Money in Early Christian Ireland According To The Irish Laws

Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History
Money in Early Christian Ireland according to the Irish Laws

Author(s): Marilyn Gerriets
Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr., 1985), pp. 323-339
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Money in Early Christian Ireland
According to the Irish Laws
MARILYN GERRIETS
St. Francis Xavier Universi,t
The origins and first uses of money have long been topics of interest to
scholars. Although economists today still repeat Adam Smith's argument that
money was created to eliminate barter, researchers with an extensive knowl-
edge of archaic and primitive cultures have shown that money was often
required for reasons other than the indirect exchange of goods.' Irish evidence
gives a European example of primitive money used to pay fines and to meet
social obligations; what made the money valuable was that it enabled its
recipients to perform these functions. Money was not used to facilitate the
indirect exchange of goods.
Documentation of use of early Irish money use differs greatly from that for
other noncommercial moneys. Because primitive societies are rarely literate,
evidence of their institutions usually comes from the observations of an-
thropologists, scattered references from more advanced neighbours, or re-
cords made after the primitive region has been conquered by a more advanced
region. Irish evidence was not recorded by outsiders. No foreigners invaded
Ireland until the Viking attacks of the ninth century. The major alien intrusion
was Christianity, but the Catholic Church appears not to have drastically
altered the economic organization of secular society.2 It did introduce writing
into a culture with a long tradition of specialized learning. As a result, the
Irish produced a vernacular, secular literature including a law texts compiled,
most likely by jurists, during the late seventh to early eighth century.3 These
texts provide an indigenous written record of primitive institutions usually
described only by outsiders.
I wish to thank Ann Dooley, John Kelleher, Abraham Rotstein, and Andrew Watson, who were
helpful in preparing drafts of this article.
I Philip Grierson, 'The Origins of Money," Research in Economic Anthropology, 1 (1978),
1-35; A. Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York, 1937), 22-23; R. G. Lipsey et al.,
Economics, 2d ed. (New York, 1976), 635; K. Polanyi, 'The Semantics of Money Uses," in
Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economics, G. Dalton, ed. (New York, 1968), 175-203; G.
Dalton, 'Primitive Money," American Anthropologist, 67:1 (1965) 44-65.
2 K. Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society (London, 1966).
3 D. A. Binchy, "The Linguistic and Historical Value of the Irish Law Tracts," in Celtic Law
Papers. Introductory to Welsh Medieval Law and Government, D. A. Binchy, ed. (Brussels,
1973), 82, 97-99; C. Doherty, "Exchange and Trade in Early Medieval Ireland," Journal of the
Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 110 (1980), 70.
0010-4175/85/2857-6339 $2.50 ? 1985 Society for Comparative Study of Society and History
323
324 MARILYN GERRIETS
The Irish law texts describe the use of money in widely varied situations;
their potential value for this study is obvious. Unfortunately, they do have
their difficulties and biases. In no society do the rules of law and actual social
practice exactly correspond. Law, by its very nature, is conservative, and
jurists may be selective in the spheres of activity they discuss. The Irish laws
doubtlessly give a biased view of Irish society and in fact present obsolete
institutions as if they were living.
Nonetheless, study of the laws can greatly increase our understanding of
the economy of early Christian Ireland. Although jurists preserved obsolete
laws in parchment, they also recorded new practices. Thus they may describe
the old practice and explicitly state that it is no longer used.4 Or a mythologi-
cal explanation for a legal innovation may be introduced.5 Most often, the
jurists discuss the current practice in detail and continue on to describe the
obsolete practice briefly.6 The process of adding new practices to texts while
retaining obsolete rules continued until the early eighth century when the texts
were given canonical form and underwent no subsequent change. The reten-
tion of obsolete rules does make a clear understanding of Ireland at the time of
their recording more difficult to attain, but it also increases the value of the
laws as a source for study of the history of Indo-European law and society in
general.
Other biases in the legal sources present greater difficulties to the economic
historian. The jurists present overly schematic, idealized version of Irish
society in which institutions likely to produce conflicts requiring intervention
of a jurist (such as clientship) are discussed in far more detail than those less
prone to create such conflicts (such as the family). These biases cannot be
completely overcome and the caveat "according to the Irish laws" must be
retained in any study based on them. However, the jurists were thorough in
their discussion of the social classes of Ireland; it is unlikely that a major
group of people or major class of activity has been altogether ignored. An
awareness of the textual biases and frequent comparison of early Christian
Ireland with societies having similar characteristics should ensure that the
portrait of early Christian Ireland according to the Irish Laws does not differ
too greatly from reality.7
The law texts describe a complex monetary system in which the Irish
required two money functions, a unit of account and a means of payment; a
means of indirect exchange appears to have been unnecessary because there
was little exchange of goods for goods; transfers of goods were determined by
4 Crith Gablach [Branched purchase], D. A. Binchy, ed. (Dublin, 1941), lines 46-62.
5 Corpus luris Hibernici, D. A. Binchy, ed. (Dublin, 1978), 209, lines 12-23.
6 D. A. Binchy, "Distraint in Irish Law," Celtica, 10 (1973), 31; idem, "Linguistic and
Historical Value," 100-104.
7 Binchy, "Linguistic and Historical Value," 91-93.
MONEY IN EARLY CHRISTIAN IRELAND 325
an individual's social obligations, not by the need to exchange an undesired
good for a desired good. The need for money was independent of the need for
market exchange.
Defining precisely what will and what will not be considered as "money"
has presented great difficulties in studies or primitive economies. Often econ-
omists have attempted to find the single characteristic essential to money.
Means of indirect exchange is the currently favoured characteristic.8 Unit of
account or standard of value has been considered the essential attribute of
money in the past.9 I believe it is more useful simply to specify the functions
conventionally agreed to be monetary-unit of account, means of payment,
means of indirect exchange-and to regard as money any object or account-
ing device which serves these functions. 10 The thrust of the argument will not
be altered if others prefer to reserve the term money to means of indirect
exchange; however the concept of money is defined, means of payment and
