EXPERIMENTAL PART

especially against the bishop of Rome. He also had

brought with him the Irish system of penance and has left his own penitential.

In 610, he fell out with the Burgundian royal court, especially with Queen Brunhilde, by his criticism of the moral laxity of the king. He was told to return to Ireland, but in any case to leave the kingdom. It was specifically ruled that he was not allowed to take any of his Frankish monks with him (Jonas I. 20). This is the most plausible context for his writing of two monastic rules, whereas previously he would have ruled by his personal authority, and perhaps also his penitential. After his departure, dissent seems to have surfaced at Luxeuil over the harsh style of life.

Attempts to ship Columbanus back to Ireland failed miraculously, and this is the reason why he ended up in Northern Italy after a brief spell in the area of Lake Constance. It would appear that he had a sufficient group of non-Frankish monks with him to establish a viable community. This would mean that recruits from Ireland had joined him after his departure. There is no other evidence of his continued contacts with Ireland after his departure. One of his Irish companions on the way to Italy, with whom he fell out, was Gallus, who in 612 stayed behind in the Alps (the monastery named after him was established in 720).

In the Lombard kingdom, Columbanus quickly received the protection of King Agilulf, who encour-aged him to preach against Arianism, the heretical variety of Christianity that was observed by a great number of Lombards. A treatise that he wrote on this topic has not been preserved. There was more reli-gious strife in Italy (the “Three Chapters” controversy).

Columbanus wrote again to the pope and demanded that he settle that issue. These two works can be firmly placed into his last years.

It was under royal protection (much like earlier on in Burgundy) that Columbanus established around 613 the monastery of Bobbio (in the Appennines south of Pavia, diocese of Piacenza), centered around a preex-isting, then ruined, church dedicated to St. Peter. A charter by King Agilulf for this foundation is not pre-served in the original but would appear to be, in essence, reliable. Bobbio was the first royal Lombard monastic foundation; it was to enjoy royal favour over the next centuries There Columbanus died, barely two years later. He was well-remembered and honored in Italy, more so than in his native country. Bobbio became the most important monastery in northern Italy. From this monastery a considerable number of manuscripts have been preserved that contain material in Old Irish and were written in Irish script. The his-torical context of this phenomenon is as yet unclear.

Bobbio was also the first monastery in the West to receive a papal exemption (in 628), harking back to

Columbanus’s refusal to bow to episcopal supervision.

To this day, Bobbio is called in Italy “the Monte Cassino of the north.”

MICHAEL RICHTER

References and Further Reading

Krusch, B., ed. Jonae Vitae sanctorum Columbani, Vedastis, Iohannis. Hannover, Leipzig, 1905.

M. Lapidge, ed. Columbanus. Studies on the Latin writings.

Woodbridge, 1997.

Richter, M. Ireland and Her Neighbours in the Seventh Century.

Dublin and New York, 1999.

Walker, G. S. M., ed. Sancti Columbani Opera. Dublin, 1957.

Reprint 1970.

See also Classical Influence; Hiberno-Latin

COMMON LAW

The Common Law is the body of legal rules that was developed by the royal courts in England from the last quarter of the twelfth century onward, and applied by them within England on a nationwide basis. No author-itative written summary of these rules was compiled, though many of them were embodied in the written judgments of the courts, and they were also summa-rized and discussed in medieval legal treatises. The Common Law was so called to distinguish its rules from rules of purely local application. The term Com-mon Law is also used to refer in a general way to the legal institutions that are or were characteristic of English law. In the later Middle Ages, these include the use of courts of a particular general type; the ini-tiation of civil litigation by writs of a limited range of standard types issued by the king’s chancery; the ini-tiation of most criminal proceedings through indict-ment at the king’s suit; the use of jury trial for fact finding in civil and criminal proceedings; and the exist-ence of a bifurcated lay legal profession with a recog-nized professional expertise but no connection with the law faculties of the universities.

