property, and in his default from the members of his fine in sums determined by the degree of relationship; and it was distributable among the members of the fine of a murdered person in the same proportions, like a distribution among the next of kin. The fine of a murderer could free themselves from liability by giving up the murderer and his goods, or if he escaped, by giving up any goods he had left, depriving him of clanship, and lodging a pledge against his future misdeeds. In these circumstances the law held the criminal’s life forfeit, and he might be slain or taken as a prisoner or slave. He could escape only by becoming a daer-fuidhir in some distant territory. When the effect of a crime did not go beyond an individual, if that individual’s fine did not make good their claim while the criminal lived, it lapsed on his death. “The crime dies with the criminal.” If an unknown stranger or person without property caught red-handed in the commission of a crime refused to submit to arrest, it was lawful to maim or slay him according to the magnitude of the attempted crime. “A person who came to inflict a wound on the body may be safely killed when unknown and without a name, and when there is no power to arrest him at the time of committing the trespass.” For crimes against property the usual penalty, as in breach of contract, was generic restitution, the quantity, subject to modifying circumstances, being twice the amount taken or destroyed.
Distress of seizure of property being the universal mode of obtaining satisfaction, whether for crime, breach of contract, non-payment of debt, or any other cause, the law of distress came into operation as the solvent of almost every dispute. Hence it is the most extensive and important branch, if not more than a branch, of these ancient laws. Of several words meaning distress, athgabail was the most frequently used. A person having a liquidated claim might either sue a debtor or proceed at his peril to seize without this preliminary. In the latter case the defendant could stop the progress of the seizure by paying the debt, giving a pledge, or demanding a trial; and he then could choose a Brehon. Distress was of two kinds—(1) athgabal ar fut (= distress on length, i.e. with time, with delays); and (2) athgabail tulla (= immediate distress). Which method was pursued depended partly upon the facts of the case and partly upon the respective ranks of the parties. A person entitled to seize property had to do it himself, accompanied, if the amount was large, by a law agent and witnesses. No man was entitled to seize unless he owned, or had a surety who owned, sufficient property for indemnity or adjustment in case the seizure should be found to have been wrongful. The formalities varied in different circumstances and also at different times in the long ages in which these laws prevailed. Some forms may, in the Irish as in other legal systems, have become merely ceremonial and fictitious.
Tellach (= seizure of immovable property) was made in three periods or delays of ten days each (= 30 days). The first step was a notice that unless the debt was paid immediately seizure would be made. Ten days later, the plaintiff crossed the fence in upon the land, with a law agent, a witness and a pair of horses yoked or harnessed, and in a loud voice stated the amount of the debt and called upon the defendant to pay it according to law. On receiving no answer, or an unsatisfactory one, he withdrew. After an interval of ten days more, the creditor entered with his law agent, two witnesses and four horses, went farther in upon the land, repeated his demand, and if refused withdrew. Finally, after a further interval of ten days, he entered once more with his law agent, three witnesses and eight horses, drove up to the debtor’s house, repeated his demand, and if not satisfied drove a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep in upon the farm and left men to care for them.
Athgabail ordinarily meant the seizure of movable property. The following technical terms will indicate the procedure in distress with time:—Aurfocre (= demand of payment, stating the amount in presence of witnesses); apad (= delay); athgabail (= the actual seizure); anad (= delay after seizure, the thing remaining in the debtor’s possession); toxal (= the taking away of the thing seized); fasc (= notice to the debtor of the amount due, the mainder or pound in which the thing seized is impounded, and the name of the law agent); dithim (= delay during which the thing is in pound); lobad (= destruction or forfeiture of the debtor’s ownership and substitution of the creditor’s ownership). There was no sale, because sale for money was little known. The property in the thing seized, to the amount of the debt and expenses, became legally transferred from the debtor to the creditor, not all at once but in stages fixed by law. A creditor was not at liberty to seize household goods, farming utensils, or any goods the loss of which would prevent the debtor recovering from embarrassment, so long as there was other property which could be seized. A seizure could be made only between sunrise and sunset. “If a man who is sued evades justice, knowing the debt to be due of him, double the debt is payable by him and a fine of five seds.” When a large debt was clearly due, and there was no property to seize, the debtor himself could be seized and compelled to work as a prisoner or slave until the debt was paid.
When a defendant was of rank superior to that of the plaintiff, distress had to be preceded by troscad (= fasting). This is a legal process unknown elsewhere except in parts of India. The plaintiff having made his demand and waited a certain time without result, went and sat without food before the door of the defendant. To refuse to submit to fasting was considered indelibly disgraceful, and was one of the things which legally degraded a man by reducing or destroying his honour-value. The law said “he who does not give a pledge to fasting is an evader of all; he who disregards all things shall not be paid by God or man.” If a plaintiff having duly fasted did not receive within a certain time the satisfaction of his claim, he was entitled to distrain as in the case of an ordinary defendant, and to seize double the amount that would have satisfied him in the first instance. If a person fasting in accordance with law died during or in consequence of the fast, the person fasted upon was held guilty of murder. Fasting could be stopped by paying the debt, giving a pledge, or submitting to the decision of a Brehon. A creditor fasting after a reasonable offer of settlement had been made to him forfeited his claim. “He who fasts notwithstanding the offer of what should be accorded to him, forfeits his legal right according to the decision of the Feini.”
Authorities.—Since Sir Samuel Ferguson wrote his article on “Brehon Laws” in the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia, much research has been done on the subject, and Ferguson’s account is no longer accepted by scholars, either as regards the language or the substance of the laws. Pending the work of a second Brehon Law Commission, the Laws are best studied in the six imperfect volumes (Ancient Laws of Ireland, 1865–1901) produced by the first Commission (ignoring their long and worthless introductions), together with, Dr. Whitley Stokes’s Criticism (London, Nutt, 1903) of Atkinson’s Glossary (Dublin, 1901). The following are important references (kindly supplied by Dr Whitley Stokes) for detailed research:—R. Dareste, Études d’histoire de droit, pp. 356-381 (Paris, 1889); Arbois de Jubainville and Paul Collinet, Études sur le droit celtique (2 vols., Paris, 1895); Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. i. pp. 168-214 (2 vols., London, 1903); Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, iv. 221, the Copenhagen fragments of the Laws (Halle, 1903); important letters in The Academy, Nos. 699, 700, 701, 702, 703, 704, 706, 707 (substantially covered by Stokes’s Criticism); Revue Celtique, xxv. 344; Erin, i. 209-315 (collation by Kuno Meyer of the Law-tract Crith Gablach); Maine’s Early Hist, of Institutions (1875) and Early Law and Custom, pp. 162, 180 (1883); Hearn’s Aryan Household (1879), and Maclennan’s Studies in Ancient History, pp. 453-507 (1876), contain interesting general reference, but the writers were not themselves original students of the laws. L. Ginnell’s Brehon Laws (1894) may also be consulted. See further the article Celt, sections Language and Literature. (L. G.)
BREISACH, or Altbreisach, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Baden, on the left bank of the Rhine, standing on a basalt rock 250 ft. above the river, 10 m. W. of Freiburg-im-Breisgau, and on the railway connecting that city with Colmar. Pop. (1900) 3537. It has a fine minster, partly Romanesque, partly Gothic, dating from the 10th to the 15th centuries; of its two principal towers one is 13th century Gothic, the other Romanesque. The interior is remarkable for its rich decorations, especially the wood-carving of the high altar, and for many interesting tombs and pictures. There is little industry, but a considerable trade is done in wines and other agricultural