standards of value appear independently of means of indirect exchange.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Political power was decentralized in Ireland. The smallest territorial unit was
the tuath (plural tuatha); Francis Byrne has estimated that there were 150 of
these, each headed by a king. I' Within the tuath a hierarchy of nobles was
subordinate to the king. The king, at least in pre-Christian times, was a sacral
figure. He was also the most powerful political figure in the tuath, but he was
not sovereign in the modern sense of the term, since his ability to legislate and
enforce law was limited. 12 The kings were not all of equal status; lesser kings
were subordinate allies of superiors. The most powerful kings in early Ireland
were the heads of the provinces. The provincial kings attempted to dominate
each other, but there was no king of all Ireland.
Kinship was the primary social connection of the normal freeman and
provided considerable protection of his legal rights and access to property.
Law enforcement was essentially a private matter. In cases of dispute with an
outsider, the family could apply the pressure required to bring the case to
arbitration before a judge and to ensure that the penalties thereby determined
8 M. Friedman and A. J. Swartz, Monetary Statistics of the United States: Estimates, Sources,
Methods (New York, 1970), 89-200, and D. Fisher, Monetary Theory and the Demandfor
Money (New York, 1978) 8-40, discuss the various definitions and the differences between
them. However, J. K. Galbraith, Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (Boston, 1975), 5,
characteristically dispatches the problem in a single clause.
9 D. A. Martin, "The Medium Is Not the Money," Journal of Economic Issues, 6 (1972),
68-69. In his comments on an earlier draft of this article, Dr. Martin drew my attention to the
preference of some economists for a unit of account definition of money.
10 See Polanyi, "Semantics of Money Uses," 175.
1 F. Byre, Irish Kings and High Kings (London, 1973), 7.
12 Ibid., 31.
were exacted. Distraint could be used to force a recalcitrant wrongdoer into
arbitration and to exact payment of penalties.13
The Irish engaged in more pastoral farming than did other Western Euro-
peans. The damp, cool climate inhibited growth and ripening of grains, par-
ticularly wheat, and encouraged the growth of grass. The pastoral bias of the
economy encouraged a dispersed pattern of settlement. Most people lived in
isolated homesteads of small hamlets that were separated by regions of heavy
forest, although monasteries included large concentrations of people other
than monks and some may in fact have been cities. The pastoral bias by no
means precluded arable farming, however, and its importance in Irish society
has often been greatly underestimated. While dairy products were important
in the diet, grain was grown and, in the form of bread and porridge, was a
very important food.'4
Even though arable farming was important as a source of food and absorbed
a large quantity of productive resources, pastoralism dominated Irish mores
and social institutions. Because herds can increase through natural reproduc-
tion or decrease through disease and because livestock are easily stolen, an
individual could alter his wealth and social standing through good manage-
ment, luck, or clever theft in Ireland, as in other pastoral societies. Moreover,
warfare often took the form of cattle raids that could drastically alter the
livestock holdings of a region. Thus skills and institutions providing protec-
tion of cattle and other property were necessary and valued. 15
The extent of violence in early Christian Ireland is not known. The law
texts give the impression that within the taath disputes were normally re-
solved by payment of compensation and that taatha often negotiated treaties
(called cairde) which allowed for peaceful settlement of disputes. However,
these texts would be expected to discuss resolution of disputes by juristic
process and to ignore breakdowns in the legal system. The annals record
considerable interprovincial warfare which took the form of cattle raids. Oc-
casionally the leadership of the provincial king weakened, and groups of
tuatha within a province attacked each other. There could, of course, have
also been frequent petty raids between taatha that were ignored by the annals
as not worthy of note. As a result of the biases of the law texts and the annals,
the frequency of physical violence and the extent of an individual's need for
physical protection cannot be determined with certainty. Quite possibly
provincial or mesne kings of large groups of tuatha possessed sufficient
13 Kuno Meyer, "The Distribution of Cr6 and Dibad," Eriu, 1:2 (1904), 214-15; Binchy,
"Distraint in Irish Law."
14 D. 6'Corrain, Ireland before the Normans (Dublin, 1972), 50-51, 55-56; Crith Gablach.
15 W. Goldschmidt, "A General Model for Pastoral Social Systems," in Pastoral Production
and Society (Proceedings of the International Meeting on Nomadic Pastoralism, Paris, 1-3
December 1976), L'Equipe Ecologie et Anthropologie des Soci6t6s Pastorales, eds. (Cambridge,
1979), 20.
control over their subordinates to prevent cattle raiding led by petty kings.
Normal judicial processes could have been used to resolve disputes among
individuals or to redress crimes. Violent conflict may ordinarily have oc-
curred only between provinces or large subdivisions of them. However, this
view may underestimate the extent of violence.
Protection of property by either violent or peaceful means and access to
social mobility were provided by clientship, a voluntary tie of personal depen-
dence, in which the social superior provided military protection, legal sup-
port, and productive goods in return for attendance in his retinue or war band,
a flow of goods, or labour services from the inferior. 16 The relative power and
wealth of the clientship partners determined the degree of inequality in the
alliance and the precise nature of the goods exchanged; the lower the status of
the dependent, the less likely he was to serve attendance in the lord's retinue
and the more likely he was to provide goods or manual labour.
Such ties of dependence permeated all levels of Irish society and all of its
institutions. Nobles had dependents drawn from the ranks of free commoners
and of nobles. 17 The kings of Ireland were allied to one another through ties
of dependency with exchanges of military alliances and goods. 18 The Catholic
Church also adopted the Irish system of dependency, receiving its material
support and occasionally military services from dependent free commoners. 19
The major monasteries, such as Armagh, controlled daughter monasteries
through alliances which resembled those of a superior king and his dependent
kings.20 Base clientship (aicillne), was the alliance of a noble and a free
commoner.
In base clientship, the noble lord gave his commoner client a grant of cattle
and protected his legal rights and physical security. In return, the client paid a
wide variety of foodstuffs each year and joined the lord's retinue and war
band. The obligations of clientship strongly influenced the wealth, the power,
and the status of the parties. A noble was by definition a man who had clients;
the more clients he had, the higher his rank. In fact, the physical basis of his
