Bees and Brehon Law in Medieval Ireland by Kristin Gleeson

 

Brehon Bee Laws

What would happen if bees from your hive swarmed and then settled in a neighbour’s tree, or if you were stung badly by one of your neighbour’s bees? If you were living in Ireland in the 6^th century, the matter would be very clear. In the first case, your neighbour would be entitled half the yield of honey, and in the second case, you would be entitled to a sufficient amount of honey that matched the severity of the sting.

Old Irish style bee hive

Bees and the honey they produced were an important element in early Medieval Ireland and other parts of Europe. They were a significant source of nutrition for people who lived in a land that in many areas was often wet and difficult to farm. Honey also possessed an antiseptic quality that was important for internal healing, as well as external healing. And of course when fermented, it provided a drink that could make you forget how wet and difficult the land was to farm.

In Britain and the rest of Europe the hives were made of straw, coiled into the familiar cone shape and stitched together with thin branches of brambles/blackberries stripped of their leaves and thorns, called a ‘skep’ from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘skeppa’ meaning ‘basket.’ In winter they would put straw tents over the skeps to keep out the elements, called ‘hackles,’ if they weren’t in little stone nooks, or ‘boles,’ like those of the monks of Lindisfarne. In Ireland, however, where cattle grazed outdoors all year and little straw was harvested, I was told by local historians sedgegrass was used instead, well up until the last century. The hives were then thatched against the rain that fell all year round and kept against the south wall of the ‘lios’ or wall of the home area. 

Bees were kept not only on farms but also at religious communities in early Christian times. Monks (managh) and nuns (cailecha) tended the sick and injured among their community, as well people in the surrounding area. One such cailecha was Gobnait, a woman who settled in West Cork and established a convent, or community of women. She became so well known for her healing, with honey as her staple medicine, that her fame spread and eventually, after her death, she became the patron saint of bees.

6th century ruins possibly of St Gobnait's community

With bees such a vital part of the daily lives of medieval Irish people, it is no surprise that they featured in the Brehon laws. “Brehon” is an ancient Irish term for judge. Over the centuries the judges accumulated a series of laws which they passed down orally from one generation of judges to the next. To qualify to become any one of the various levels of judges and lawyers (which in all likelihood were offshoots of the poets (filidh) required that the person study at one of the nemed schools. It was a period of study that lasted a number of years in which they learned poetry as well as the laws.

Under the Brehon laws there were five paths to judgement: truth, duty, right, propriety and proper inquiries. These paths ensured that each case was considered carefully.  The choices were thrashed out beforehand by the respective lawyers in a process called airthacra, which was akin to hearing of legal arguments in modern court case.  Most disputes, however, were usually settled before they wound up in court.

During the early Christian period, from about the 5^th century to the 8^th century the laws and law cases were recorded by Christian clerics and ‘adjusted’ if it the laws didn’t fit the Christian outlook. Most of our knowledge of early Irish or Brehon law comes from these old Irish law texts, mainly composed in the 7th and 8th centuries. Some of these texts have survived in a complete form in later manuscripts (generally of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries), but many are to be found only in fragments. The best preserved collection of early Irish law texts is that of the Senchás Mar, "great tradition," which is likely to have been organized as a unit about A.D. 800. The texts in this collection are all anonymous, and it is not known where or by whom they were put together. However, most of the place-names and personal names cited in the texts relate to the northern Midlands and southern Ulster, so it is probable that the material derived from this area. It may have been assembled in a monastic law school, such as that at Slane, County Meath.

Much of the Brehon law is founded on the principle of restitution, rather than punishment, so often the judgments involved various types of compensation for any injury done. The cases and laws therefore encompassed much of what mattered in everyday life. The Senchás Mar originally consisted of 50 law texts broken up into three sections. There doesn’t seem to be a strict logic to the arrangements except that similar subjects are grouped together. For example, the law text relating to cats is followed by the law text relating to dogs. 

Ranking of lawyers & other professionals in Ireland

In the first third of the work there is a general discussion of legal topics and a description of St Patrick’s role in its codification. This essay is followed by laws on the formal seizure of another’s property to enforce legal claims against him. There is also a discussion on the acts regarding hostages, laws regarding the “free fief” and fosterage fees, as well as free clientship and base clientship which were two different classes in the highly stratified society that was Ireland. There were also other texts dealing with the laws of marriage and divorce, the arrangement of customary behaviour and the relationship of society to the church.

The surviving final third, like the first third, is not complete by any means. It does have evidence that suggests it may have contained laws on carpenters, coppersmiths and blacksmiths, sick maintenance as well as trapping deer. It also has medical legal texts “Judgments of Blood-lying” and “Judgements of Dian Cecht” (a legendary physician). 

