Keywords
Fourteenth Century Ireland
Sixteenth Century Ireland
Medieval Irish Lawyers
Manuscript Contexts
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper seeks to examine the contexts in which the Old Irish law tracts were transmitted in the period following the church reforms and Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century, focusing primarily on the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Within these time frames two major themes will be appraised: 1) the English attitudes towards the practice of Irish law, and 2) the roles of the medieval lawyers and/or their patrons in political life. The central aim of this paper is twofold; firstly to shed light on the historical and social contexts in which the legal materials were later transmitted, and secondly, based on this, to posit some theories as to the possible incentives behind the transmission of the law tracts in these periods.
References
Abbot, Thomas K. and Edward J. Gwynn. 1921. Catalogue of the Irish Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. Dublin and London: Hodges, Figgis & Co. and Longmans, Green, & Co.
Binchy, Daniel A. 1976. “Irish history and Irish law: II”, Studia Hibernica 16: 7-45.
Blake, Martin J. 1909. “Two Irish brehon scripts: with notes on the MacEgan family”, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 6: 1-8.
Breatnach, Liam. 1996. “On the glossing of the early Irish law-texts, fragmentary texts, and some aspects of the laws relating to dogs”, in: Anders Ahlqvist, (et al.,eds.), Celtica Helsingiensia. Proceedings from a Symposium on Celtic Studies, Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 107. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica: 11-20.
Breatnach. Liam. 2016. “The glossing of the early Irish law tracts”, in: Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds.), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg. Amsterdam: John Benjamins: 113-132.
Carney, James. 1987. “Literature in Irish, 1169-1534”, in: Art Cosgrove (ed.). A New History of Ireland, vol 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 688-707.
CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts, Online: University College Cork. URL: <http://www.ucc.ie/celt>.
Charles-Edwards, Thomas. 2014. “The manuscript transmission of Bretha comaithchesa”, in: Elizabeth Boyle, and Deborah Hayden (eds.), Authorities and adaptations: the reworking and transmission of textual sources in medieval Ireland. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies: 95-120.
Costello, Thomas B. 1940. “The ancient law school of Park”, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 19: 89-100.
Doolan, Riona. 2018. “Marginalia, incorporated commentaries or reference commentaries: the terminology of later legal sources”, in: Anders Ahlqvist, and Pamela O’Neill (eds.), Fír fesso: a festschrift for Neil McLeod. Sydney: University of Sydney: 87-96.
Donahue, Annie. 2004/2005. “The Acallam na Senórach: a medieval instruction manual”, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 24/25: 206-215.
Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth. 2008. “Antiquarian scholarship and the archaeology of Cahermacnaghten, Burren, Co. Clare”, The Other Clare 32: 58-66.
Freeman, A. Martin (ed.). 1944. [Reprint 1971]. Annála Connacht, The Annals of Connacht. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
Hamilton, Hans Claude (ed.). 1860. Calendar of State Papers Relating to Ireland 1509-1573. London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts.
Hamilton, Hans Claude (ed.). 1877. Calendar of State Papers Relating to Ireland 1586-1588, July. London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts.
Hamilton, Hans Claude (ed.). 1885. Calendar of State Papers Relating to Ireland 1588, August-1592, September. London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts.
Hamilton, Hans Claude (ed.). 1890. Calendar of State Papers Relating to Ireland 1592, October-1596, June London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts.
Hardiman, James (ed.). 1843. “A Statute of the Fortieth Year of King Edward III., enacted in a parliament held in Kilkenny, A.D. 1367, before Lionel Duke of Clarence, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland”, in: Tracts Relating to Ireland, vol 2. Dublin: The University Press.
Henley, Georgia. 2015. “The intersection of ethnicity and material culture: manuscripts, book shrines and political realities in late medieval Gaelic Ireland”, Studia Celtica Fennica: Suomen keltologisen seuran vuosikirja 12: 21-34.
Hennessy, William M.(ed.). 1871. The Annals of Loch Cé, 2 vols. London: Longman.
Hennessy, William M., and B. MacCarthy (eds.). 1887-1901. Annals of Ulster. 4 vols. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co.
Hore, Herbert F. 1857. “Irish brehons and their laws”, The Ulster Journal of Archaeology 5: 36-54.
Johnston, Elva. 2013. Literacy and Identity in Early Medieval Ireland. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Kelly, Fergus. 2001. “Giolla na Naomh Mac Aodhagáin: a thirteenth-century legal innovator”, in: Desmond S. Greer and Norma M. Dawson (eds), Mysteries and Solutions in Irish Legal History. Dublin: Four Courts Press: 1-14.
Kelly, Fergus. 2002. “Texts and transmissions: the law-texts”, in: Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter (eds.), Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Transmissions. Dublin: Four Courts Press: 230-42.
Kelly, Fergus. 1988 [Reprint 2009]. A Guide to Early Irish Law. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
Mac Cana, Proinsias. 1974. “The rise of the later schools of Filidheacht”, Ériu 25: 126-146
MacNamara, George E. 1912. “The O’Davorens of Cahermacnaughten, Burren, Co. Clare, Part 1 (Historical)”, Journal of the North Munster Archaeological Society 2, no. 2: 63-93.