power rested in the number of supporters he could muster. Clients benefitted
16 See M. Gerriets "Economy and Society: Clientship in the Irish Laws," Cambridge Medi-
eval Celtic Studies, 6 (Winter 1983), 43-61, for a fuller discussion of Irish clientship. L. Mair,
"Clientship in East Africa," Cahiers d'etudes africaines, 2 (1962), 315-25, provides a general
discussion of clientship which shows how typical many of the Irish features were.
17 Clientship between nobles was called sderrath. Nobles also had dependents of servile
status, but these ties were not always voluntary, so they do not qualify as clientship ties.
18 Byme, Irish Kings, 43-44.
19 The law texts do not discuss the obligations of the manach, the Church's dependents, but
they frequently add the manach after the base client in lists of status ranks with certain obligations
or relationships to their superiors. The implication is that the social position of dependents of the
Church and of lay lords was similar. See R. Thureysen, "Die Burgschaft im irischen Recht,"
Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie des Wissenschaft, Philosophisch-historische Klasse 2
(1928), 9.
20 Hughes, The Church, 78.
from the protection a noble provided. In addition, the payments of foodstuffs
the noble received, while not his sole revenues, helped him to live without
labouring. The cattle granted to the client added milk and beef to his diet and
also enabled him to make payments of cattle essential to social obligations.
Further research is required before the organization of trade and the place of
the market in early Irish society can be precisely known, but the role of
market exchange was limited. In the Irish economy, the market may have
served regional and foreign trade and trade in crafts, but other institutional
arrangements were also possible.21 For example, craftsmen were often depen-
dants of nobles, as were poets and musicians; interregional trade may have
been largely accomplished through gifts and tribute exchanged between kings;
foreign trade may have been regulated by territorial kings rather than follow-
ing the rules of the market.22 It is sufficient for this study to know that most of
the Irish were farmers or nobles, consuming their own produce or exchanging
it with kinsmen or clientship partners. We will see that even if these men
never engaged in market trade, they often needed money.
USES OF MONEY
Ireland was no different from most primitive societies in requiring extensive
networks of exchange in order to provide social cohesion.23 A survey of Irish
institutions requiring exchange shows that money was important in establish-
ing social ties between individuals and in resolving conflicts caused by crimes
or insults, that is, money was used within a prestige sphere of exchange. The
Irish laws give no evidence of money being used in the exchange of subsis-
tence goods, such as food, clothes, or craft items. Even when money was
used in institutions of great economic importance, such as clientship, the
money still served social rather than purely economic ends.
The major uses of money in the Irish laws were to quantify fines of all
sorts, to determine honour price (discussed below) and associated legal rights
of the individual, and to establish the size of payments in fosterage and
clientship. Moneys were also paid out as bridewealth but I have found no
detailed discussion of the custom or the scale of payments.24 In addition,
miscellaneous uses of money are revealed in texts limiting the size of bequests
21 The monasteries may have been centres of market trade because of the Church's need for
imported goods such as wine and because monasteries became centres of craft production. See
also Doherty, "Exchange and Trade," 81.
22 Some craftsmen and musicians derived their status from noble patrons. See Crith Gablach,
lines 486-87, and Corpus luris Hibernici, 1617, lines 11-20. Payments of tribute and gifts were
common between allied kings and would have provided for a considerable flow of goods.
23 A. Rosman and P. Rubel, "Exchange as Structure or Why Doesn't Everyone Eat His Own
Pigs," Research in Economic Anthropology, 1 (1978), 105-30, for an excellent discussion of the
role of exchange in creating social cohesion.
24 For example, see R. Thurneysen, "Cain Lanamna: Die Regelung der Paare," in Studies in
Early Irish Law, D. A. Binchy, ed. (Dublin, 1936), 49; Corpus luris Hibernici, 222, lines 7ff.
to the Church, determining the payment for a pledge, and setting a fee for
running a millrace through another's land.25
In primitive societies, a private settlement between parties compensates and
placates the victim and provides a sanction against wrongdoing.26 In Ireland
all wrongdoings were atoned for by fines, and as a result this category of
payments is very large. It includes fines for injury, murder, improper dis-
traint, improper use of legal procedure, trespass, theft, cutting down protected
trees, and so forth. The acceptance of a fine in place of revenge for murder
was the norm, not the exception. Revenge may have continued when the
murderer and victim were members of different tuatha, but if two tuatha had a
treaty they could peacefully resolve such disputes.27
The size of some fines was determined simply by the severity of the
offence. Trespass of cattle required payment of a fine which varied with the
number of cattle, the quality of land, and the season, plus restitution of
whatever the cattle consumed.28 Cutting down a tree where this was prohib-
ited entailed a specific fine which varied with the type of tree.29
On the other hand, if the offence besmirched the honour of the victim, then
a payment was made to compensate for that damage. The payment was called
honour price, its amount being larger the higher the status of the victim. The
status of the free commoner varied with his possessions of cattle, land, and
household equipment, whereas that of the noble depended on the number of
clients he possessed.30 Payment of honour price was required in a variety of
situations involving insult or violation of the individual's person, his kin or
dependents, or his property. Circumstances in which it was paid included
murder, theft, satire, violation of the protection offered another, refusal of
hospitality, the arson or raid of a man's house, and rape of his wife or
daughter.31 If festival clothes were given as a pledge on another's behalf,
failure to redeem the pledge before the festival required payment of honour
price to compensate for the embarrassment of being deprived of appropriate
clothing.32
Frequently honour price was paid in addition to a fixed penalty for the
offense. Thus a murderer paid his victim's honour price plus a fine for
murder, which was invariable for all free men.33 A thief paid the victim's
25 Corpus Juris Hibernici, 532, lines 8-12; 462, lines 30-34ff; D. A. Binchy, "Irish Law
Tracts Re-edited: I. Coibnes Uisci Thairidne," Eriu, 17 (1955), 68-71.
26 The power of a gift to obligate the recipient to the giver, and thus in the case of fines prevent
the victim from attacking the wrongdoer, has of course been well described in Marcel Mauss, The
Gift, I. Cunnison, trans. (London, 1954).
27 Crith Gablach, lines 358-65.
28 Corpus luris Hibernici, 66, lines 32-39.
29 Ibid., 202, lines 13ff.