During the first half-century of English invasion and settlement in Ireland there is comparatively little evi-dence about the legal customs followed in those parts of Ireland that were controlled by the new settlers. The settlers seem to have made use of some of the charac-teristic remedies of the early English Common Law and some of its characteristic modes of proof. There is also evidence for the introduction of some of the characteristic institutions of English land law, such the widow’s right to dower. During King John’s visit to Ireland in 1210, he drew up a charter that is known from later references to have established the general principle that the English Common Law was to be applied in the courts of the lordship of Ireland. Soon afterward the king sent a register of writs, containing

the standard types of writ then available from the chan-cery in England for the initation of litigation, with instructions authorizing the justiciar to issue such writs in Ireland. Further orders were given in 1234 and 1236 for making available in Ireland particular forms of writ, and in 1246 the general principle stated that all writs

“of common right” should be available in Ireland.

Mandates were also sent from England to explain spe-cific legal rules and procedures and instruct that they be applied in the courts of the lordship. These provide evidence of a determination that the Irish Common Law remain close to its English model. Such evidence ceases in the second half of the thirteenth century. This does not, however, mean that the courts of the lordship were now left free to develop their own distinctive law and custom. It is in this period that, for the first time, cases started being removed by writs of error from Irish courts to the court of King’s Bench in England, where judgments were upheld or overthrown on the basis of English legal rules. From 1236 onward, leg-islation enacted for England was also sent to Ireland, with orders that it be applied there. This ensured that the Irish Common Law was not left behind at a time when the English Common Law was being drastically remodeled by legislation. The last time English legis-lation was simply sent to Ireland with instructions for its application was in 1411. The same effect, however, was achieved (albeit with prior Irish agreement) from the fourteenth century onward by the adoption or reen-actment by the Irish parliament of specific items of existing English legislation. In 1494 to 1495, Poyn-ings’ Law, enacted by the Irish parliament, authorized the adoption of all general, public legislation enacted in England prior to that date.

By 1300, there had also come to be a legal profes-sion in Ireland that bore a close resemblance to its English counterpart: a small group of professional serjeants (specialists in pleading for clients in the courtroom) practiced in the main royal courts of the lordship. There was also a separate group of profes-sional attorneys, whose main responsibilities were in the preliminary stages of litigation and in briefing the serjeants, but the surviving evidence does not reveal how large a group this was. Professional lawyers also practiced in the city courts in Dublin and in county courts. Law students traveled to England from Ireland to learn the law from at least 1287 onward, and from the 1340s they attended the Inns of Court in London to do so. However, more elementary legal education was also available in Ireland, probably in Dublin. The Irish legal profession failed to establish the monopoly over the main judicial appointments that the English legal profession had secured by around 1340. This was mainly because English lawyers (with no previous Irish connections) continued to be appointed to serve

as justices in Ireland. The appointment of English jus-tices to serve in the Irish courts and the education of the Irish legal elite in England must also have played a role in ensuring that the Irish Common Law contin-ued to bear a close resemblance to its English cousin.

Even in the thirteenth century there was some devel-opment of a distinctive Irish custom within the Com-mon Law—at least in part from an accommodation with native Irish law, for example in allowing, in the case of homicides against native Irishmen, the payment of compensation (éraic) rather than imposition of the death penalty. The existence of an independent Irish parliament with unfettered freedom (prior to 1494–1495) to enact its own legislation also allowed the development of a body of statutory law modifying the Common Law, quite distinct from that of England. The earliest such legislation now known dates from 1278.

PAUL BRAND

References and Further Reading

Brand, Paul. “The Early History of the Legal Profession in the Lord-ship of Ireland, 1250–1350” and “Ireland and the Literature of the Early Common Law.” In Brand, P. The Making of the Com-mon Law. London and Rio Grande: The Hambledon Press, 1992.

Donaldson, A.G. Some Comparative Aspects of Irish Law. Durham, N.C. and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957 Hand, Geoffrey J. English Law in Ireland, 1290–1324. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1967.