MacNamara, George E. 1912. “The O’Davorens of Cahermacnaughten, Burren, Co. Clare, Part 2 (Genealogical)”, Journal of the North Munster Archaeological Society 2, no. 3: 149-64.
Mac Niocaill, Gearóid. 1973. “Aspects of Irish law in the thirteenth century”, in: G.A. Hayes-McCoy (ed.). Historical Studies X: Papers Read Before the Eleventh Irish Conference of Historians, 1973: 25-42.
McInerney, Luke. 2011. “A Mac Fhlannchadha fosterage document, c.1580”, The Irish Genealogist 13, no. 2: 93-128.
Ní Dhonnchadha, Máirín. 1989. “An address to a student of law”, in: Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Liam Breatnach and Kim McCone (eds.). Sages, Saints and Storytellers: Celtic Studies in Honour of Professor James Carney. Maynooth: An Sagart: 159-77.
Nicholls, Kenneth. 1987. “Gaelic society and economy in the high middle ages”, in: Art Cosgrove (ed.). A New History of Ireland, vol 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 397-438.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh. 1984a. “Irish vernacular law and the Old Testament”, in: Próinséas Ní Cháthain and Michael Richter (eds.). Irland und die Christenheit: Bibelstudien und Mission / Ireland and Christendom: the Bible and the Missions. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta: 284-307.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh. 1984b. “Irish law and canon law”, in: Próinséas Ní Cháthain and Michael Richter (eds.). Irland und Europa: die Kirche im Frühmittelalter / Ireland and Europe: the Early Church. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta: 157-66.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh. 1995. “Irish origin legends and genealogy: recurrent aetiologies”, in: Tore Nyberg et al (ed.) History and Heroic Tale: a Symposium. Odense: Odense University Press: 51-96
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh. 2011-12. “What happened Ireland’s medieval manuscripts?”, Peritia 22-23: 191-223.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, Liam Breatnach and Aidan Breen. 1984. “The laws of the Irish”, Peritia 3: 382-438.
Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí. 2017. Early Medieval Ireland: 400-1200, 2nd Edition. London and New York: Taylor & Francis.
O’Donovan, John. 1848-51. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, 7 vols. Dublin: Hodges & Smith.
Ó Macháin, Pádraig. 2012. “Two Nugent manuscripts: the Nugent Duanaire and Queen Elizabeth’s Primer”, Ríocht na Midhe: Records of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society 23: 121-142.
O’Neill, Timothy. 1984 [Reprint 2014]. The Irish Hand: Scribes and Their Manuscripts from the Earliest Times. Cork: Cork University Press.
O’Sullivan, William. 1999. “The Book of Domhnall Ó Duibhdábhoireann: provenance and codicology”, Celtica 23: 276-299.
Ó hUiginn., Ruairí. 2018. “The Book of Ballymote: scholars, sources and patrons”, in: Ruairí Ó hUiginn (ed.), Book of Ballymote: Codices Hibernenses Eximii 11. Royal Irish Academy: Dublin: 191-220.
Patterson, Nerys. 1986. “The O’Doran legal family and the sixteenth century recensions of the Pseudo-Historical Prologue to the Senchas Már”, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 6: 131-149.
Patterson, Nerys. 1989. “Brehon law in late medieval Ireland: ‘antiquarian and obsolete’ or ‘traditional and functional’?”, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 17: 43-63.
Patterson, Nerys 1991. “Gaelic law and the Tudor conquest of Ireland: the social background of the sixteenth-century recensions of the pseudo-historical prologue to the Senchas Már”, Irish Historical Studies 27, no. 107: 193-215.
Sheenhan, Máire Áine. 2016. Law, Poetry and Medicine: The Literate Professionals in Autonomous Gaelic Ireland, c. 1250 - c. 1630. Unpublished PhD Dissertation: University College Cork.
Simms, Katharine. 2001. “A lost tribe: the Clan Murtagh O’Conors”, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 53: 1-22.
Simms, Katharine. 2005. “Bardic schools, learned families”, in: Seán Duffy and Ailbe Mac Shamhráin and James Moynes (eds.). Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia. New York and London: Routledge: 35-7.
Somerset Fry, Peter and Fiona Somerset Fry. 1988. A History of Ireland. London and New York: Barnes and Noble Books.
Sweetman, Henry S., (ed.). 1875. Calendar of Documents, Relating to Ireland: 1171-1251. London: Longman & Co.
Sweetman, Henry S., (ed.). 1877. Calendar of Documents, Relating to Ireland: 1252-1284 London: Longman & Co.
Thurneysen. Rudolf. 1978. “Das keltische Recht”, translated by Dafydd Jenkins, in: Dafydd Jenkins, Celtic Law Papers. Brussels: Librairie Encyclopédique.
Williams. Mark. 2016. Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth. Princeton and Oxford: 128-94
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Maria Hallinan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.