30 Crith Gablach, lines 354-56, 376-78. Gerriets, "Economy and Society," 59.
31 Crith Gablach.
33 D. A. Binchy, "Legal Glossary" to Crith Gablach, 85.
honour price plus restitution of three to four times the value of the stolen
goods.34
The significance of honour price transcended payment of fines; honour
price determined a wide variety of rights and obligations of an individual. The
ability to quantify the status of an individual was essential to the Irish legal
system. The Irish practised fosterage, in which a father sent his child to be
reared by another family, thus establishing a close bond between the child and
that family. On sending the child, the father paid a sum equal to his own
honour price to the foster father.35 In clientship between a noble and a com-
moner, the payment which the client received was divided into two portions,
one of which was the same as his honour price.36 The maximum bequest a
person might make to the Church was, in certain circumstances, no greater
than his honour price.37
Honour price may also have defined a man's legal capacity. The Crith
Gablach, a legal text giving a detailed description of Irish society, states that a
person was not permitted to act as a surety or a witness in disputes where the
sum at issue was larger than his honour price.38 These restrictions are not
found in all the legal texts, particularly not in older ones, and may stem from
either excessive schematization or a real change in legal practice during the
time of compilation of the tests.39 If it was a real proscription, then a man
either was required to depend on a social superior-such as a lord-to speak
for him in legal disputes concerning large amounts or needed to have several
free commoners speak for him, summing up their honour prices.
I am not aware of other societies which explicitly quantified status in this
way, although in many European systems a man's wergeld may have been a
measure of status similar to honour price. Honour price may have existed in
Ireland and not elsewhere because the highly specialized profession of jurists
found the concept convenient. Alternatively, the concept of honour price may
have existed elsewhere and not been attested because legal sources as detailed
as the Irish were not preserved.
Another use of money, not directly associated with honour price, was in
stating the payment, fuillem, to be made in return for a pledge. When some-
one incurred a debt or other obligation, a third party generally acted as surety
34 R. M. Smith, "Bretha im gatta" [Judgements concerning theft], Irish Texts, 4: (1934),
18-20.
36 R. Thumeysen, "Aus dem irischen Recht: I. Das Unfrei-Lehen," in Zeitschrift fir cel-
tische Philologie, 14 (1923), 335-94. Receipt of the portion of the payment equal to his honour
price apparently increased the client's subordination to his lord and for this reason it was made
distinct from the remainder of the payment.
37 Corpus luris Hibernici, 532, lines 8-12. The restriction of the size of the bequest reflects
secular society's desire to protect the land holdings and other property of the lineage by limiting
the amounts which could be alienated to the Church.
38 Crith Gablach.
39 Binchy, "Legal Glossary," 85-86.
and gave a pledge. The debtor paid the surety fuillem in return for giving the
pledge. The payment was associated with the process of forfeiture of the
pledge, but it is distinct from slan, the penalty for forfeiture. Some adjustment
in the size of the fuillem was made for the value of the pledged object, yet it
did not depend simply and directly on the value of the object. Fuillem clearly
varied greatly with the status of the pledger.40
These uses of money show that in Ireland, as in many other primitive
societies, a unit of account was needed to quantify social obligations and
social status, and a means of payment was needed to effect the transfer of
wealth required by the social obligation. Some of these uses are found in
modem market economies; fines require a means of payment. In modem
market economies we presume the use of money in paying fines derives from
money's primary role in the allocation of resources. Payment of a fine allo-
cates a specific value of goods from one party to another. In early Christian
Ireland, as in other primitive societies, the use of money in paying fines and to
meet socially determined obligations did not derive from the correspondence
between a sum of money and a quantity of goods; money was not used in the
laws to represent a specific quantity of goods. In the tract on pledges, money
is used to quantify thefuillem, but it was not used to specify the value of the
good given in pledge. When restitution of a forfeited good was required, the
text occasionally states that an item of value equal to the good pledged should
be restored, but it never states the value of an object.41
There are other cases in which the use of money to measure honour price or
fines contrasts sharply with its absence in measuring the value of goods. In the
Crith Gablach, which is most detailed in matters of enumeration, honour
price is given for each grade of status, and household possessions are listed in
detail. Money is continually used for the former and never used for the latter.
The foods to be given to someone on sick maintenance are described-a value
is never specified. The payments from a lord to a client, which were normally
in cattle, are given in money, yet the payment of miscellaneous foodstuffs
which the client made to the lord is never given a monetary value, even
though one text avoids the detailed description given elsewhere by using a
brief summary.42 The consistent use of money to measure obligations con-
nected with status and payments in cattle, and the equally consistent failure to
measure the value of goods in general, imply that the moneys were not
normally used to quantify the value of goods and were not normally used to
purchase goods.
The pattern of using money for only a portion of the exchanges, and even
then for transactions less connected with providing for livelihood, cannot be
40 Corpus luris Hibernici, page 462, line 19, through page 477, line 24.
41 Ibid.
42 Crith Gablach; Thumeysen, "Aus dem irischen Recht."
attributed to chance or an inability to develop more advanced forms of money.
The Tiv of central Nigeria also used a money-brass rods-in only the
prestige sphere of exchange. They used no money in the exchange of subsis-
tence goods.43 The moral distinction between exchange of subsistence goods
and maintenance of social standing was ensured by the use of money in only
one of those two spheres. Use of the same moneys in the subsistence sphere
would have equated obtaining a client or paying a fine for murder with buying
food or clothing.
Payment of a sum in early Christian Ireland did transfer wealth from one
party to another by the transfer of money. But this transfer of wealth did not
occur because of any use the money might have in being exchangeable for
valued commodities; all evidence indicates that it was not so exchangeable.
Possession of a quantity of money was valued because of the social leverage it
gave to the individual. The more money one held, the more easily one could
marry, arrange to foster children, or compensate others for one's wrongdo-
ings. Money secured an individual's social position, not his material income.
THE MONEYS
