Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/273

HISTORY.] IRELAND 257 animals fresh and salted. In the 8th century at all events wheat and barley meal were also used by the better classes. The legendary food of the Land of Promise consisted of fresh pork, new milk, and ale. Of course fish, especially the salmon, and game are also to be added to the list. The opsonia were very limited onions and watercresses. The food of the monks was chiefly oaten bread, milk, and curd-cheese. The chief drink was ale, the right to brew it being apparently confined to flatha, as was the case in many parts of Germany down to the end of the Middle Ages. It seems to have been expected that a flaith should be generous to his vassals, retainers, and all those about him ; the word for opeu-handedness in Irish, flaithcamhuil, is derived from his name ; an aphorism fixes the time at which he was expected to be bountiful, " for he is not a lawful flaith who does not distribute ale on a Sunday." All the business of the sept and tribe was conducted in the ale-house or cuirmtech, as the chief men of the tribe were called its props, sabaid cuirmtigi. The bards chanted poems, and songs were sung to the music of a kind of harp, called a cruot, or of a bowed instru ment called a timpan; stories were also told, and the guests of the ale-house were content to hear the same story over and over again. The ollam fili, who only told his stoiy to kings, was, however, expected to know more than seven times fifty great and small stories. The amusements were also varied by the jokes of the fool and the tricks of the juggler, as in the baronial halls of the Normans at a later period. The dress of the upper classes was similar to that of a Scottish Highlander before it degenerated into the present conventional garb of a Highland regiment. It consisted first of the lenn, a kind of loose shirt generally of woollen cloth (but linen ones are mentioned), reaching a little below the knees of men, and forming what is now called the kilt. This garment was of different colours, some being spotted, checkered, and variegated, each tribe or clan having apparently special colours. It would also seem that the number of colours in the dress indicated the rank of the wearer. The lenna of kings and the wealthy flatha were embroidered, furnished with borders, and even fringe of gold is mentioned. Over the lenn came the inar, a kind of closely fitting tunic reaching to the hips, and bound around the waist by the criss, a girdle or scarf often of some rich solour, especially purple, and frequently, in the case of the men s, the gift of a woman. The inar or jacket appears to have been open at the breast so as to show off the embroidery of the lenn. Over the left shoulder, and fastened with a brooch, hung the brat, a shawl or plaid like the modern Scottish one. This garment replaced the skin or fur of a wild beast of earlier times, and the brooch the thorn with which it was fastened. The brooches were often of beautiful workmanship, as is shown by the numerous examples exhibiting endless variety of design which are now pre served in museums. The legs were bare or covered with a kind of legging or hose fastened by thongs ; the feet were entirely naked or encased in shoes of raw-hide also fastened with thongs. The only difference between the dress of men and women was that the lenn of the latter reached nearly to the ankles and formed a petti coat instead of a kilt. The freemen wore their hair long and prided themselves on its curling into ringlets. They sometimes confined it at the back of the head in a conical spiral of bronze, silver, or gold. The women also wore their hair long, and braided it into tresses, which they confined with a pin. The beard was worn long, and was carefully cultivated, being often plaited into tresses. The men as well as women, like all ancient and semi-barbarous people, were fond of ornaments. They tatooed figures with woad on their bodies like the Britons and Piots, as we learn from a gloss in a MS. of St Gall, 1 and also from Isidore. 2 They covered their fingers with rings, their arms with bracelets ; they wore torques or twisted rings of gold about the neck, such as we see on the celebrated antique sculpture of the Gaul, known as the " Dying Gladiator. " The richer and more powerful kings wore a similar torque about the waist, and a golden mind or diadem on state occasions. Every woman of rank wore finger rings, bracelets, earrings, and a, lann or crescent-shaped blade of gold on the front of the head, from which hung behind a veil. The queens also wore a golden mind or diadem on state occasions. The mind was so attached to a veil or some kind of headdress that it seems to have formed a complete covering for the head. Ladies also had carved combs, and ornamental work boxes ; they used oil for the hair, and dyed their eyelashes black with the juice of a berry, and their nails crimson with a dye like archil. The lenn or kilt seems to have been the garb of freemen only ; the men of the servile classes wore braces, or tight-fitting breeches reaching to near the ankles, the upper part of the body being either left altogether naked, or covered by a short cloak without sleeves. In winter all classes appear to have worn a long coat or cloak with a cochull or hood. The Gauls used a similar kind of hooded cloak, which became fashionable in Rome. Coats or cloaks 1 "Sticmata: pictura in corpor[e] quales Scotti pingunt." Gloss in a St Gall MS. in Hattcmar s >enkmale, i. 227, 233. 