''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' or ''Di Chetharṡlicht Athgabálae'' (

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic (, Ogham, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ; ; or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from 600 to 900. The ...

for "The four paths of distraint") is an

early Irish legal Early Irish law, also called Brehon law (from the old Irish word breithim meaning judge), comprised the statutes which governed everyday life in Early Medieval Ireland. They were partially eclipsed by the Norman invasion of 1169, but underwen ...

tract dealing with

distraint Distraint or distress is "the seizure of someone’s property in order to obtain payment of rent or other money owed", especially in common law countries. Distraint is the act or process "whereby a person (the ''distrainor''), traditionally eve ...

, i.e., the seizure of property in order to receive money owed. It is the 2nd text of the ''

Senchas Már ''Senchas Már'' (Old Irish for "Great Tradition") is the largest collection of early Irish legal texts, compiled into a single group sometime in the 8th century, though individual tracts vary in date. These tracts were almost certainly written ...

''.

Manuscripts

Two manuscripts give a continuous copy of ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' (

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

MS Harley 432 and

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

MS 1336) however both break off before the end. Various other manuscripts preserve quotes alongside later glosses and commentary.

''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' is the 2nd text of the collection of legal texts called the ''Senchas Már'', coming directly after the introduction. It is placed in the first third of that collection. The compilation of the ''Senchas Már'' is generally dated between the late 7th and early 8th century CE. ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' deals with distraint ( in Old Irish). The early Irish legal system had an unusually robust system of

, which the English suppressed by legislation after their invasion of Ireland. D. A. Binchy has argued that the Irish system of distraint preserved a transitional phase between "primitive unrestricted seizure" (i.e., seizing of property without legal procedure) and the limited and state-controlled distraint of later legal systems (such as is present in

English common law English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures. The judiciary is independent, and legal principles like fairness, equality bef ...

). ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' is unique among the early Irish law texts in that it does not limit distraint to seizure of livestock, but allows seizure of land, persons, and nonlivestock property. Nonetheless, there are restrictions on distraint, such as a delay if the debtor is engaged in some urgent matter. Given these restrictions, ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' recommends that the person intending to distrain should employ a lawyer (whose fee would be a third of the property distrained). The formal procedure of distraint is laid out in ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'': a formal notice, a period of delay to let the indebted party repay their debt, the progressive forfeiture of property. ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' is concerned with the proper kinds of distraint to be enforced on particular categories of person. For example, among professionals, their tools are made useless until the creditor has seized sufficient property, and among dependent persons of little property (such as slaves), ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' allows the creditor to limit that person's movement and diet until their master pays the debt. According to

Robin Stacey Robin Chapman Stacey is an American medievalist and celticist based at the University of Washington, Seattle. After finishing her undergraduate life, she attended the University of Oxford where she complete her M. Litt. under Thomas Charles-Edwards, ...

, ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' "appears to incorporate so many chronological layers that it could almost be regarded as an inadvertent history of the institution". The tension between the title of the tract and its content gives an example of these chronological layers. There are fives classes of distraint in the ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'', however the title refers to "four paths", reflecting the late development of a (restricted) class of distraint available to women. The 7th-century compiler of this version of ''Cethairṡlicht Athgabálae'' knew the archaic name of the tract, but the establishment of this fifth class of distraint meant he was in no position to understand its significance. His discussion of the title gives twenty different glosses of what the "four paths" could be, all erroneous.

Manuscripts

Contents

References

Further reading