Although the Irish used money only within the prestige sphere of exchange,
they had a number of different moneys. Cattle, silver, and possibly grain were
means of payment and units of account. In addition there were two abstract
standards of value, the set (plural seoit) and the cumal (plural cumala), which
corresponded to no physical objects. They, of course, could not be used as
means of payment.44 The lack of unity of the monetary system is emphasized
by the absence of precise rates of exchange between the money items. Appar-
ently jurists who recorded the laws needed only rough estimates of the value
of the set in terms of cows or of the cumal. In order to complete this descrip-
43 The Tiv used brass rods as a money when exchanging cattle, medicine, slaves, and offices,
that is, in their prestige sphere, but no money was used in market exchanges of food and other
goods in the subsistence sphere of exchange. The difficulty of using the highly valued brass rods
for purchases of inexpensive subsistence goods helped the Tiv maintain a moral distinction
between exchanges in the prestige sphere and those in the subsistence sphere. When the British
outlawed marriage by the exchange of women and replaced brass rods with British coin, the
money first introduced into markets for subsistence goods became the only money which could be
used in prestige exchanges. As a result, food is now exported to the point of creating scarcity as
men attempt to obtain the money needed to pay for a wife. Since wives are in fixed supply, their
bride prices are simply inflated. Use of one money in both spheres of exchange has been
extremely disruptive of the social order. See P. Bohannan, "The Impact of Money on an African
Subsistence Economy," The Journal of Economic History, 19 (1959), 491-503.
44 An abstract unit of account is certainly unique neither to Ireland nor to primitive moneys in
general. In commercial exchanges in medieval England, the pound was a useful reckoning unit
although no coin corresponded to it. Indeed its usefulness was increased by its separation from
coin because a debt recorded in pounds did not vary in the quantity of silver owed should the
silver content of the coins happen to change; rather, the number of coins per pound would be
altered. The unit of account in Irish law may have been useful for a similar reason. Payments
could be stated in these abstract terms within the law texts while the quantity of silver or cattle
actually paid out varied from time to time or place to place.
tion of money in early Christian Ireland, there follows a survey of the physical
objects and abstract standards, together with a discussion of their values.
The cumal was the highest unit of value. Literally the word means "female
slave," and Hibemo-Latin canons replaced it with the equivalent term, an-
cella. It is a very common standard of value, found in nonlegal literature as
well as in the laws. The cumal was solely a standard of value, at least in the
eighth century; there is no evidence of payments of slaves in the secular
laws.45 An ecclesiastical canon indirectly suggests that the slave might herself
have constituted the payment when it states that if the slave were not to be
paid, silver should be paid instead.46 I have found no stronger suggestion that
slaves might themselves be physically given in payment. Both secular and
ecclesiastical texts frequently refer to units of one half a cumal, clearly not an
amount which could be paid in a slave.47 The law texts never refer to payment
of half a cow, and cows were a means of payment.
The most common form of money in the Irish legal texts is the set. The
word can best be compared with pecunia, which (according to a recent analy-
sis of its etymology) first meant "wealth" and later gained the specialized
meaning "cattle."48 The general meaning of set was "valuable" or "chat-
tel," and it came to refer specifically to a head of cattle. As a money, the set
was a standard of value which quantified the value of an obligation. Since it
had no specific physical counterpart it was not a means of payment.
The measures of silver-the ounce and scruple-can be considered to-
gether. The Irish terms were all loan words indicating a borrowed system of
measurement. The Irish word for ounce, ungae, was derived from Latin
uncia. The Irish term, screpul, stemmed from scripulus, another Latin mea-
sure of weight equalling one twenty-fourth of an ounce.49 These measures
were standards of value only; they were not designations of coins. The evi-
dence of coin hoards indicates there there were no coins minted or circulating
in Ireland in the seventh and eighth centuries.50 When metal was the means of
payment, it was in the form of bullion or, perhaps, worked up into goods.
45 R. Thurneysen, "Celtic Law," in Celtic Law Papers: Introductory to Welsh Medieval Law
and Government, Binchy, ed., 66, states that by the time the surviving tracts were written, the
term cumal was only a convenient expression for a number of cows.
46 L. Bieler, The Irish Penitentials (Dublin, 1963), 170-71, ?2.
47 For example, ibid., ?4; Cdin Adamndin: An Old Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamndn, K.
Meyer, ed. and trans. (Oxford, 1905), 32-33, ?50; D. A. Binchy, "Bretha Crolige: Sick
Maintenance in Irish Law," Eriu, 12 (1934), 6-7, ?2.
48 E. Benveniste, "Livestock and Money: Pecu and Pecunia," in his Indo-European Lan-
guage and Society, E. Palmer, trans. (Coral Gables, Florida, 1973), 40.
49 A. R. Bums, Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times (1927; rpt. New York, 1965),
267. In later texts, the word pinginn, or penny, appears. It derives from Old Norse penningr and
could not have come into use until after the Viking settlements and the end of the early Christian
era. See D. Green, "The Influence of Scandinavian on Irish," in Proceedings of the Seventh
Viking Congress, B. Almqvist and D. Greene, eds. (Dublin, 1976), 79.
50 K. Hughes, Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources (Ithaca, 1972), 37.
Moneys which remain to be considered were physical objects that were
used to make payments (but see the description of the sack below). However,
the use of these moneys as standards of value will be discussed before their
use as means of payment.
As is typical of pastoral societies, cattle were commonly used as units of
account and means of payment. They were distinguished by age, sex, and
stage in the reproductive cycle: heifers, milk cows, pregnant cows, recently
calved cows, and calves of various values.5' Male animals older than calves
are not mentioned, a phenomenon which curiously parallels the omission of
the male slave as a standard of value, but the reason in this case is that most
male calves were slaughtered for meat.52 The minor distinctions in value
among the various categories of mature cows must be regarded with suspicion
as an example of the jurists' zeal for classification. Within the law texts these
distinctions may have indicated the ordinal magnitude of various liabilities,
but much of their use must be attributed to an excessive enthusiasm for precise
detail. Still, the differences in value among calves of different ages, heifers
not producing milk, and mature milk cows were significant. As a result, cattle
were a divisible form of money, varying in value from the youngest calf to a