2 "Scot! propria lingua nomen hubent a picto corpora, eo quod aculcis forms cum atramento variarum figurarum stigmate annotcntur." Isidore of Seville, Oriy., lib. ix. c. 2. of this kind made of a brown frieze were regarded in the 7th nml 8th centuries as peculiarly Irish, owing no doubt to the great number of missionaries and scholars from Ireland who wandered over Europe clothed in such long cloaks, with a book wallet and a kind of leather bottle 3 slung on their shoulders, and a thick knotted staff in the hand. It is from them the Benedictine monks bor rowed the dress which has since become the characteristic habit of religious orders. The name cowl in English, and all the cognate forms in other languages, are no doubt from the Gaulish word corresponding to the Irish cochull. The two Irishmen who accom panied the Icelander, Thorfiun Karlsefnisson, in his voyage from Greenland when he discovered America in the 9th century, wore coats which are called by the same name which the Northmen gave the monk s cowl. The principal weapon of the Irish soldiers was a pike or lance with a very long handle ; some were also armed with a short sword suspended by a belt across the shoulder, and a shield. It is pro bable that bronze lance-heads and swords were used down to early Christian times, and even later, though the use of iron weapons must have been known from the period of the Scotic invasions of Britain. The shields were of two kinds : one a light round or slightly oval wooden target covered with hide, and in earlier times in the case of rich warriors a bronze disk with numerous bosses, backed with wood; and the other the sciathov oblong bulged shield of wicker work covered with hide. Some carried stone hammers or war axes, and in the 9th and succeeding centuries an iron one, the use of which M as learned from the Northmen. War-hats, cuirasses, and other defensive armour were very little if at all used before the Danish wars. In Irish legendary tales some of the heroes are equipped in leather cuirasses, and wear crested helmets and war-hats, but these are no doubt interpolations in the narrative of later times. The tuath or territory of a ri or king was divided among the septs. The lands of a sept (fine) consisted of the estates in severalty of the lords (flatha), and of thefcrand duthaig or com mon lands of the sept. The dwellers on each of these kinds of land differed materially from each other. On the former lived a motley population of slaves, horse boys, and mercenaries composed of broken men of other clans, many of whom were fugitives from justice (macca bais, literally "sons of death"), &c., possessing no rights either in the sept or tribe, and entirely dependent on the bounty of the lord, and consequently living about his fortified resi dence. The poorer servile classes, or cottiers, wood cutters, swine herds, &c. , who had right of domicile (acquired after three genera tions), lived here and there in small hamlets on the mountains and poorer lands of the estate. The good lands were let to a class of tenants called fuidirs, of whom there were several kinds, some grazing the land with their own cattle, others receiving both land and cattle from the lord. Fuidirs had no rights in the clan or sept ; some were true serfs, others tenants-at-will ; they lived in scattered homesteads like the farmers of the present time. The lord was responsible before the law for the ats of all the servile classes on his estates, both new comers and scnchleithe, i.e., descendants of fuidirs, slaves, &c. , whose families had lived on the estate during the time of three lords. He paid their blood-fines, &c., and received compensation for their slaughter, maiming, or plunder. The fuidirs were the chief source of a lord s wealth, and he was consequently always anxious to increase them. As every man in a fine or sept had a right to build a house on the ferand duthaig or common land, the size of the house and ex tent of land which might be permanently enclosed as a yard or lawn depending upon the rank of the man, that is, upon his wealth, the clansmen occupied chiefly isolated homesteads and cabins ; some of the latter being occasionally grouped in hamlets. Clansmen who possessed twenty-one cows and upwards were airig (sing, aire), or as we should say had the franchise, and might fulfil the functions of bail, witness, &c. When an aire died his family did not always divide the inheritance, but formed " a joint and undivided family " the head of which was an aire, and thus kept up the rank of the family. Three or four poor clansmen might combine their pro perty and agree to form a "joint family," one of whom as the head would be an aire. In consequence of this organization the home steads of airig included several families those of his brothers, sons, &c. A rich bo-aire (cow-aire, i.e., an aire whose wealth consisted in cattle) was allotted a certain portion of the com mon land in consideration of affording hospitality to travellers entitled to free quarters from the clan ; he was called a bringu (gen. briugad) or bruigfcr, that is, man of the brogor burg. He acted as a kind of rural magistrate, and the meetings of a clan for the elec tion of the ri took place at his house or brog. The stock of a bo- aire was partly his own and partly the gift of the chief. Every man was bound to accept stock from the chiei proportionate to his rank ; in return he was obliged to pay a certain customary tribute (bes tigi, house tribute). A man might also agree to take more stock 3 "Ascopam, i.e., flasconcm similem utri de coriis factam, sicut sclent Scot- tones habere." Gloss of a St Gall MS. of the 9th century in Hattemar s Dcnk- male. i. 237. XIII. - 33