Page 33 - Demo

Chapter One 33
As their periods of military service normally lasted only a short time, and as no indi- vidual could be called up during seed-time, harvest, or winter, wars were not as a rule very serious afairs, and usually brief in duration.
One of the more important duties of the King and sub-King was to act as judge in the law court of the kingdom or tuath. Much the same sort of cases came up for judgement in those ancient courts as in our law courts of today-theft, trespass, assault, destruction of property, and so on. The ruler presided over the court, listened to the evidence on both sides, and gave the verdict, but, that said, he was always accompanied by a learned Brehon who sat near him and advised him on the verdict he ought to give. The ruler was expected to have what we call a “working knowledge” of the laws, but of course he could not be ex- pected to have the highly-specialised skill of a professional Brehon, one who had spent many years at a special school, making an intensive study of the law.
The usual penalty for a misdemeanor was a ine, varying according to the seriousness of the ofence and the social rank of the ofender. More serious crimes were punished by coniscation of land (and consequently, loss of social rank, which was considered a terrible disgrace), exile, and lastly, death.
Farming was the chief occupation of the early Celts, as it is of their descendants to this day. Nearly everyone lived on the land, either as an owner or a tenant, and had his own dwelling, large or small as the case might be, and his farm buildings, enclosed within a cir- cular earthen wall or rampart and stockade: the fairy forts of the modern countryside. The peasant’s abode was a tiny one -roomed or two-roomed hut, with thatched roof, clay walls and loor, and probably no windows, or at best, a hole in the wall. On the other hand, the king’s house, according to the Brehon Laws, should have a double rampart-the outer ring being built by the forced labour of the king’s lower-grade vassals. The rich landowners lived in ine lofty houses built mostly of wood, comfortably, and even luxuriously, and furnished with furniture of oak and yew, with fur rugs and skins on the loors. At night the rooms were lit by great candles of wax or tallow, and on occasion, by hanging lamps, in which burned wicks loating in melted fat.
Now, while all freemen were landowners, the Brehons catalogued elaborate subdivisions of each class according to property qualiications. For example, the bóaire or higher class of freeman had to have land worth thrice seven cumals, a cumal was a female slave, that is to say that he had to have an amount equaling the value of 63 milch-cows.
The Celts had a simple agrarian economy and did not use coined money. The basic unit