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The ''Cáin Adomnáin'' (Law of Adomnán), also known as the ''Lex Innocentium'' (Law of Innocents), was promulgated amongst a gathering of Irish,
Dál Riata Dál Riata or Dál Riada (also Dalriada) () was a Gaelic kingdom that encompassed the western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. At its height in the 6th and 7th centuries, it covered what is n ...
n and Pictish notables at the
Synod of Birr The Synod of Birr, held at Birr in modern County Offaly, Ireland in 697 was a meeting of churchmen and secular notables. Best remembered as the occasion on which the Cáin Adomnáin—the Law of Innocents—was guaranteed, the survival o ...
in 697. It is named after its initiator Adomnán of Iona, ninth
Abbot of Iona The Abbot of Iona was the head of Iona Abbey during the Middle Ages and the leader of the monastic community of Iona, as well as the overlord of scores of monasteries in both Scotland and Ireland, including Durrow, Kells and, until the Synod of ...
after St.
Columba Columba or Colmcille; gd, Calum Cille; gv, Colum Keeilley; non, Kolban or at least partly reinterpreted as (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is tod ...
. It is called the "Geneva Accords" of the ancient Irish and Europe's human rights treaty, for its protection of women and non-combatants, extending the Law of Patrick, which protected monks, to civilians. The legal symposium at the Synod of Birr was prompted when Adomnáin had an
Aisling The aisling (, , approximately ), or vision poem, is a poetic genre that developed during the late 17th and 18th centuries in Irish language poetry. The word may have a number of variations in pronunciation, but the ''is'' of the first syll ...
dream vision wherein his mother excoriated him for not protecting the women and children of Ireland.


History

During almost two centuries, and more precisely the years 697-887, nine different ordinances were promulgated and kept in the record of the annals of Ireland. Each ordinance was issued either by a saint or monastic group. Three texts of these legislations have come to us, the earliest being Cáin Adomnáin - ''Lex Innocentium'' - proclaimed by Adomnán, abbot of Iona, at the synod of Birr in 697.Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha, The guarantor list of Cáin Adomnáin, 697; pp. 178-215, Brepols Online

According to D.N. Dumville, it is suspected that the promulgation of this law in 697 was a centennial commemoration of Columba, who died in 597.Dumville, D.N., "Review" of O'Loughlin's ''Adomnan at Birr, AD 697: Essays in Commemoration of the Law of the Innocents'' in the ''Catholic Historical Review'', pp. 283-284, Volume 89, Number 2, April 2003
/ref> The ''Cáin Adomnáin'' includes a guarantor-list featuring 91 political and ecclesiastical figures from Ireland, Dal Riata, and Pictland, which has been shown to be near contemporaneous to the promulgation of the Law in 697. As a successor of Columba of Iona, Adomnán had sufficient prestige to assemble this group of chieftains and clerics. The list of secular rulers is headed by
Loingsech mac Óengusso Loingsech mac Óengusso (died 703) was an Irish king who was High King of Ireland. Loingsech was a member of the northern Cenél Conaill branch of the Uí Néill. Although his father Óengus (died 650) had not been High King, his grandfather Domn ...
, who was the Cenél Conaill King of Tara. Adomnán was related to this king, and it has been suggested that an alliance with Uí Néill royal power helped ensure widespread support for the Law. As well as being the site of a significant monastery, associated with Saint Brendan of Birr, Birr was close to the boundary between the
Uí Néill The Uí Néill (Irish pronunciation: ; meaning "descendants of Niall") are Irish dynasties who claim descent from Niall Noígíallach (Niall of the Nine Hostages), a historical King of Tara who died c. 405. They are generally divided into t ...
-dominated northern half of Ireland, and the southern half, where the kings of Munster ruled. It, therefore, represented a form of neutral ground where the rival kings and clerics of both sides of Ireland could meet. Various factors, including
Marian devotion Marian devotions are external pious practices directed to the person of Mary, mother of God, by members of certain Christian traditions. They are performed in Catholicism, High Church Lutheranism, Anglo-Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Orien ...
in seventh- and eighth-century Ireland, are supposed to have contributed to inspire Adomnán to introduce these laws, but it may also be that as
Columba Columba or Colmcille; gd, Calum Cille; gv, Colum Keeilley; non, Kolban or at least partly reinterpreted as (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is tod ...
's biographer, he was prompted by the saint's example. It was originally known as the ''Law of the Innocents'' and focused on the beneficiary noncombatants. Upon its renewal in 727, it referenced its author.Charles-Edwards, T.M., ''Early Christian Ireland'', p.560, Cambridge University Press, 2000


