Never miss an article on English Historical Fiction Authors. This week featured:
by Kristin Gleeson
by Maria Grace
Showing posts with label Kristin Gleeson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kristin Gleeson. Show all posts
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Editors' Weekly Round-up, January 15, 2017
by the EHFA Editors
Never miss an article on English Historical Fiction Authors. This week featured:
Never miss an article on English Historical Fiction Authors. This week featured:
Monday, January 9, 2017
Childhood in Medieval London
By Kristin Gleeson
The parents were right to be concerned with the many obstacles that faced a child before he reached adulthood. The specter of death hung over all children. There were high risks of infection from various diseases including the plague, the pox, sweating sickness, flux and various fevers, in addition to malnutrition. Any number of possible accidents could befall a child. He or she could get run down by a horse or fall into a hearth fire. A month-old girl, Joan, in Queenhithe, died after a sow entered the home and “mortally bit the right side” of the child’s head. It was disease, though, that caused the majority of childhood deaths in the Medieval period.
London had a large population of foreigners, especially French, Flemish, Italian and German, but still, the parishes were small and people in each tended to know and protect one another. In that light the London children were probably the best supervised of the whole of the country. The streets were crowded with adults going about their business or pleasure and would notice any child at risk or a child seriously misbehaving.
The first years of a child’s life were usually spent in a cradle, the limbs tightly swaddled in cloth. By their second or third years they would be walking, learning to talk and being toilet trained. At that time the parent would shown them the "jakes" streets and latrines of London, and in the wealthier families, the use of the chamber pot.
Contrary to some common understanding Medieval society did recognize childhood as something separate from adulthood. There were toys for children of varying quality, the more luxurious ones for the upper classes. Children’s clothes were sturdy and made to size and were not necessarily the adult clothes made smaller. One wax chandler had a little painted table and stool and silver beads and a crucifix for his child.
There were also many guides to raising children, especially in the later Medieval period, all of them filled with plenty of sage advice on best practices for the upper classes, but also for those in trade and other less well off people. Generally, a mother guided the daughters to adulthood while the fathers taught their sons. For the most part, training manuals were focused on the male children, but regardless of which gender it was directed towards, the common theme on child rearing present in all the books was the well known concept, “spare the rod, spoil the child.” A manual written for those who would earn a living cautioned against idleness as well. “You must eat what you get with your hands” it said, while another stated, “a man’s arms are for working as a bird’s wings are for flying.”
A child’s day (if the manuals are to be believed) usually began by rising early and then attending prayers or some form of devotions, followed by sponging or brushing the day’s clothing, cleaning shoes, combing hair and washing the hands and face and then cleaning the teeth by washing them with an ivory or wooden stick. The manual advised, too, that a child should dress according to his rank in a neat manner with a napkin “for cleaning the nose of all filthiness.”
After making his bed and a breakfast of meat and drink of small beer or milk, the boys would go off to school, or if school wasn’t an option, they might play in the streets. Schooling for boys was seen as very important in the late 14th and 15th centuries as the many guilds increasingly required functional literacy from anyone enrolling for an apprenticeship. .Daughters usually stayed at home with their mothers who were responsible for all aspects of their daughters’ education.
Elementary schooling could be obtained from private individuals, a small establishment with just a few pupils, or even a school set up by the church. Some children attended at the expense of the parish. Some girls of the better classes attended the grammar schools for 4 or 5 years where they learned English, accounting, perhaps a little French and Latin. Generally, the male pupils were taught Latin, literacy in English and training in keeping accounts, all tasks needed for a successful working life. To guide the teaching many schools used primers, and each student would pack their satchel with books, pen, parchment or a wax tablet and stylus. Along with Latin and accounts they were taught respect towards their parents and to learn society’s etiquette to maintain their social positions, or to improve it if possible. The general outlook was to help the child achieve a sense of stability and level-headedness that would garner good will among the neighbours.
“If you be well at ease, and sit warm among your neighbours, do not get new-fangled ideas, or be hasty to change or flit; for if ye do, ye lack wit and are unstable, and men will speak of it and say: ‘This fool can bide nowhere!’”
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| From: Science & Literature in Middle Ages |
After a morning of school, at midday, the youths would break from school, games, or whatever they were doing, and go home for the main meal. City taverns had numerous places to buy food so many Londoners would buy their beer and meat there and take it home for the meal. If not a meat pie, the food would often be served up in 4 day old bread carved into a trencher that acted as a plate or bowl. Diners ate in pairs sharing the beer or wine cup.