Included in the middle section, the most complete section, are the judgments dealing with trespass by domestic animals, fencing obligations and other related topics. Here we can learn such interesting judgements such as if an animal is killed in a jointly owned herd and the culprit cannot be identified then a lot is cast across the whole herd. The animal on which it falls is held to be responsible. Whether or not that animal is punished is a mystery. Other interesting aspects discussed in this section include rules for bringing water for a mill across a neighbour’s land. Conflict in a situation like this is easily imaginable. A final section, which understandably gets full discussion is "Judgements Concerning Thefts."

It is in this middle section that the Bechbretha or “Bee Judgements” are found. They include a discussion of trespass by honey bees.  It’s there, for instance, we can learn that a person who is blinded by a bee gets a hive in recompense.  Or that there were penalties for a person who moves a hive not belonging to them. And most reasonably we can learn that if a person shakes or disturbs a hive and the bees should attack that person as a result, the owner was free from liability for any injuries that might result.

The Brehon laws stretched back centuries and through them we can understand the daily life of the ancient Irish. If the laws are anything to go by it shows a society that relied heavily on mediation and compensation, perhaps in attempt to avoid more violent acts of retribution, vengeance and punishment.

Bee laws and the Brehon lawyers of the time come into play in my novel, In Praise of the Bees a USA Today Bestseller set in 6th century Ireland.Buy or find out more here or go to my website

 

Veronica Franco and the Courtesans of Renaissance Venice by Kristin Gleeson

Renaissance Venice

 Travellers who visited in Venice in the 15^th, 16^th and 17^th century never failed to marvel at the number of courtesans in the city. Thomas Coryat writing in 1608 was astonished to note that there were as many as twenty thousand courtesans operating in Venice and said that “many are esteemed so loose that they are said to open their quivers to every arrow.”

Venetian Courtesans

The courtesans often dressed in clothing that had revealing cleavage to the point even where the breasts were completely exposed. Travellers on occasion mistakenly thought these were the ordinary female citizens of Venice. But just as much as they might condemn the numbers and their behaviour, the travellers’ descriptions of Venetian daily life in which the courtesan featured prominently the city is praised as an example of civic and social harmony. Two myths lying side by side. 

Venice in fact was a vibrant and complex city then, filled with merchants profiting from expanded trade opportunities and proud of its republic standing. The government was organized around a multitude of magistracies and councils and ruled by a doge, elected by a closed patrician group, called the Great Council. 

The people were generally a sober lot and the women of their class and the nobility were seldom seen in public. When they did, they too were sombrely dressed, in dark colours.

Venetian widow

Venice was also crowded with people who worked at the shipyards, at the fisheries, the glassworks and other manufacturers in this blossoming commercial centre. Housing was difficult to find, even among the wealthier classes, and few had the luxury (at least in the 15^th and 16^th century) of owning their own palazzo. Most had apartments or rooms in buildings, and some of the poorer classes shared rooms.  These conditions among a booming commercial centre created intense rivalries among the young men of various trades. Such competition often gave rise to faction fighting- sometimes fought desperately over bridges like the Rialto. Enemies of any class could be despatched in a dark alley and tossed in the canal.

Poised between these two sides of Venice were the courtesans. There were two classes of courtesans that existed in Venice. The first, cortigna onesta, honest courtesan or intellectual courtesan and the cortigna lume, the lower class prostitutes who lived near and frequented the Rialto Bridge.

The women from the first class of courtesan, the honest courtesan, were often born into patrician or merchant family they were raised as educated and cultured women. But in a society that dictated exorbitant dowries that could often bankrupt a family, extra daughters were often given no opportunity to marry. They could go into a convent and become a nun, but that still required a dowry, though not as large. They could remain in the household an ageing spinster tending to family member, forever dependent and submissive perhaps to a new mistress of the household if it should pass to a brother and his wife. Or circumstances, like poverty from funding a dowry to an older sister, or failed commercial activities could encourage a young woman to consider the life of a courtesan. Often, in these situations, a courtesan could end up being the sole support of their family. 

Venetian Courtesan

Among the Venetian men generally, courtesans were seen as cultured women who provided entertainment for wealthy noblemen and merchants.  In Venice, a man wouldn’t be expected to marry until well into his thirties and courtesans could provide these young men pleasure and culture and hopefully disease free. An older man might take a courtesan as his mistress and enjoy a less inhibited sexual experience than he would from a wife who had most likely been raised in a convent-like atmosphere.