Content

The indigenous Brehon Laws were committed to parchment about the 7th century, most likely by clerics. Most scholars now believe that the secular laws were not compiled independently of monasteries. Adomnan would have had access to the best legal minds of his generation. This set of laws were designed, among other things, to guarantee the safety and immunity of various types of noncombatants in warfare. It required, for example, that "whoever slays a woman... his right hand and his left foot shall be cut off before death, and then he shall die." If a woman committed murder, arson, or theft from a church, she was to be set adrift in a boat with one paddle and a container of gruel. This left the judgment up to God and avoided violating the proscription against killing a woman. The laws also provided sanctions against many things like the killing of children, clerics, clerical students and peasants on clerical lands; rape; impugning the chastity of a noblewoman and women from having to take part in warfare. Much repeated traditional Irish laws. The law described both the secular fines which criminals must pay and the ritual curses to which lawbreakers were subject. Bystanders who did nothing to prevent the crime were as liable as the perpetrator.Grigg, Julianna. "Aspects of the Cain: Adomnan's Lex Innocentium", ''Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association'', Vol.1, 2005
/ref> "Stewards of the Law" collected the fine and paid it to the victim or next of kin.


Legacy

According to the
Irish Annals A number of Irish annals, of which the earliest was the Chronicle of Ireland, were compiled up to and shortly after the end of the 17th century. Annals were originally a means by which monks determined the yearly chronology of feast days. Over ...
, in 727 the relics of Adomnán were brought to Ireland for the renewal of the Law. and these relics returned to Iona in 730. Adomnán's initiative appears to be one of the first systematic attempts to lessen the savagery of warfare among Christians, a remarkable achievement for a churchman on the remote outer edge of Europe. In it, he gave local expression, in the context of the Gaelic legal tradition, to a wider Christian movement to restrain violence. It was an early example of international law in that it was to be enforced in Ériu and Albu, (Ireland and Britain) although Britain refers to only what is now northern Scotland for it was the kings of that region who were guarantors of the Law. As with later clerical efforts, such as the Peace and Truce of God movement in millennial
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, the law may have been of limited effectiveness.
Fergus Kelly Fergus Kelly is an academic at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. His research interests centre on early Irish law-texts and wisdom-texts. He graduated in 1967 in Early and Modern Irish from Trinity College Dublin. He spent a year in ...
notes that no cases relating to the Cáin Adomnáin have been preserved. Thus, it is unknown whether the harsh penalties which it mandates, which may have contradicted the general character of Irish law, were rigidly enforced.Kelly, pp.234–235: "the law texts of the ''Senchas Már'' collection consistently favour reparation by payment rather than the death penalty for murder and other serious offences (by either sex)." There are annalistic examples of the justice of the Cáin Adomnáin being applied, such as here by Cenél nEógain High King
Niall Glúndub Niall Glúndub mac Áeda ( Modern Irish: ''Niall Glúndubh mac Aodha'', "Niall Black-Knee, son of Áed"; died 14 September 919) was a 10th-century Irish king of the Cenél nEógain and High King of Ireland. Many Irish kin groups were members of t ...
, for whom the
O'Neill Clan The O'Neill dynasty (Irish: ''Ó Néill'') are a lineage of Irish Gaelic origin, that held prominent positions and titles in Ireland and elsewhere. As kings of Cenél nEógain, they were historically the most prominent family of the Northern ...
of
Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
are named. * ''In 907 the sanctuary of
Ard Macha Armagh ( ; ga, Ard Mhacha, , "Macha's height") is the county town of County Armagh and a city in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the ...
was violated by Cearnachan mac Duilgen who took a captive from the church and drowned him in
Lough Cier ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spellin ...
nearby.'' * ''This perpetrator was taken by Nial Glundub mac Aedha, Righ an Tuaisceirt, having replaced his brother Domnall as king of the north, and he drowned Cearnachan in the same lake Lough Cier in revenge for the violation of Padraicc.''


Notes


Further reading

*
Cáin Adomnáin, 697: the Irish ‘Geneva Convention’, ''History Ireland. Issue 1 (January/February 2015), Volume 23.''
*''Adomnán's Law of the Innocents - Cáin Adomnáin: A seventh-century law for the protection of non-combatants'', translated by Gilbert Márkus. Kilmartin, Argyll: Kilmartin House Museum, 2008. * Adomnán of Iona, ''Life of St Columba'', edited & translated Richard Sharpe. London: Penguin, 1995. * * ''Adomnán at Birr, AD 697: Essays in Commemoration of the Law of the Innocents''. Edited by Thomas O'Loughlin. (Dublin: Four Courts Press. 2001) *


External links



of the ''Cáin Adomnáin'' by Kuno Meyer at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cain Adomnain Early Gaelic legal texts Medieval legal codes 7th century in Scotland 697 7th century in Ireland Law of war 7th century in law