Sick maintenance/ Bretha Crólige and related texts

Question 1

Subsections/ topics of Bretha Crólige to think of (7 topics)

Answer 1

• The texts and their transmission
• The principles of Sick maintenance
• Dating and when/ was it ever used?
• Evolution
• Exceptions
• Women/ Lawyers/ Children
• The incidental information sick maintenance provides about Irish society

Question 2

Scholars to think about for sick maintenance (3)

Answer 2

• Binchy
• Breatnach
• Kelly

Question 3

When mentioning Bretha colrige/ sick maintenence in an exam what MUST you also reference

Answer 3

§8 of Crith Galbrach

– provides a chronological distinction in usage

Question 4

What is sick maintenence in principal?

Answer 4

Sick-maintenance, known as othrus, is, in principle, the practice whereby a person injured through the illegal actions of another is entitled to be looked after for the duration of their recovery at the expense of the guilty party.

Question 5

What makes the study of sick maintenance a bit tricky?

Answer 5

The study of sick-maintenance, particularly any attempt to discern the finer details of the practice, is made somewhat convoluted by the fact that many of the tracts contradict each other (although contradicting evidence within Irish legal texts is somewhat to be expected).
- Also, as with many texts of this sort, we receive a lot of information about the ideals of legal application, but have very little information as to how such a law was applied in actuality.

Question 6

What does kelly suggest as to why there is a discprenency between crith galbrach and bretha crolige?

Answer 6

Kelly suggests that the discrepancies between the different versions are either the result of varying local customs or a conflict of opinion between law-schools. But it is also possible that these differences are the result of the dates of the texts, and indeed the dating of the practice itself.

Question 7

What does crith galbrach say about sick maintenance?

Answer 7

the interpolation that is contained in Críth Gablach (dated to c. 700AD) states that the practice was no longer in use.

Question 8

when does Críth Gablach date from?

Answer 8

c. 700AD

Question 9

What does Críth Gablach say the perpertrator owed their victim instead of the provision of sick maintenance?

Answer 9

Críth Gablach mentions some of what each individual is entitled to while being nursed according to his rank

• • But also says it was no longer in use. Instead an additional fine encompassed the same provisions the injurer would have had to pay for under sick maintenance, which included a payment of his rank, the payment of the physician’s fee (fochraic) and a supply of food and drink and a payment for blemish or loss of limb.
• – this is a computation payment

Question 10

What is the perpatrator liable for under the principle of othrus?

Answer 10

Under othrus, the perpetrator is liable not only for the payment of medical expenses relating to the injury, but also for the provision of suitable food and accommodation, appropriate to the status of the injured party, for the duration of the recovery period

Question 11

What do we know about the actual application of orthus?

Answer 11

• We dont actually know the extent to which this was applied in reality, or the extent to which orthus was ever applied– in terms of chronology or geography
• How could we know?- there are no recordsof it being applied, and if it was applied and recorded- why wouldn’t they have survived?
• • Take an argument anyway tho!

Question 12

What does bretha crolige say about the application of the practice?

Answer 12

Bretha Crólige does not mention anything about the practice being obsolete. However, it does mention that certain types of person could not be maintained because of the difficulty in doing so

Question 13

Comparison between Irish sick maintenance and Anglo-Saxon law and welsh law
– examples elsewhere.

Answer 13

AS law had a leochfeah– liable not only for the injury itself but also for the medical expenses of the injured party.

• The leachfeah payment looks much more like what C. Gal. describes, or indeed the Irish system could always have been like that.
• Welsh Law generally isn’t so interested in these type of things, focuses a bit more on homicide rather than on what happens if people are wounded. Although does have the list of payments for parts of the body.

Question 14

Evolution of the word orthus

Answer 14

• In the earliest Old Irish texts, there was folog, a form of obligation where the injurer had to undertake the duty of nursing their victim back to health. It was also known as folog nothrusa or ‘maintenance of sickness’
• The word othrus eventually came to mean ‘sick maintenance’

Question 15

How is the payment of orthus established?

Answer 15

There is some conflict in the sources but someone probably just decided on the ninth day. Perhaps as it would be more difficult to ascertain this before nine days? In the interval, the injured party is left in the care of their own kin (presumably)

Question 16

What is an issue with the source information we have from commentaries?

Answer 16

othrus had largely disappeared by the time they were writing. More untrustworthy (so argues Binchy)– Although a similar thing named tincisin had since arose/ developed, so they would have been familiar with the general concept

Question 17

What happened if the victim was found to be incurable?

Answer 17

If the victim is then to be found incurable, then they may receive a payment according to their rank, which also discharges the accused of their obligations

Question 18

Why does Binchy believe it stopped being used?

Answer 18

Argues that eventually there were so many exceptions it fell apart

Question 19

Why does Binchy believe crith galbrach says it stopped being applied?

Answer 19

Argues that this was bought about by a change of the meaning of crolige mbais. By the time of the later commentators the old distinction between incurable and curable injuries has disappeared

Question 20

what do we know about the role of the physician in society from these texts?