producing milk cow.
The miach was a dry measure of unknown size, often translated as "a
sack." A sack of grain or malt (the law texts rarely specify the contents) may
have been a form of money. This measure appears infrequently as a standard
in the laws, either because it was not widely used or because disputes requir-
ing payments of very small sums were not generally referred to a jurist.53 The
sack certainly could have been extensively used as a money by the poor,
especially by those too poor to own cattle, while the jurists ignored it. On the
other hand, the jurists sometimes refer to nonmoneys in measuring sums
smaller than the value of a young calf.54 Presumably the sack could have been
used more easily than nonmonetary objects, if it had been a common standard
of value. The evidence is insufficient to determine whether or not the sack
was a money.
Although the monetary function of standard of value is easily studied
through the Irish laws because the purpose of many legal tracts is to quantify
the value of obligations, the actual means of payment is more elusive because
the making of payments occurs not in the texts but in the society itself. Jurists
tend to specify the good used to make payment only when its use was
atypical. When the text only implies use of a particular good we can more
reliably perceive normal practice.
51 For example, see D. A. Binchy, "Bretha Dein Checht" [Judgements of Den Checht], Eriu,
20 (1966), 30-31, ?13.
52 R. Thureysen, "Aus dem irischen Recht," 347, ?8.
53 The sack is used in laws regulating trespass by animals and similar disputes between
neighbouring farmers. See Corpus luris Hibernici, 66, lines 32-39.
54 Ibid., 1609, lines 14ff.
The set and cumal, being standards only, in no way indicate the means of
payment. However, when the other moneys-cattle, the ounce, the scruple,
or the sack-are mentioned, the reasonable assumption is that payment was
intended to be made in cows, silver, or grain. But this assumption is some-
times wrong, as illustrated by the following specification of honour price:
A wound [measuring] a grain of wheat in the cheek of a supreme king [and of such
extent] that it can cover the single grain which falls into it-the value of a milch-cow
in silver [is due] for it.55
In this case, the milk cow represents a standard of value measuring the
quantity of silver to be paid. Since cattle could be used as standards, we
cannot automatically assume that their use as a means of payment was as
frequent as their mention in the legal texts might indicate. Any of the moneys
could be used as a standard while the actual payment took another form.
Another money could be paid or payment could be made in kind. However,
explicit statements about the use of cattle as means of payment demonstrate
that they were the normal means of payment.
A cumal [is due] for a [blemish on] a goodly leg [together] with choice foreign steeds.
The thigh of a noble body [when blemished] involves [a penalty of] seoit which shall
be paid in heifers and mantles. The exact cumal [which is due for a blemished] hand
shall be paid, besides in cattle, in silver to the amount of one-third.56
The fief [paid in return for] a calf of the value of a sack with its accompaniment and
hospitality of three men in summer [is] three heifers or their equivalent.
The fief [paid
in return for] a wether with its accompaniment [is] six heifers or their equivalent.
The fief [paid in return for] a dartaid calf with its accompaniment [is] 12 seoit.57
The naming of the type of cattle with the statement "or the equivalent"
implies that the animals themselves-the heifers-would often be the means
of payment. The equivalency could be other types of cattle equal in value to
the heifers, or other goods altogether. The use of the twelve seoit is a change
to another unit of account, but in most cases cattle were still the normal
payment. The following quotation assumes the seoit were living beasts. "Cat-
tle" was a secondary meaning of the word set.
If the seoit which the lord paid are living, although age and service have worn them, if
payments were rendered with proper loyalty, the lord does not refuse his seoit although
they are not as valuable as when he granted [them].58
Silver was also a means of payment, as indicated by its specification in two
of the quotations given above. Since presumably only the wealthy possessed
55 Binchy, "Bretha Dein Checht," 26-27 ?5.
56 Ibid., 40-41, ?30.
57 Thureysen, "Aus dem irischen Recht," 359-60, ??15-17.
58 Ibid., 384. ?49.
silver, its use could not have been as frequent as the use of cattle in payment.
Because jurists make explicit reference to the good being paid only when it is
atypical, explicit references to payment in silver are more common than are
references to payments in cattle (distinct from the use of cattle as a standard).
Some quotations specifying silver as a means of payment include payments in
gold as well. To the extent that gold was available, it was probably used as a
means of payment, but here the texts may be exaggerating the amount of use
of this metal. Silver, not gold, was the metal employed as a standard of value,
and this fact argues for the relative infrequency of payments in gold.
What is the amount of the leech's fee from these wounds in [the case of] a single
grain? A dairt [calf] for the leech or its equivalent in silver.59
A cumal [for lasting injury to] the fair form [?] of the face is paid over [and brought]
to the residence of the [injured] man together with [the other] fines which shall be paid
in refined gold and silver.60
The use of grain as a means of payment can only be speculated upon
because of its appearance in the laws is infrequent. The only example of
payments of sacks of grain, as distinct from the use of the sack of grain as a
standard, is as part of the food-rent paid by a client to his lord. However, this
payment included a wide variety of goods not generally used in other pay-
ments; it should therefore more properly be regarded as a payment in kind. As
discussed above, sacks of grain were likely to be ignored by professional
jurists. Unfortunately, the evidence does not permit determination of the
monetary function of grain.
Since the Irish had several types of moneys, the values of these moneys in
terms of each other as well as in terms of goods in general must be deter-
mined. The value of cattle and silver are, of course, not problems in the same
way that the set and cumal are, for in the case of a man required to pay three
cows, we know precisely what objects were to be paid. Moreover, we know
that he was required to pay one fourth of the herd of twelve cows which the
crith Gablach says he owned. Although his herd was unlikely to have con-
tained precisely twelve cows, it is clear that a payment of three cows was
heavy, and a payment of ten or more cows would impoverish a normal
freeman. Thus if the equivalencies between cattle and the other moneys are
established, an estimate of the magnitude of the obligation in real terms can be
made.
The values determined from equivalencies found in edited texts of the
canonical strata of the laws are summarized in Table 1. The reader should
keep in mind that the edited tracts are a small portion of the total body of laws
59 Binchy, "Bretha Dein Ch&cht," 26-27, ?7.