See also Anglo-Norman-Invasion; Chief Governors;

Courts; Education; Feudalism; Government, Central; Government, Local; John; March Law;

Parliament; Records, Administrative;

Society, Functioning of Anglo-Norman;

Urban Administration

COMPERTA

Comperta (“birth tales,” plural of Old Irish compert [conception/birth]) are among the classes of tales found in Irish narrative literature, and they deal almost exclusively with the events surrounding the conception and birth of a hero. The native classification was according to tale type, usually the first word of the title. Examples of the classes Comperta, Imrama (Voy-ages), and Echtrai (Expeditions) are: Compert Con Culainn (Birth of Cú Chulainn), Imraim Brain (Voyage of Bran), and Echtrae Chonnlai (Expedition of Connlae). Two lists of the various classes of tales survive in Irish manuscripts and are referred to as List A and List B, of which List B includes the class Comperta.

These lists contain the stories that a medieval Irish poet would have been expected to be able to narrate.

The genre of the Compert, or birth tale, appears to be quite ancient. It is present not only in Celtic tradi-tion, but also in mythologies worldwide (e.g., the birth COMMON LAW

CONNACHT of Jesus and also Hercules in Greek myth) and is a

major element in the life of the hero. It would seem that each episode in the heroic biography (e.g., Com-pert, Aided [violent death], etc.) corresponds with the different stages of the ritual life cycle, and so these tales are of a symbolic rather than a factual nature. The heroic biography emphasises the conception and birth of the hero, which is consistently of an extraordinary nature and is sometimes found incorporated into another story, such as the larger story of the hero’s life.

For example, the story of the birth of Cormac mac Airt has come down to us in two tales, which include not only the conception and birth of Cormac, but also his life story, containing many of the features of the heroic biography. However, sometimes the conception and birth of the hero appears as a tale in its own right. The most prominent of these in Irish literature are Compert Con Culainn, Compert Conchobuir, and Compert Mongáin.

Two versions of Compert Con Culainn have come down to us from an original probably composed in the eighth century. In what is likely the older version, Dechtine, daughter of Conchobor, king of Ulster, adopts a child who is the son of the god Lug. The child dies and Lug appears to Dechtine in a dream, telling her that she is pregnant by him and that she would give birth to a boy whom she was to call Sétantae. She subsequently marries and aborts the fetus. She again becomes pregnant, this time by her husband, and gives birth to a boy whom she calls Sétantae. It is this child who is later renamed Cú Chulainn.

There are also two versions of Compert Conchobuir (the same Conchobor, king of Ulster, who appears above as uncle of Cú Chulainn). Again, there was a probable eighth-century original of this tale. The earliest version tells how one day the druid Cathbad comes upon Nessa, princess of Ulster. In answer to her question regarding what the hour was lucky for, Cathbad declares “Begetting a king upon a queen.” Nessa becomes pregnant by Cathbad at her own request and carries the child for three years and three months. Although Conchobor’s father is Cathbad, he is known as Conchobor mac Nessa.

Also a likely eighth-century composition, Compert Mongáin opens with Fíachnae mac Báetáin, the king of Ulster, leaving for Scotland to fight alongside his friend, Aedán mac Gabráin, against the Saxons. While Fíach-nae is away, a noble-looking man visits his wife. He convinces her that Fíachnae is in mortal danger and that he will help her husband if she will sleep with him and bear him a famous son, Mongán. She sleeps with the stranger and he keeps his promise. Fíachnae returns safely and his wife bears a son, known as Mongán mac Fíachnai, although he was the son of the god Manannán mac Lir, who was, in fact, the stranger who came to her.

Undoubtedly Comperta were written for many other Irish heroes but have been lost. Under the heading of

Comperta in List B mentioned above, five tales appear.

Of these only two have survived: Compert Con Culainn and Compert Conchobuir. Another, Compert Cormaic Uí Chuinn (Birth of Cormac grandson of Conn), does not survive, but is found, as is stated above, incorporated into two other tales. The other two, Compert Conaill Chernaig and Compert Cheltchar maic Uithechair, do not exist in the extant literature. Furthermore, the tale Compert Mongáin does not appear at all, showing that this is hardly an exhaustive list.

NORA WHITE

References and Further Reading

Carney, James. Studies in Irish Literature and History. Dublin:

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1955.

Gantz, Jeffrey. Early Irish Myths and Sagas. Harmondsworth:

Penguin, 1981.