Answer 20

The role of physician is a bit blurry. Probably required public acknowledgement in order to be classified as such, but was likely a hereditary profession. Herbs were important.

Question 21

what do we know about the role of the physician in society from these texts?

Answer 21

The role of physician is a bit blurry. Probably required public acknowledgement in order to be classified as such, but was likely a hereditary profession. He had a high fee and took payment for his work.

Question 22

Is the text practical?

Answer 22

In a sense, but it can seem more concerned with process than actuality

Question 23

What is ‘fochraic’

Answer 23

payment of the physician’s fee

Question 24

what extra provision comes in if the person is fertile?

Answer 24

If the victim, regardless of gender, is married and of reproductive age, “the culprit has to pay an additional fine for airiadad comperta ‘bearing of procreation’ to compensate for the fact that the victim cannot reproduce whilst away on sick maintenance

Question 25

Why does Binchy believe it is unlikely a cleric wrote it?

Answer 25

its justification for polygyny (§57) is not compatible with Christian ideals.

Question 26

Who is seen as more important in the law?

Answer 26

The innocent’s rights are seen as more important than the offender’s

Question 27

What does Kelly say about how it would have been to use?

Answer 27

Kelly argues that despite its advantages “it is obvious that the system of sick-maintenance described above was cumbersome and inconvenient to all parties concernced”

Question 28

Despite all its minutiae and granular detail, what is one thing sick maintenence does not mention?

Answer 28

Interesting that it does not stipulate what is to happen if the crime occurs within a kin, as kinslaying is generally an issue that looms quite large in the laws, particularly as it is not something that can be tidied away through the payment of compensation

Question 29

How much law did the average Irishman know? (and about sick maintenance)

Answer 29

Maybe a few of the general principles but probably not much more. The bit they probably knew the most about was land law as this applied to their daily life.

Question 30

Why does sick maintenance get so complicated?

Answer 30

• Lawyers from various schools just kept adding stuff to it. The versions of law we have probably weren’t those that were applied.
• The basic system likely was applied to men who had been in punch-ups, and any extension beyond that could just be lawyers thinking about it too much.
• Or could have been a training/ teaching exercise- ‘How many exemptions can you think of, in multiples of three’. These groups of three are more about lawyers learning the law rather than how it was actually applied.
• Binchy says that these “-purely schematic constructions, seem to be the product of a writing school rather than of actual legal development”

Question 31

Texts like this often specify specific periods of time- why might they have done this?

Answer 31

• It provides structure and deadlines to the process, but also limits the amount of time things go on for. It could also give them time to make up, so nothing is required to be done in haste. Haste encourages rapid reaction and lack of judgement. The timings do have an effect– You can see how in practical terms these time frames work

Question 32

Thus if the practice became redundant, why does the text exist?

Answer 32

Although not for direct application, could have been used as a reference and justification as to why a judge awarded a certain payment. Allows payments to be justified on the base of historical and legal precedent.

Question 33

What about a woman’s orthrus? What does this tell us about status?

Answer 33

• A woman’s othrus, as her honour-price, is half of her husbands (if she’s married and is chief wife) or half of her brother if she is unmarried.
• But medical treatment for women is not half as expensive, so the payments are based on status, as well as practicality.
• –So driven somewhat more by status than practicality and so tied into matters of status.

Question 34

What does the B.C. say about polygamy in irish law?

Answer 34

• Author of B. C. somewhat admits that there is a dispute in Irish law as to whether it is proper to have many sexual unions or a single one.
• He justifies the practice of polygyny from the Old testament, pointing out that the chosen people of God lived in plurality of unions”.
• – It is difficult to fit polygamy into the medieval christian worldview

Question 35

What fantastically hard to spell irish words should you remember for bretha crolige (there are a wonderful 7 of them!!) lucky dani

Answer 35

• Othrus
• Folog
• Folog nothrusa
• fochraic
• airiardad comperta
• crolige mbais
• tincisin

(+ leachfeah)

Question 36

What does B.C. indicate on the conceptualisation of childhood

Answer 36

• The dire of a child was the same as that of a cleric, regardless of their class, up to the age of 7.
• From 7 to 10 they received the dire of their father
• Then from 10 upwards they received that of an adult
• – conceptualisation of childhood

Question 37

2 key facts for women

Answer 37

• Under Irish polygamy, the chief wife was entitled to a greater payment than that of the lesser wives– likely reflects societal position?
• A woman could be classed as more important to society through her work i.e. a woman of ‘profitable handicraft’ who was entitled to be judged by 3 judges, rather than just recieve half her husband’s dire. (reminds me of Ine’s laws and how welshman could obtain greater status through his work)

Question 38

Comparison with Aided oenfher…

Answer 38

• That also has the notion of the chief wife in it
  in B.C. it distinguishes between 3 different types of wife, with each wife accorded a different status and respective financial position.

Question 39

Another example on women?

Answer 39

• B.C. also includes a list of various women who were important to the tuath and if she did not have a husband, then she was entitled to have her othrus assessed accorded to her dignity and her possessions.