In the afternoon the boys returned to their games or schools and the girls to needlework or household chores. The evening meal was light and usually followed by leisure activities. Leisure activities for children took many forms. They might watch a cock fight or play ball in team with other scholars in London fields, play tag, run a race or play hoops. Older boys might go in for bear baiting, throwing javelins, sword practice, wrestling or knucklebones, or even go to the tavern. Occasionally boys would act as jockeys in horse races.
By the time children reached their teens it was time for the next stage of their lives. For many it meant apprenticeship or service. In the early Medieval period the minimum age for apprenticeship was thirteen, but by the end of the 15th century it rose to sixteen years of age. Entry into university or legal training rose to the late teens by the end of the 14th century. The age to enter service could be as young as seven, but older children were preferred because they were more useful and generally more responsible. London provided many opportunities for temptation, something clearly evident from the terms of the various apprentice contracts. The apprentice contracts also tried to ensure that the teens behaved themselves by requiring them to refrain from late nights, gaming, visits to the theatre and taverns and consorting with prostitutes.
The relationship between apprentices and masters was very complex. The living and training arrangements could often create misunderstandings. A master could be tempted to abuse his apprentice in matters of discipline because he held the balance of power. The apprentices ultimately could look forward to the day when they would be householders, hold a mastership and be guildsmen. Servants, in contrast, had no such potential achievements. Though they might live among those they served and have kind masters, their pay was much less.
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| Wheel of 10 Ages of Man, Psalter of Robert de Lisle |
In some ways the childhood of Medieval times differed little from today’s childhood. They were instructed by their parents, played games and got into trouble, and above all the parents hoped to instruct them to take their place in society. And like today, there were varying degrees of success.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Originally from Philadelphia, Kristin Gleeson lives in Ireland, in the West Cork Gaeltacht, where she plays harp and runs a book club for the village library. She holds a Masters in Library Science and a Ph.D. in history, and for a time was an administrator of a national archives, library and museum in America. She has also worked as a public librarian in America and now works at a library in Ireland.You can read more about her books on her website.
Kristin Gleeson’s novel, The Imp of Eye features a thirteen year old orphan boy in the streets of London in 1440.
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Editors' Weekly Round-Up, December 11, 2016
by the EHFA Editors
Enjoy this week's round-up of great posts!
Enjoy this week's round-up of great posts!
by Deborah Swift
by Helen Hollick
by Kristin Gleeson
by April Munday
by Mark Patton
by Maria Grace
Giveaway
Scars From The Past by Derek Birks
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
A Dish Fit for a King: Feasts in Medieval England
By Kristin Gleeson
Those food critics who rated British food poorly over the years after the war wouldn’t have recognized the elaborate fare of a Medieval feast. No lumpy gravy, overcooked roast beef or soggy Yorkshire in sight.
The Medieval feast in England was truly something to behold as the chroniclers of the time tell us. Generally it was the monarchs, princes and high ranking prelates who held the feasts on suitable occasions, like religious festivals of Christmas and Easter, or secular occasions, like the end of sheep shearing, or harvests, and of course weddings and coronations.
The purpose of the feast, besides marking the occasion, was to demonstrate the host’s importance and power and for the guests to reinforce the hierarchy by their presence and where they sat. In the case of large, important feasts, a lot of planning was necessary. On the occasion of the marriage of Margaret, daughter of Henry III to Alexander in December 1251 the planning started before the summer. By the end of July beasts were being bought in York and other fairs, though they weren’t slaughtered until just before the wedding. At the same time orders were given to catch, slaughter and salt 300 deer. By November 1000 more deer were ordered. In October the sheriffs of the northern counties were ordered to supply 7000 hens, 170 boars, and various numbers of game birds, rabbits, hares and pigs. In November 68,500 loaves of bread were added to the order. By December the fish order was placed and included 60,000 herring, 1000 greenfish (salted cod?), 10,000 haddock and 500 conger eels. Added to that was the 25,000 gallons of wine ordered in early August and the rice, almonds and sugar at the end of November. Arrangements were also made for the collection of large amounts of wood in various forests.