Mac Cana, Proinsias. The Learned Tales of Medieval Ireland.

Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1980.

Meyer, Kuno. The Voyage of Bran. London: Llanerch, 1895.

Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás. The Heroic Biography of Cormac mac Airt. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1977.

Rank, Otto. The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. New York:

Vintage Books, 1964.

See also Áes Dána; Aideda; Echtrai; Immrama;

Poets/Men of Learning; Ulster Cycle

CONNACHT

Early History

Connacht is provided with natural borders by the river Shannon and Loch Ree in the east and the Curliew Mountains on the northeast. The Ulster Cycle has the legendary warrior-queen Medb and her husband Ailill rule the province from their royal seat at Cruachain (Rathcroghan), the capital of Connacht, a complex of ringforts, mounds, and earthworks. It is located in the traditional heartland of the later kings of Connacht, the Uí Chonchobair, who employed the nearby prehistoric burial cairn of Carnfree as a royal inauguration site.

The name Connacht is derived from the Connachta dynasty, which according to tradition takes its name from Conn Cétchathach (“of the Hundred Battles”), legendary king of Ireland. According to the genealo-gies, from him were descended the brothers Niall Noígiallach (“of the Nine Hostages”), Brión, Fiachra, and Ailill, progenitors of the Uí Néill, Uí Briúin, Uí Fiachrach, and Uí Aililla, respectively. The Uí Néill allegedly originated in Connacht, but migrated into the midlands and then the north of Ireland. The other three dynasties remained in Connacht.

Between the fifth and the eighth centuries the Uí Fiachrach was the most prominent Connacht dynasty. However, it split into two branches, with the Uí Fiachrach Aidni settling in the south and the Uí Fiachrach Muaide in the northwest of the prov-ince. Rivalry within Uí Fiachrach led to its weaken-ing, and from the third quarter of the eighth century none of their kings became kings of Connacht. In the eighth century the Uí Aililla was also in decline.

The vacuum left by this dynasty opened the way for the Uí Maine, a quite powerful dynasty, although unrelated to the Connachta. The Uí Maine, of which the Uí Ceallaigh was later the dominant branch, settled in the southeast.

Of the various Connacht dynasties, the Uí Briúin emerged as the strongest. This dynasty split into the Uí Briúin Ai, Uí Briúin Seóla, and Uí Briúin Bréifne.

The former stayed in the original Uí Briúin territory around the traditional royal seat in Connacht. They again splintered, and one of their branches developed into the Síl Muiredaig, from whom sprang the Uí Chonchobair kings of Connacht. Due to the dynasty’s later significance, early regnal lists of Con-nacht have undergone extensive revision to give the Uí Briúin more distinction. The Uí Briúin Seóla were forced into lands centred on Loch Corrib, and the Uí Briúin Bréifne found a new home in what are now approximately Counties Leitrim and Cavan.

Throughout the medieval period Bréifne was regarded as being part of the province also. Another area that was considered to be part of Connacht, though only in the early Middle Ages, was that portion of Thomond (literally North Munster) that is now County Clare.

According to tradition, the region was conquered in the fifth century by Munster kings; however, the hegemony of the Connacht king Guaire in the sev-enth century seems to have reached into Thomond.

Clonmacnoise, founded in the sixth century, became the richest and most prestigious of the ecclesiastical centers in Connacht’s sphere of influence, though it suffered from many Viking incursions and techni-cally, sited just east of the river Shannon, it lay outside the province. It became the burial place of the kings of Connacht.

The Anglo-Norman Era

Although Connacht enjoyed prominence in ancient times, it exerted no great influence beyond its own borders again until the twelfth century, with the rise of the Uí Chonchobair. From Connacht’s most power-ful sept emerged Tairrdelbach Mór Ua Conchobair (1088–1156), whose remarkable career culminated in

his occupying the high kingship of Ireland. His son and successor Ruaidrí ruled at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion and was Ireland’s last high king. A

his occupying the high kingship of Ireland. His son and successor Ruaidrí ruled at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion and was Ireland’s last high king. A