The tríocha céad, also known as trícha cét, meaning "thirty hundreds", was a unit of land-holding in eleventh and twelfth century
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
.
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- Land units[MacCotter, Paul; ''Medieval Ireland: Territorial, Political and Economic Divisions'', pg. 13. ]Four Courts Press
Four Courts Press is an independent Irish academic publishing house, with its office at Malpas Street, Dublin 8, Ireland.
Founded in 1970 by Michael Adams, who died in February 2009, its early publications were primarily theological, notably t ...
, 2008. The term appears to relate to the number of troops an area could raise.
Background
Described as a "spatial unit of royal
tenure
Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...
,
taxation
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, local government, and military
levy
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* Levy (surname), people with the surname Levy or Lévy
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* Levy Barent Cohen (1747–1808), Dutch-born British financier and community worker
* Levy ...
", the trícha cét largely corresponded to a local petty kingdom ruled by a petty king.
[ibid pg. 22] A minority, however, were ruled by a ''taisaig'' (leader) or an ''airríg'' (governor), appointed by a superior kings.
In the
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
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 ...
, a tríocha céad was subdivided into roughly twenty-eight ''baile biadhtaigh'' (ballybetagh), meaning "lands of a food-provider", and around 463 ''seisrigh/seisreachs'', meaning "six-horse plough-teams".
During the eleventh century, the system became established across the island, a refinement on a pre-existing system.
See also
*
Townland
A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic orig ...
*
Carucate
The carucate or carrucate ( lat-med, carrūcāta or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms ...
*
Túath
''Túath'' (plural ''túatha'') is the Old Irish term for the basic political and jurisdictional unit of Gaelic Ireland. ''Túath'' can refer to both a geographical territory as well the people who lived in that territory.
Social structure
In ...
References
External links
The Triocha Céts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tricha Cet
11th century in Ireland
12th century in Ireland
Former subdivisions of Ireland
Irish words and phrases