The dishes created were complicated to say the least. Colour was an important component that added to the complication, for the cook’s ambition was to disguise nature while conforming to the Medieval notions of the four humours that comprised a human. Each food was categorised for its humoral qualities and had to be brought into balance by the cooking method employed. This explains why, for example, beef (moist) was roasted (dry) and why fish (cool and moist) was generally fried. The endless chopping, grinding, sieving, straining and filtering were all designed to correct any humoral imbalances as well.
Not unexpectedly versions of a dish changed over the years. In the case of “Mawmenny” which dates from Anglo-Norman times, the dish was originally ground beef, pork or mutton boiled in wine, served in a wine-based sauce which was thickened with capon meat and almonds. The sauce was seasoned with cloves and sugar, fired almonds were added and the dish coloured with indigo or a red dye. About 60 years later it had changed into a dish made from beef broth (no wine) capons cooked in milk of almonds and the whole thickened with rice flour or breadcrumbs. It was seasoned with stronger spices and coloured yellow with saffron. After another 50 years the wine had returned along with a lot more sugar, the beef had vanished, but the capon remained. There were more spices, the almonds replaced by pine nuts and dates the colour was a reddish orange. What remained constant was sufficient complication, a vibrant colour and high cost.
For the most part each feast consisted of two, three, four and occasionally more courses consisting of many dishes. The more eminent the occasion the more dishes per course. At the coronation of Richard III in 1483 there were three courses of 15, 16 and 17 dishes. The first course consisted of five meat dishes, five fowl dishes, one fish dish and four indeterminate. The second included four meat dishes, probably two fish dishes, six fowl dishes and three indeterminate dishes. The third course consisted of three meat, two fish, five fowl, two fruit and four indeterminate dishes. Only those at the very top table were given the choice of all the dishes, though.
Several of the dishes were typical of the period. The soup, for example, was partly “frumentie”, which was boiled, hulled wheat and milk of almonds, something like a porridge, to which was added a meat, in this case venison and saffron and other spices. With this was served a broth. A common broth contained rabbit, almond milk and spices such as ginger, cloves, nutmeg and galingale. Sometimes sugar or onions, cloves and raisins were added. Another of the exotic dishes was “blaundsorr” which was a pottage based on almond milk, thickened with rice and containing ground capon to form something of a meaty blancmange. Most records of feasts in the 13th and 14th centuries show they were like that of Richard III. They included things like roasts, rabbit in gravy covered in sugar, mawmenny and fritters. Earlier, in the 12th century, besides the fare already listed, were dishes that included a roast crane and peacock with pepper sauce.
Vegetables are rarely mentioned, but on occasion do appear, like in, for example, the special dish of peas and porpoise. Such dishes as “rapes” (turnips) or parsnips in pottage which also included onions, saffron and spices were made as well as “gourds” in pottage with onions, egg and pork and cabbage with onions, leeks and spices in pottage. Beans, frequently ground, were also eaten in various ways, as well as radishes and carrots which were mainstays in Medieval gardens. Salads were eaten at times, too. One recipe contained a wide range of herbs and vegetables including cress spring onions, onions and also purslane.
At the end of each course a “sotelty” (subtlety) was often presented which was a table decoration. Sometimes it was an ornament made of sugar or “marchpane” (marzipan) that was eaten, though they weren’t always edible. The object was to impress the guests with the cook’s skill and the cleverness of the host who employed him. The subject of the creation could be the nature of the occasion. For example, at the coronation feast of Katherine, Henry V’s wife, they presented a pelican on its nest (an emblem of piety) and St Katherine (patroness of learning) disputing the heathen clerks, an image of St Katherine with a wheel in her hand (she was martyred on a wheel) and a heraldic tiger looking at a mirror, with a man riding away carrying a tiger’s whelp and throwing down mirrors behind him (an illusion to the marriage).
Feasts weren’t only comprised of food. Entertainment, sometimes on a grand scale, took place between courses. Trumpets played before each of the courses as well as to signal the beginning and end of the feast, and music was usually played during the meal. Minstrels, several at a time, would be present on special occasions. Singers were popular too. They sang carols as well as “chansons de geste” (tales of romance and chivalry). Acrobats, tumblers, jugglers, conjurors, animal trainers and dancers were all part of the revelry as was the fool. There were also professional raconteurs accompanying themselves on the harp who retold romance tales.