Successful courtesans could enjoy a luxurious life filled with parties and salons. They often moved in influential circles and had access to artists, poets, politicians and the thinkers of the day. In such circles a courtesan had the opportunity to wield influence if she was skilled enough to do so. Aside from the potential for power and influence the honest courtesan still faced the possibility of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, something that observed no class barriers.

One of the most celebrated and well known Venetian courtesans was Veronica Franco, born in 1546. Born to the courtesan, Paola Fracassa and the merchant, Francesco Franco she also had three brothers.  Her intellectual life began with sharing her brothers' education by private tutors in the family home and while still in her teens she married the physician Paola Fracassa. Probably an arranged marriage, it ended badly shortly afterwards and Veronica was forced to support herself.

Veronica Franco

Franco became a cortigiana onesta (honest courtesan) in the mid to late 1560s and soon became famed for the intellectual and culture entertainments she provided. She continued her education by frequenting literary gatherings of writers and painters in Venice during the 1570s and 1580s and mingled with politicians, poets, artists and thinkers. She captured the interest of Domenico Venier (1517-1582), a Venetian poet and the head of the most renowned vernacular literary academy in Venice, who became her reader and protector. A frequent visitor to his private literary salon at Ca' Venier (the Venier palace), Franco composed sonnets and capitoli in terza rima for exchange with male poets.

By her mid-twenties, Franco was requesting sonnets for publication from male poets for anthologies that she assembled to commemorate men of the Venetian elite. One such volume, the Rime di diversi eccellentissimi autori nella morte dell'Illustre Sign. Estor Marteninengo Conte di Malapaga, in honor of the Count Martinengo, was published in 1575; she was not only the editor but also included nine sonnets she herself had written.

In 1575, during the epidemic of plague that ravaged the city, Veronica Franco was forced to leave Venice and lost much of her wealth when her house and possessions were looted. On her return in 1577, she defended herself with dignity before the Inquisition on charges of witchcraft (a common complaint lodged against courtesans in those days). The charges were dropped. She died in 1591. 

 

Corruption and Currying Favour in Medieval France

by Kristin Gleeson

Did you ever wonder where the term “currying favour” came from? I have to say it wasn't something that I ever wondered about, rather it was a term I used without thought. Recently, during an online course I took on Medieval music manuscripts, I was fascinated and astonished to discover that the term had its origins in a 14^th century satirical manuscript entitled, “Le Roman de Fauvel,” a multimedia work credited to the poet and royal chancery clerk, Gervais du Bus, with additional text by Chaillou de Pesstain and musical contributions by composers such as Phillippe de Vitry. It’s a tale of villainy, corruption and a massive abuse of power at the highest ranks. 

Hmmm. Some old tales are never old for the times. 

Through poetry, prose, music and illustrations the allegorical and cautionary tale describes the rise to power of its main character, Fauvel. What captures the imagination much more is that Fauvel is a horse. A tawny (“fauve” is tawny in English) horse that starts his life in an ordinary Parisian stable and becomes dissatisfied with his life and surroundings which he feels is too ordinary by half. As if his wish to have more manifests itself into reality, Lady Fortune comes to him and, despite her sister Raison’s (Reason) efforts to stop it--because fortune is blind—Lady Fortune puts him in the royal palace stables. In his luxurious stables he is heavily pampered while flattery, praise and adulation are heaped upon him. Fauvel believes he deserves it all. People come from far and wide to brush him, to “curry Fauvel.” No muck shall be allowed to get on Fauvel. Everyone wants his favour. Even the church showers him with attention and praise.

Fuavel’s power and influence over France’s leaders and ecclesiastical affairs increases. His numerous vices and capriciousness result in religious corruption and turmoil that cause irreparable damage to the Church and taint society. Eventually Fauvel builds his own palace and is surrounded by unscrupulous courtiers like Envy, Deceit, Vanity and Perjury. The depictions of Fauvel in the manuscript begin to take on human characteristics, with features like the king. His behaviour becomes more human like too. Eventually, he claims divine and royal authority. People come from all over to ask his advice. His rule becomes tyrannical and the only people who benefit are beautiful women and those who share Fauvel’s views. The world becomes inverted. Fools gain power, wise people are silenced. Justice is corrupt and in fact the justice court praises Fauvel. 

Fearing Lady Fortune might withdraw her favour at any time. Fauvel decides to seek a wife to consolidate his power. He chooses and proposes to Lady Fortune because he feels that marrying her would give him a huge amount of control over the world. But Fortune is fickle and she rejects Fauvel and suggests he marry Lady Vainglory instead. The wedding is attended by many guests and a joust is held with competitors that represent vices, but also the virtues, like Humility and Chastity, who hope that they might bring about Fauvel’s downfall. Ultimately, the Virtues triumph but Lady Fortune consoles Fauvel with the promise that he though he will eventually meet his demise, he will continue to spread evil through his children.

