséas Ní; Richter, Michael (eds.). Ireland and Europe in the early Middle Ages: texts and transmissions. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 230–242.
- ^ Binchy, D. A. (1966). "Bretha Déin Chécht". Ériu. 20: 1–66. JSTOR 30008048.
Further reading
[edit]- Binchy, D. A. (1978). Corpus Iuris Hibernici (6 vols.). Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies. 2286.24—2305 (diplomatic edition of the manuscript for Bretha Crólige).
- Binchy, D. A. (1938). "Bretha Crólige". Ériu. 12: 1–77. (edition of the Bretha Crólige with English translation and commentary).
- McLeod, Neil (2009). "Crólige Mbáis". Ériu. 59: 25–36.