“Disguising” was another form of entertainment and involved a group of strangely and richly clad people entering the hall and performing a dance or song before leaving as mysterious as they had come. It’s possible that kings took part in such displays, as they certainly did later. Mummers provided similar entertainment. Short plays were sometimes performed as well.
Other spectacles were presented to give flare to a feast. Pies burst open to reveal jugglers or jesters, and challenges were issued. It might also be the occasion to swear important oaths- like to fight the infidel, or a specific foe.
In the most elaborate settings a pageant might be enacted, usually of a historical nature, using elaborate moving structures. Cities, ships and mountains might be represented. Things didn’t always go to plan, though. On one occasion in 1389 a tower on wheels representing Troy accompanied by another representing an assault tower manned by Greeks and a model ship manned by 100 soldiers were pushed into the hall for a mock battle. There were so many people in the hall pressing in that a table containing a large number of people overturned. A door near the queen was opened to allow fresh air and all the tables had to be cleared to make room for everyone. The king and queen left in haste.
The feast at the marriage of Katherine of Aragon to Prince Arthur was more successful, with various ceremonies going on for several days. Westminster Hall was hung with rich tapestries of Arras and contained a cupboard of seven shelves filled with rich plate of gold and gilt. There were three pageants displayed on some of the first pageant cars seen in England. There was a castle drawn into the hall on heraldic beasts and a ship on wheels. Speeches were made from all of these and dancers descended from the last. After the pageant was completed there was dancing. Ten year old Prince Henry suddenly threw off his long gown and danced with his twelve year old sister, Margaret, dressed in his jacket with a typical flare that would foreshadow things to come in the even more elaborate and lavish feasts of the Tudor and Stuart courts.
~~~~~~~~~~
Originally from Philadelphia, Kristin Gleeson lives in Ireland, in the West Cork Gaeltacht, where she plays harp, and runs a book club for the village library. She holds a Masters in Library Science and a Ph.D. in history, and for a time was an administrator of a national archives, library and museum in America. She has also worked as a public librarian in America and now works at a library in Ireland. You can read more about Kristin on her website. You can read about a Medieval feast in Kristin’s novel, The Imp of Eye set in 15th century London.
The Medieval feast in England was truly something to behold as the chroniclers of the time tell us. Generally it was the monarchs, princes and high ranking prelates who held the feasts on suitable occasions, like religious festivals of Christmas and Easter, or secular occasions, like the end of sheep shearing, or harvests, and of course weddings and coronations.
The purpose of the feast, besides marking the occasion, was to demonstrate the host’s importance and power and for the guests to reinforce the hierarchy by their presence and where they sat. In the case of large, important feasts, a lot of planning was necessary. On the occasion of the marriage of Margaret, daughter of Henry III to Alexander in December 1251 the planning started before the summer. By the end of July beasts were being bought in York and other fairs, though they weren’t slaughtered until just before the wedding. At the same time orders were given to catch, slaughter and salt 300 deer. By November 1000 more deer were ordered. In October the sheriffs of the northern counties were ordered to supply 7000 hens, 170 boars, and various numbers of game birds, rabbits, hares and pigs. In November 68,500 loaves of bread were added to the order. By December the fish order was placed and included 60,000 herring, 1000 greenfish (salted cod?), 10,000 haddock and 500 conger eels. Added to that was the 25,000 gallons of wine ordered in early August and the rice, almonds and sugar at the end of November. Arrangements were also made for the collection of large amounts of wood in various forests.
The dishes created were complicated to say the least. Colour was an important component that added to the complication, for the cook’s ambition was to disguise nature while conforming to the Medieval notions of the four humours that comprised a human. Each food was categorised for its humoral qualities and had to be brought into balance by the cooking method employed. This explains why, for example, beef (moist) was roasted (dry) and why fish (cool and moist) was generally fried. The endless chopping, grinding, sieving, straining and filtering were all designed to correct any humoral imbalances as well.