“Le Roman de Fauvel” is a dark tale with many symbolic names and metaphors that reflect the dark times France was experiencing under the tumultuous and corrupt reign of Philip IV.  The king’s administrators flagrantly abused power, admidst a growing civil service who pandered and flattered Philip IV. There was great abuse of financial power that exploited the Jewish population through heavy taxation, debasing the currency and confiscating property. The country was also in conflict with the Papacy over taxing the church. The Pope refused to allow it but King Philip ignored his pronouncement. The Pope threated to excommunicate the King if he didn’t recognize the Pope’s ultimate authority. Philip responded by sending people to arrest the Pope and imprison him. The Pope was freed but he died soon after. Another Pope was elected but he was afraid of Philip and under Philip’s direction, he moved to Avignon where the King controlled him.

The manuscript, in all its multimedia glory, gives a very vivid representation of the time period. The music is an amazing and progressive mix of monophonic and polyphonic pieces that demonstrate the avant garde skills of the internationally acclaimed Ars Nova school of music that was emerging in Paris under the master himself, Phillippe de Vitry. Filled with varying rhythms and complex multi voice parts, “Le Roman de Fauvel” shows France at the forefront of Western musical evolution and innovation with music and words that mock a corrupt society. One scene, for example, shows a noisy Charivari group wearing masks protesting Fauvel’s rule as loudly as possible, banging pots, pans, shouting and blowing horns. Another scene contains a song with political double speak of confusing and hypocritical statements, while another section parodies the clergy as singers chant words of power. 

The illustrations are lively and vividly portray the story as well as the society at large. In one illustration Fauvel sits on a throne a crown on his head, draped in a royal mantle. There are scenes showing important officials currying Fauvel with a brush that graphically tell the story of corruption that is unfolding.

The prose and poetry, written in French and Latin, is so clever and telling with the names and story so compelling. The name itself “Fauvel” was an acronym in French for Flatterie, Avarice, Villainie, (in old French “v” is also “u”) Varieté (fickleness), Envie, Lacheté (cowardice). In the tale it describes how the “vice of “fauvelling” and the muck of avarice occupy the throne and the highest position of the court. A gift makes the judge favourable and gentle. Law passes into exile, and the judgement of the law is up for sale. ‘O what infection, how great the boils that daily plague the flanks of the mighty!’ Flattering voices ascend to power. Fraudulent justice rules. ‘Merciful God apply her counsel’!” (translation from “Labouring in the Midst of Wolves” Reading a Group of ‘Fauvel Motets” by Edward H. Roesner, from Early Music History Vol. 22 (2003).

Through time, the term “currying Fauvel” became widespread across Europe, and in England, it eventually transformed into, “currying favour”. Though “Le Roman de Fauvel” may not be a modern piece of streamed content, or a wild film satire shown on Netflix and YouTube, it is a truly relevant and amazing piece of work that has many parallels today, some of them fairly chilling.

My series, The Renaissance Sojourner, set in 15th century Europe, Africa and the Silk Road shows many aspects of the political intrigue and corruption of that era. 

Kristin Gleeson is a USA Today Bestselling author of In Praise of the Bees from the Women of Ireland series as well as Celtic Knot series, The Highland Ballad series and Rise of the Celtic Gods series. Visit her website at www.krisgleeson.com

 

 

Clothes Maketh the Man/Woman Even in 14th Century Ireland by Kristin Gleeson

Irish Gael 14th century dress

You have probably heard phrases like “dress for success”, a phrase that hints of the older saying “clothes maketh the man”. Both phrases clearly indicate that clothes certainly form a part of the judgement one person makes about another, whether it’s conscious or not. It’s not a new concept. In the past, for example, in parts of Europe during Medieval and Renaissance times, nobles enacted sumptuary laws that prevented the rising middle classes from wearing certain items and fabrics in case those middle classes might be mistaken for nobles.

The history of fashion in a social history context has fascinated me for a long time, back to my teen years when I would pore over the two enclopedias of fashion history that I bought with my hard earned babysitting money. So, recently, when I was researching 14th century Ireland for a book I was writing, I came across a fashion rabbit hole about the clothes of that time period and gleefully travelled down it.