60 Ibid., 40-41, ?31. This paragraph is full of difficulties; see Binchy's note concerning them
at pages 61-62.
TABLE 1
Derived Equivalencies of Eighth-Century Irish Moneys
1 set From /2 to 1 cow
1 cumal From 6 to 8 seoit, but with some variance
1 cumal About 3 ounces of silver
Cows per cumal No apparent norm
Seoit per ounce of silver No apparent norm
Note: The sources and method of derivation of these values are presented in full in M. Gerriets,
"Money and Clientship in the Ancient Irish Laws" (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1978),
99-110.
and that equivalencies between the moneys are rather infrequent. Until more
edited tracts are available, these figures must be considered tentative. In
addition, temporal and regional variations in relative values may obscure
more stable exchange rates.
This tendency of convergence towards norms in some cases and absence in
any norm in others suggests a particular pattern of money uses. Silver was a
precious metal likely to be used for large sums. The cumal was the largest
monetary unit. As large obligations quantified by the cumal may often have
been paid in silver, an equivalency between the cumal and silver was needed.
Similarly, smaller debts were likely to be measured in set and paid for in
cattle, so that an equivalency between the set and cattle was required. It is
likely that the cumal and silver were used more often by nobles than by
commoners, but there is no evidence of taboos against commoners using
silver. The noble must often have made payments with cattle, as he certainly
did in giving a fief to his client. A commoner was very unlikely to have
owned silver, but the cumal was used to quantify the large fief paid to a high
status commoner. Indeed, one would expect more evidence of a normal
equivalency between the cumal and cattle than appears because payments
quantified by cumala must frequently have been made in cattle.
Although there seem to have been normal equivalencies where they were
most needed, there was still indeterminacy in the monetary system. The
precise number of cows to be paid for a given value in cumala was unclear,
and there was considerable flexibility in the ratio of seoit to cattle. Of course,
cattle were an incompletely fungible money and thus some indeterminacy was
unavoidable. In today's legal system, even this degree of imprecision would
cause difficulties. However, the early Irish legal system was one more of
arbitration than of execution of law. Each case could be successfully settled
only when a solution was presented which mollified both sides-or at least
seemed sufficiently just to the community that the wrongdoer could be pres-
sured into compliance. As a result, any precise sum which the texts specified
was to be paid for insulting a king, or for striking a noble so as to leave a
bruise, would in practice be adjusted to the circumstances of the incident.
Precision, by the nature of this legal system, was false. The law texts could
guide a jurist arbitrating a dispute, but they could not dictate the sum to be
paid.
CONCLUSION
Determination of a single origin of money is in some sense a futile pursuit.
Surely whenever payments or the need to quantify obligations or values
became frequent, a people have discovered the convenience of fixing on
specified objects or concepts to use as means of payment or standards of
value. The researcher will be guided to the first uses of money, which must
have varied from culture to culture, by observing the origin of payment
situations or of situations requiring quantification of obligations.
Nonetheless, the history of Irish money supports the hypotheses suggested
by many scholars regarding the origins of primitive money. Frederick Pryor
has shown that noncommercial moneys are associated with a lower level of
development than are commercial moneys, a conclusion congruent with the
first uses of money being noncommercial ones.61 Philip Grierson argues that
the first use of money was to pay wergeld.62 I doubt whether it is possible to
determine with any certainty which payment of social obligations was the first
to require money, but the Irish evidence certainly supports the position that
social obligations necessitated the use of money long before the exchange or
bartering of commodities did.
Irish moneys differed from modem money in crucial ways. A unified
money system was not required-indeed, the indeterminacy of the precise
payment to be made for a particular offence may have given the legal system
an essential flexibility. The law texts reflect the prestige sphere of exchange
and restrict use of moneys to that prestige sphere. There is no evidence that
goods themselves could be assigned prices. That is, while Irish moneys could
quantify the status of an individual, they were not used to quantify the value
of goods. Most primitive societies do have petty markets or occasional barter
with or without money, and lack of evidence of those elements in Ireland may
merely be a bias of the sources. However, it is certain that the jurists did not
use money to give prices to goods.
Although the situations requiring the use of money in Ireland, as in other
primitive societies, differed greatly from those of modem society, in other
ways the role of money in Irish and modem society was similar. Pursuit of
money motivated the individual, for by obtaining money he could advance in
status, power, and wealth. In the Irish system, accumulation of money led to
61 F. Pryor, "The Origins of Money," Journal ofMoney, Credit, and Banking, 9:27 (1977),
393.
62 Grierson, "The Origins of Money," 12.
achievement of these goals because it eased the creation of new social ties.
For example, payments of cattle were required to obtain clients, and the more
clients an individual possessed the higher his honour price, the greater his
military power, and the larger his income. In the modem West, an individual
obtains money to obtain wealth, and at the same time generally acquires status
and power (or responsibility) proportionate to the wealth. In both societies,
the individual tends to be motivated by the pursuit of money, but because
money operates in different spheres, the patterns of behaviour differ. In the
one, productive relations must be used to their full potential, while in the
other, social relations must be carefully manipulated.
In early Christian Ireland, money and the trading of goods were embedded
in the larger social system; institutions superficially similar to those of today's
economy played a very different role in Irish society. Many economic histo-
rians ignore these changes, assuming that the market mechanism with its
unification of money, trade, and markets dominates economic decision mak-
ing everywhere, although the grit of custom and tradition may clog its opera-
tion. This assumption of the universality of the market principle distorts our
understanding of the past and obscures major questions for economic histo-
rians; money has been required in the absence of market exchange and,
indeed, apart from the problems of allocating resources by any means. In
early Christian Ireland, money was of primarily social significance; it helped
the Irish secure their material wants only because those wants were secured
through social institutions. The market is not the only situation requiring
money.