Not unexpectedly versions of a dish changed over the years. In the case of “Mawmenny” which dates from Anglo-Norman times, the dish was originally ground beef, pork or mutton boiled in wine, served in a wine-based sauce which was thickened with capon meat and almonds. The sauce was seasoned with cloves and sugar, fired almonds were added and the dish coloured with indigo or a red dye. About 60 years later it had changed into a dish made from beef broth (no wine) capons cooked in milk of almonds and the whole thickened with rice flour or breadcrumbs. It was seasoned with stronger spices and coloured yellow with saffron. After another 50 years the wine had returned along with a lot more sugar, the beef had vanished, but the capon remained. There were more spices, the almonds replaced by pine nuts and dates the colour was a reddish orange. What remained constant was sufficient complication, a vibrant colour and high cost.
For the most part each feast consisted of two, three, four and occasionally more courses consisting of many dishes. The more eminent the occasion the more dishes per course. At the coronation of Richard III in 1483 there were three courses of 15, 16 and 17 dishes. The first course consisted of five meat dishes, five fowl dishes, one fish dish and four indeterminate. The second included four meat dishes, probably two fish dishes, six fowl dishes and three indeterminate dishes. The third course consisted of three meat, two fish, five fowl, two fruit and four indeterminate dishes. Only those at the very top table were given the choice of all the dishes, though.
Several of the dishes were typical of the period. The soup, for example, was partly “frumentie”, which was boiled, hulled wheat and milk of almonds, something like a porridge, to which was added a meat, in this case venison and saffron and other spices. With this was served a broth. A common broth contained rabbit, almond milk and spices such as ginger, cloves, nutmeg and galingale. Sometimes sugar or onions, cloves and raisins were added. Another of the exotic dishes was “blaundsorr” which was a pottage based on almond milk, thickened with rice and containing ground capon to form something of a meaty blancmange. Most records of feasts in the 13th and 14th centuries show they were like that of Richard III. They included things like roasts, rabbit in gravy covered in sugar, mawmenny and fritters. Earlier, in the 12th century, besides the fare already listed, were dishes that included a roast crane and peacock with pepper sauce.
Vegetables are rarely mentioned, but on occasion do appear, like in, for example, the special dish of peas and porpoise. Such dishes as “rapes” (turnips) or parsnips in pottage which also included onions, saffron and spices were made as well as “gourds” in pottage with onions, egg and pork and cabbage with onions, leeks and spices in pottage. Beans, frequently ground, were also eaten in various ways, as well as radishes and carrots which were mainstays in Medieval gardens. Salads were eaten at times, too. One recipe contained a wide range of herbs and vegetables including cress spring onions, onions and also purslane.
At the end of each course a “sotelty” (subtlety) was often presented which was a table decoration. Sometimes it was an ornament made of sugar or “marchpane” (marzipan) that was eaten, though they weren’t always edible. The object was to impress the guests with the cook’s skill and the cleverness of the host who employed him. The subject of the creation could be the nature of the occasion. For example, at the coronation feast of Katherine, Henry V’s wife, they presented a pelican on its nest (an emblem of piety) and St Katherine (patroness of learning) disputing the heathen clerks, an image of St Katherine with a wheel in her hand (she was martyred on a wheel) and a heraldic tiger looking at a mirror, with a man riding away carrying a tiger’s whelp and throwing down mirrors behind him (an illusion to the marriage).
Feasts weren’t only comprised of food. Entertainment, sometimes on a grand scale, took place between courses. Trumpets played before each of the courses as well as to signal the beginning and end of the feast, and music was usually played during the meal. Minstrels, several at a time, would be present on special occasions. Singers were popular too. They sang carols as well as “chansons de geste” (tales of romance and chivalry). Acrobats, tumblers, jugglers, conjurors, animal trainers and dancers were all part of the revelry as was the fool. There were also professional raconteurs accompanying themselves on the harp who retold romance tales.
In the most elaborate settings a pageant might be enacted, usually of a historical nature, using elaborate moving structures. Cities, ships and mountains might be represented. Things didn’t always go to plan, though. On one occasion in 1389 a tower on wheels representing Troy accompanied by another representing an assault tower manned by Greeks and a model ship manned by 100 soldiers were pushed into the hall for a mock battle. There were so many people in the hall pressing in that a table containing a large number of people overturned. A door near the queen was opened to allow fresh air and all the tables had to be cleared to make room for everyone. The king and queen left in haste.
