BREHON (Irish, breitheamh, a judge), the name given to a magistrate among the ancient Irish. These magistrates seem to have been hereditary, and before the introduction of Christianity probably combined the offices of judge and priest. They administered justice to their respective tribes— each tribe had one brehon — seated in the open air upon some sods placed on a hill or eminence. The poet Spencer, in his of the State of Ireland,' refers to the Brehon law as an unwritten code handed down by tradition. He was, however, mistaken in regarding it as an unwritten code. Patriarchal as was the administration of the Brehon law, its transmission was not left to tradition. In the earliest manuscripts extant it is said to have been revised by Saint Patrick and other learned men, who expunged from it the traces of heathenism and formed it into a code called the Senchus Mor, about 440, and it is implied that a previous written code, written in the ancient Irish tongue, existed. There is a great similarity between the Brehon laws and the laws of the Druids as explained by Cesar in his Commentaries. The Brehon law was ex clusively in force in Ireland until 1170. Various ineffectual attempts were made by the English government to suppress it, and it was finally abolished by James I in 1605. The Brehon laws, like other laws passed at the same period of European history, contained, with some rude principles of justice, many barbarous institu tions. The state of society indicated in them
seems to be a sort of transition from the com munal ownership and periodical reparation of the land found among several Teutonic nations, to a manorial organization. Several distinct social ranks are indicated, ranging from the nobles to the serfs. They had regular courts, with the right of appeal from lower to higher ones. Most offenses, even including murder, could be commuted by fines, which were fixed with minute precision; but the fines were paid in kind, since coined money was unknown. The laws also carefully provide for and regulate the raising of the children of the upper classes by members of the subordinate classes. The marriage laws were of a very loose character, and the law of inheritance is obscure and coth plicated. Women were free to own property and to enter into contracts concerning it. Until recently these laws have been involved in great obscurity. A commission was appointed in 1852 to superintend the publication and translation of the ancient laws of Ireland; and between 1865 and 1885 an edition of the Mor' was published in five volumes. Consult Arbois de Jubainville, 'Etudes sur le droit celtique' (Paris 1895) ; Joyce, 'Social History of An cient Ireland' (Vol. I, London 1903), and Maine, History of Institutions (Lon don 1875).