II. THE HONOUR-PRICE (ENECLANN).
It is necessary next to direct special attention to the honour-price (eneclann).
The question at once arises, whose honour-price had to be paid?
In the first place, according to a passage in the Book of Aicill, it is the honour-price of the slayer that had to be paid, i.e. the higher the rank of the slayer the greater the payment to the kindred of the person slain.
The honour-price of the slayer.
The passage alluded to occurs almost at the beginning of the Book of Aicill (p. 99). The heading, literally translated, is: ‘Fines are doubled by anger (ferg).’ Then follows a long commentary, in which the point seems to be limited to secret murder, and the doubling seems to be the result of the concealment. This is quite consistent with tribal feeling as shown in other laws, concealment of the slain person on the part of the murderer being considered a grave aggravation. The passage is as follows:—
Fines are doubled by anger (ferg).
The double of his own honour-price is due of each and every person, whether native freeman, stranger, foreigner, daerman, or looker-on, for the crime of secret murder.[70]
And then the commentary goes on to say that if it was the same person who killed and concealed
a fine of 7 cumhals and full honour-price for the concealing, and 7 cumhals and full honour-price for the killing, which is twice 7 cumhals and double honour-price upon a native freeman for secret murder.
Obviously the honour-price in both cases is that of the murderer, for a little further on is a statement that
the same fine is upon a native freeman for looking on at the killing of a native freeman, or a stranger, or a foreigner, or a daerman.[71]
The honour-price of the slain or of his kinsmen.
But besides this honour-price of the criminal, as we have seen, other payments had apparently to be made to the relatives of the slain, for breach of their protection or for injury sustained, and these were measured by the honour-price of the recipients and not by that of the criminal.
It is not quite clearly stated that these payments were a part of the eric, but we may suppose that they were in a sense a buying off of the right of feud, and accepted in lieu of the right of joining in the avengement of the crime and in the feud, for which the eric was the composition.
The honour-price of the protector of the slain.
A passage in the Book of Aicill (p. 107) incidentally seems to show that the son of a person slain could choose whether to claim honour-price on the scale of his own social rank, according to right of property, or of the status of his father or grandfather, or that of the chieftain under whose protection he lived.
If, having been given his choice of taking honour-price in right of property, or honour-price in right of his father and his grandfather, he made choice of honour-price in right of his property, and decay came upon his property so that he has [left] but the kingship of the three handles—the handle of his flail, the handle of his hatchet, and the handle of his wood axe; he is (then) entitled to but one screpall for his worthiness if he be worthy; and if he be not worthy he is entitled to nothing, unless children have been born to him afterwards which he had not before on the day of making his choice, and if they have been born he has honour-price in right of them.
The passage goes on to mention the case of his having made choice ‘to have honour-price in right of his relations or in right of his chief.’
In the Senchus Mor (i. p. 275), without direct mention of the case of homicide, is the following statement:—
The honour-price is fourfold. Full honour-price is due to one for his father, half honour-price for his father’s brother, one third honour-price for his son or his daughter, one fourth honour-price for his grandson.
On the whole it may be gathered from the Brehon tracts that, whilst the coirp-dire or body fine was a fixed amount, the eric or full payment was complex, involving, besides the coirp-dire, the honour-price of the slayer according to his rank, and also payments to the relations of the slain, regulated by their honour-price and rank, and nearness of relationship to the slain person, by way of reparation for the insult or injury involved, or for breach of their protection, &c.
In order to judge how much these payments of honour-price added to the eric, we must seek to learn something of the character of the various grades and ranks, and the amount of the honour-price of each.