The feast at the marriage of Katherine of Aragon to Prince Arthur was more successful, with various ceremonies going on for several days. Westminster Hall was hung with rich tapestries of Arras and contained a cupboard of seven shelves filled with rich plate of gold and gilt. There were three pageants displayed on some of the first pageant cars seen in England. There was a castle drawn into the hall on heraldic beasts and a ship on wheels. Speeches were made from all of these and dancers descended from the last. After the pageant was completed there was dancing. Ten year old Prince Henry suddenly threw off his long gown and danced with his twelve year old sister, Margaret, dressed in his jacket with a typical flare that would foreshadow things to come in the even more elaborate and lavish feasts of the Tudor and Stuart courts.
~~~~~~~~~~
Originally from Philadelphia, Kristin Gleeson lives in Ireland, in the West Cork Gaeltacht, where she plays harp, and runs a book club for the village library. She holds a Masters in Library Science and a Ph.D. in history, and for a time was an administrator of a national archives, library and museum in America. She has also worked as a public librarian in America and now works at a library in Ireland. You can read more about Kristin on her website. You can read about a Medieval feast in Kristin’s novel, The Imp of Eye set in 15th century London.
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Editors' Weekly Round-Up, November 6, 2016
by the EHFA Editors
The blog featured a wonderful array of posts this week. If you missed any, do stop by and check them out:
Authors, Researchers - we welcome inquiries about writing for English Historical Fiction Authors. Please contact us for guidelines.
The blog featured a wonderful array of posts this week. If you missed any, do stop by and check them out:
by Helen Hollick
by Margaret Porter
by Lauren Gilbert
by Tracey Warr
by Kristin Gleeson
by Elaine Moxon
Authors, Researchers - we welcome inquiries about writing for English Historical Fiction Authors. Please contact us for guidelines.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Editors Weekly Round Up - September 4, 2016
by the EHFA Editors
If you missed the posts to the blog during the week, check out our weekly round-up:
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If you missed the posts to the blog during the week, check out our weekly round-up:
by Kristin Gleeson
by Mark Patton
by Lauren Gilbert
by Kate Dunn
by Sally A. Moore
by Richard Denning
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Editors Weekly Round Up: July 24, 2016
by the EHFA Editors
Enjoy this week's wrap up of posts on the blog:
Enjoy this week's wrap up of posts on the blog:
by Kim Rendfeld
by Kristin Gleeson
by Annie Whitehead
by Linda Root
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Bees and the Brehon Law in Early Medieval Ireland
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St Gobnait by Harry Clarke, Corning Museum
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What would happen if bees from your hive swarmed and then settled in a neighbour’s tree, or if you were stung badly by one of your neighbour’s bees? If you were living in Ireland in the 6th century, the matter would be very clear. In the first case, your neighbour would be entitled to half the yield of honey, and in the second case, you would be entitled to a sufficient amount of honey that matched the severity of the sting.
Bees and the honey they produced were an important element in early Medieval Ireland and other parts of Europe. They were a significant source of nutrition for people who lived in a land that in many areas was often wet and difficult to farm. Honey also possessed an antiseptic quality that was important for internal healing, as well as external healing. And of course when fermented, it provided a drink that could make you forget how wet and difficult the land was to farm.
In Britain and the rest of Europe the hives were made of straw, coiled into the familiar cone shape and stitched together with thin branches of brambles/blackberries stripped of their leaves and thorns, called a ‘skep’ from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘skeppa’ meaning ‘basket.’ In winter they would put straw tents over the skeps to keep out the elements, called ‘hackles,’ if they weren’t in little stone nooks, or ‘boles,’ like those of the monks of Lindisfarne. In Ireland, however, where cattle grazed outdoors all year and little straw was harvested, I was told by local historians sedgegrass was used instead, well up until the last century. The hives were then thatched against the rain that fell all year round and kept against the south wall of the ‘lios’ or wall of the home area.
Bees and the honey they produced were an important element in early Medieval Ireland and other parts of Europe. They were a significant source of nutrition for people who lived in a land that in many areas was often wet and difficult to farm. Honey also possessed an antiseptic quality that was important for internal healing, as well as external healing. And of course when fermented, it provided a drink that could make you forget how wet and difficult the land was to farm.
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| Medieval skep |
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| Irish skep with thatch |
With bees such a vital part of the daily lives of medieval Irish people, it is no surprise that they featured in the Brehon laws. “Brehon” is an ancient Irish term for judge. Over the centuries the judges accumulated a series of laws which they passed down orally from one generation of judges to the next. To qualify to become any one of the various levels of judges and lawyers - which in all likelihood were offshoots of the poets (filidh) - required that the person study at one of the named schools. It was a period of study that lasted a number of years in which they learned poetry as well as the laws.
