The following is from the ‘Crith Gabhlach’ (p. 321):—
If there be service from them (cottier and fuidhir tenants which he, the chief, brings upon the land) to ‘flaith’ chiefs to nine times nine (years?), they are cottiers and fuidhir tenants; they are sencleithe tenants from that out.
In the Editor’s note (p. 350) to the sequel to the ‘Crith Gabhlach,’ there is a statement that the sencleithe tenant was a man who came from his natural chief to settle under another chief; and if he or his successors continued away during the time of three successive chiefs, with the knowledge of the former chief, and unclaimed by him or his successors, he or they then became ‘sencleithe,’ and could not go away of themselves nor be claimed by the other.[74]
Comparison with Cymric custom as to strangers, and as to the link between chief and tribesmen made by bestowal and acceptance of cattle.
These passages, taken together, seem to imply that after five, or sometimes three, generations of tenancy under the same chieftain or his successors, the fuidhir tenants became in some sense adscripti glebæ, like the Cymric alltuds, and at the same time formed a group of kindred very much like a Cymric gwely.
Beyond this it is not easy to realise the position of the sencleithe person. The text of the Brehon law tracts is often very obscure, and the commentary so imperfect that the suggestion again and again occurs to the student that the commentator may sometimes himself be groping in the dark. Moreover, all the Brehon tracts have not yet been published, so that we have as yet only part of the evidence before us. Still it seems to be safe to say that there are indications that, as in Wales, there were rungs in the social ladder by which the stranger or unfree tenant might, after a certain number of generations, climb into something like freedom and tribal rights at the cost of becoming at the same time attached to the land of the chieftain; and that to the freeman also the grades of social rank were in some measure dependent upon the social position of fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers as well as upon the acceptance of stock and the payment of food-rent and the performance of services to chieftains of higher rank.
Further, without pressing too far resemblances which are not complete between Irish and Cymric custom, it may at least be suggested that the Irish example of the acceptance of stock by the young og-aire from the chief of his family, or some higher chieftain whose man he was or became, may throw some light upon the Cymric provision of da or cattle to the young tribesman who became ‘man and kin’ to the chieftain who gave it for his maintenance. In the Irish instance, this bestowal and acceptance of stock was part of a system which ran through all ranks and grades. And it seems to have formed the natural link connecting one social rank with another, and securing some kind of solidarity in the whole kindred or tribe, in addition to the tie of blood relationship and sometimes as a substitute for it.
We are now in a position to consider the amount of the honour-price of the various grades in tribal society as exhibited in the Brehon tracts, and to judge how far it was an important addition to the coirp-dire, and whether it raised the Irish eric to an amount at all near to that of the galanas of the Cymric Codes.
The amount of the honour-price of each grade.