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Money in Early Christian Ireland according to the Irish Laws

According to the Irish Laws

St. Francis Xavier Universi,t

money was created to eliminate barter, researchers with an extensive knowl-

indirect exchange of goods.

other noncommercial moneys. Because primitive societies are rarely literate,

evidence of their institutions usually comes from the observations of an-

thropologists, scattered references from more advanced neighbours, or re-

region. Irish evidence was not recorded by outsiders. No foreigners invaded

altered the economic organization of secular society.2 It did introduce writing

into a culture with a long tradition of specialized learning. As a result, the

Irish produced a vernacular, secular literature including a law texts compiled,

texts provide an indigenous written record of primitive institutions usually

described only by outsiders.

helpful in preparing drafts of this article.

I Philip Grierson, 'The Origins of Money," Research in Economic Anthropology, 1 (1978),

Dalton, 'Primitive Money," American Anthropologist, 67:1 (1965) 44-65.

2 K. Hughes, The Church in Earlv Irish Society (London, 1966).

Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 110 (1980), 70.

practice exactly correspond. Law, by its very nature, is conservative, and

institutions as if they were living.

Nonetheless, study of the laws can greatly increase our understanding of

the economy of early Christian Ireland. Although jurists preserved obsolete

historian. The jurists present overly schematic, idealized version of Irish

society in which institutions likely to produce conflicts requiring intervention

their discussion of the social classes of Ireland; it is unlikely that a major

group of people or major class of activity has been altogether ignored. An

awareness of the textual biases and frequent comparison of early Christian

too greatly from reality.7

required two money functions, a unit of account and a means of payment; a

means of indirect exchange appears to have been unnecessary because there

Historical Value," 100-104.

7 Binchy, "Linguistic and Historical Value," 91-93.

an individual's social obligations, not by the need to exchange an undesired

has presented great difficulties in studies or primitive economies. Often econ-

omists have attempted to find the single characteristic essential to money.

Means of indirect exchange is the currently favoured characteristic.8 Unit of

account or standard of value has been considered the essential attribute of

conventionally agreed to be monetary-unit of account, means of payment,

means of indirect exchange-and to regard as money any object or account-

be altered if others prefer to reserve the term money to means of indirect

exchange; however the concept of money is defined, means of payment and

standards of value appear independently of means of indirect exchange.

each other, but there was no king of all Ireland.

provided considerable protection of his legal rights and access to property.

Law enforcement was essentially a private matter. In cases of dispute with an

characteristically dispatches the problem in a single clause.

preference of some economists for a unit of account definition of money.

10 See Polanyi, "Semantics of Money Uses," 175.

1 F. Byre, Irish Kings and High Kings (London, 1973), 7.

were exacted. Distraint could be used to force a recalcitrant wrongdoer into

arbitration and to exact payment of penalties.13

economy encouraged a dispersed pattern of settlement. Most people lived in

isolated homesteads of small hamlets that were separated by regions of heavy

forest, although monasteries included large concentrations of people other

very important food.'4

a large quantity of productive resources, pastoralism dominated Irish mores

ment, luck, or clever theft in Ireland, as in other pastoral societies. Moreover,

livestock holdings of a region. Thus skills and institutions providing protec-

tion of cattle and other property were necessary and valued. 15

solved by payment of compensation and that taatha often negotiated treaties

(called cairde) which allowed for peaceful settlement of disputes. However,