The first half of the 14th century was a time of great change and stress in Ireland. After 150 years or so dealing with the results of the Norman English encroachment in Irish land, the descendants of these invaders held sway over a significant portion of the country. The English king counted Ireland as its vassal by and large and, in an effort to establish greater control over the land created loosely drawn lordships or earldoms over the four Irish provinces whose boundaries were fluid. These earldoms were headed by descendants of the invaders and their Irish wives, as were their retainers, creating an Anglo Irish population (known as Galls).The earls, in an effort to expand the regions under their control fought each other and Irish chieftains constantly. The Irish Gaels formed alliances with each other or an earl, whichever achieved their struggle to maintain or expand their own holdings

Such conflicts often caused bouts of famine from neglected, plundered or unplanted fields. In addition to those challenges there were long stretches of bad weather which also contributed to sickness and high death rates. The arrival of the plague in 1348 made matters worse. The death rate from plague was higher among the Anglo Irish than the Irish Gaels for complex reasons of settlement, trade and social patterns (at least that’s what the sparse evidence suggests).

In such tumultuous times, when interaction with members of the other culture could be dangerous, assessing and correctly concluding a stranger’s identity when encountering them could be critical. The style of dress was part of that assessment, because there were distinct differences between the Anglo Irish manner of dress and the Irish Gael manner of dress. Many of the clothes that the Gaelic Irish wore were suited to the particular climate and others revealed a particular Gaelic sense of flamboyant, unlike the Anglo Irish who adopted the fashions most prevalent in England or places on the continent with which they traded.

One distinctive clothes item the Gaelic Irish wore was the cloak/mantle or brat. The brat was a rectangular shape garment and was sometimes large enough to wrap around the body five times. It could be brightly coloured with ornate decorative borders fringed and plaited or tablet woven. It was made of frieze (loosely woven wool) with tufts of wool tucked into the weave to keep out the rain. The brat was secured at the breast often with a bronze, silver or iron brooch or pin, depending on the wearer’s social status. Under the brat, they wore a long shirt /tunic(léine), an ankle length sleeveless garment worn next to the skin and made of either white or gel (bright) linen. It was secured at the waist by a belt with which it could be hitched up to allow greater freedom of movement. The footwear among those of higher status would be leather boots or shoes, but for those of lesser status it was more practical and cheaper to go barefoot in a country whose climate was wet with winters that were relatively mild.

Irish Gael dress 

If riding, or engaged in vigorous outdoor activity, a male Irish Gael often wore truibhas (trousers). It’s difficult to know with certainty the range of clothing women wore specifically because of the scarcity of images. The few images that do exist show them each wearing a brat and a léine, like the men, but their heads are covered with a veil or headdress and occasionally, like the men, they would wear an ionar, a form of short tunic. Other parts of the Irish Gaelic clothing range included a short-hooded cloak called a cochall and a poncho-type cloak of coloured and patterned cloth called a fallaing and interestingly, a kind of woollen truibhas (trousers) with feet and soles.

In contrast, as previously mentioned, the Anglo Irish wore more sober coloured clothes that were closer to that of the style found in England and parts of the continent. They wore tunics of mid to lower calf length with Magyar style sleeves belted at the waist, with a white sash from which a scabbard was suspended. On top of that, if needed they wore a traditional mantle or cloak. In the mid-14th century a closer fitting outfit emerged for Anglo Irish men, consisting of a knee length garment called a gipon, a forerunner of the doublet, which was worn with hose. Unlike the Gaelic Irish men, the Anglo Irish tended to be clean shaven. Anglo Irish men and women also wore an underdress, or kirtle, and an overgown, or surcoat. The surcoat could be sleeved or sleeveless, with deep armholes and vertical slits called fitchets that provided access to objects suspended from the girdle. Both male and female versions of the surcoats had a slit at the neck. In winter a mantle, or fur-lined cape was also worn. Later, the Gaelic Irish mantle was adapted and became and important trade item. Among the Anglo Irish, by the early part of the 14th century, along with the mantle, some of the men apparently adapted the Irish Gaelic truibhas as indicated in statutes that were enacted that sought to discourage Anglo Irish from adopting Irish Gaelic modes of dress.

English Medieval dress

Fashion and clothes styles for any one time period in the past can tell much about the peoples and the time in which they live. The style and composition of the clothes of the Irish Gaels show them to be aware of the need to be out in a wet climate and the need for a flexible type of clothing for active outdoors, for example. The Anglo Irish clothes reflect their close connection to their English overlord and the importance and profitability of showing their links to their trade partners in England and on the continent.

The distinct differences in fashion between the Anglo Irish and the Gaelic Irish meant that when encountering a stranger or a group of strangers, each could use the information about their appearance to judge whether they might be a potential enemy, or even a person who would more likely been exposed to the plague. And those clothes certainly might “maketh the enemy” or the friend.