Under the Brehon laws there were five paths to judgement: truth, duty, right, propriety and proper inquiries. These paths ensured that each case was considered carefully. The choices were thrashed out beforehand by the respective lawyers in a process called airthacra, which was akin to the hearing of legal arguments in modern court cases. Most disputes, however, were usually settled before they wound up in court.
During the early Christian period, from about the 5th century to the 8th century, the laws and law cases were recorded by Christian clerics and ‘adjusted’ if the laws didn’t fit the Christian outlook. Most of our knowledge of early Irish or Brehon law comes from these old Irish law texts, mainly composed in the 7th and 8th centuries. Some of these texts have survived in a complete form in later manuscripts (generally of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries), but many are to be found only in fragments. The best preserved collection of early Irish law texts is that of the Senchás Mar, "great tradition," which is likely to have been organized as a unit about A.D. 800. The texts in this collection are all anonymous, and it is not known where or by whom they were put together. However, most of the place-names and personal names cited in the texts relate to the northern Midlands and southern Ulster, so it is probable that the material derived from this area. It may have been assembled in a monastic law school, such as that at Slane, County Meath.
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| Section of Irish law, Library Ireland |
Much of the Brehon law is founded on the principle of restitution, rather than punishment, so often the judgements involved various types of compensation for any injury done. The cases and laws therefore encompassed much of what mattered in everyday life. The Senchás Mar originally consisted of 50 law texts broken up into three sections. There doesn’t seem to be a strict logic to the arrangements except that similar subjects are grouped together. For example, the law text relating to cats is followed by the law text relating to dogs.
In the first third of the work there is a general discussion of legal topics and a description of St Patrick’s role in its codification. This essay is followed by laws on the formal seizure of another’s property to enforce legal claims against him. There is also a discussion on the acts regarding hostages, laws regarding the “free fief” and fosterage fees, as well as free clientship and base clientship which were two different classes in the highly stratified society that was Ireland. There were also other texts dealing with the laws of marriage and divorce, the arrangement of customary behavior and the relationship of society to the Church.
The surviving final third, like the first third, is not complete by any means. It does have evidence that suggests it may have contained laws on carpenters, coppersmiths and blacksmiths, sick maintenance as well as trapping deer. It also has medical legal texts “Judgements of Blood-lying” and “Judgements of Dian Cecht” (a legendary physician).
Included in the middle section, the most complete section, are the judgements dealing with trespass by domestic animals, fencing obligations and other related topics. Here we can learn such interesting judgements like if an animal is killed in a jointly owned herd and the culprit cannot be identified then a lot is cast across the whole herd. The animal on which it falls is held to be responsible. Whether or not that animal is punished is a mystery. Other interesting aspects discussed in this section include rules for bringing water for a mill across a neighbor’s land. Conflict in a situation like this is easily imaginable. A final section, which understandably gets full discussion is "Judgements Concerning Thefts."
It is in this middle section that the Bechbretha or “Bee Judgements” are found. They include a discussion of trespass by honey bees. It’s there, for instance, we can learn that a person who is blinded by a bee gets a hive in recompense. Or that there were penalties for a person who moves a hive not belonging to them. And most reasonably we can learn that if a person shakes or disturbs a hive and the bees should attack that person as a result, the owner was free from liability for any injuries that might result.
The Brehon laws stretched back centuries and through them we can understand the daily life of the ancient Irish. If the laws are anything to go by it shows a society that relied heavily on mediation and compensation, perhaps in attempt to avoid more violent acts of retribution, vengeance and punishment.
Kristin Gleeson holds a Ph.D. in history and a Masters in Library Science. Her novel, In Praise of the Bees, weaves in aspects of the Brehon Law. You can find out more about Kristin and her other books at her website.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Editor's Weekly Round Up: June 5, 2016
By the EHFA Editors
In case you missed any of the articles posted on the blog, here is our weekly round up.
In case you missed any of the articles posted on the blog, here is our weekly round up.
by Annie Whitehead
by Lauren Gilbert
by Kristin Gleeson
by Matthew Harffy
by Linda Root
by Charlene Newcomb -
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