¹ Grierson, Philip, “The Origins of Money,” Research in Economic Anthropology, 1 (1978), 1–35;Google ScholarSmith, A., The Wealth of Nations (New York, 1937), 22–23;Google ScholarLipsey, R. G. et al. Economics, 2d ed. (New York, 1976), 635;Google ScholarPolanyi, K., “The Semantics of Money Uses,” in Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economics, Dalton, G.. ed. (New York. 1968), 175–203;Google ScholarDalton, G., “Primitive Money,” American Anthropologist, 67:1 (1965) 44–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Hughes, K., The Church in Early Irish Societ, (London, 1966).Google Scholar

³ Binchy, D. A., “The Linguistic and Historical Value of the Irish Law Tracts,” in Celtic Law Papers: Introductory to Welsh Medieval Law and Government, Binchy, D. A., ed. (Brussels, 1973), 82, 97–99;Google ScholarDoherty, C., “Exchange and Trade in Early Medieval Ireland,” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 110 (1980). 70.Google Scholar

⁴ Críth Gablach [Branched purchase], Binchy, D. A, ed. (Dublin, 1941), lines 46–62.Google Scholar

⁵ Corpus luris Hibernici, Binchy, D. A, ed. (Dublin, 1978), 209, lines 12–23.Google Scholar

⁶ Binchy, D. A., “Distraint in Irish Law,” Celtica, 10 (1973), 31;Google Scholaridem, “Linguistic and Historical Value,” 100–104.Google Scholar

⁷ Binchy, , “Linguistic and Historical Value,” 91–93.Google Scholar

⁸ Friedman, M. and Swartz, A. J., Monetary Statistics of the United States: Estimates, Sources, Methods (New York, 1970), 89–200,Google Scholar and Fisher, D., Monetary Theory and the Demand for Money (New York, 1978) 8–40,Google Scholar discuss the various definitions and the differences between them. However, Galbraith, J. K., Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (Boston, 1975), 5, characteristically dispatches the problem in a single clause.Google Scholar

⁹ Martin, D. A., “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.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

¹⁰ See Polanyi, , “Semantics of Money Uses,” 175.Google Scholar

¹¹ Byrne, F., Irish Kings and High Kings (London, 1973), 7.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid., 31.

¹³ Meyer, Kuno, “The Distribution of Cró and Dibad,” Eriu, 1:2 (1904), 214–15:Google ScholarBinchy, , “Distraint in Irish Law.”Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ó'Corráin, D., Ireland before the Normans (Dublin, 1972), 50–51, 55–56; Críth Gablach.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Goldschmidt, W., “A General Model for Pastoral Social Systems,” in Pastoral Production and Society (Proceedings of the International Meeting on Nomadic Pastoralism, Paris, 1–3 12 1976), L' Equipe Ecologie et Anthropologic des Sociétés Pastorales, eds. (Cambridge, 1979), 20.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Geniets, M. “Economy and Society: Clientship in the Irish Laws,” Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 6 (Winter 1983), 43–61,Google Scholar for a fuller discussion of Irish clientship. Mair, L., “Clientship in East Africa,” Cahiers d'études africaines, 2 (1962), 315–25, provides a general discussion of clientship which shows how typical many of the Irish features were.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ Clientship between nobles was called sóerrath. Nobles also had dependents of servile status, but these ties were not always voluntary, so they do not qualify as clientship ties.

¹⁸ Byrne, , Irish Kings. 43–44.Google Scholar

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 Thurneysen, R., “Die Burgschaft im irischen Recht,” Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie des Wissenschaft, Philosophisch-historische Klasse 2 (1928), 9.Google Scholar

²⁰ Hughes, , The Church, 78.Google Scholar

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.Google Scholar

²² Some craftsmen and musicians derived their status from noble patrons. See Críth 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 Rosman, A. and Rubel, P., “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.Google Scholar

²⁴ For example, see Thurneysen, R., “Cain Lanamna: Die Regelung der Paare,” in Studies in Early Irish Law, Binchy, D. A, ed. (Dublin, 1936), 49;Google ScholarCorpus luris Hibernici, 222, lines 7ff.Google Scholar

²⁵ Corpus luris Hibernici, 532,Google Scholar lines 8–12; 462, lines 30–34ff; Binchy, D. A., “Irish Law Tracts Re-edited: I. Coibnes UWsci Thairidne,” Eriu, 17 (1955), 68–71.Google Scholar

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, Cunnison, I., trans. (London, 1954).Google Scholar

²⁷ Críth Gablach, lines 358–65.

²⁸ Corpus luris Hibernici, 66, lines 32–39.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid., 202, lines 13ff.

³⁰ Críth Gablach, lines 354–56, 376–78.Google ScholarGerriets, , “Economy and Society,” 59.Google Scholar

³¹ Críth Gablach.

³² Corpus luris Hibernici, 469, lines 7–11.Google Scholar

³³ Binchy, D. A., “Legal Glossary” to Críth Gablach, 85.Google Scholar

³⁴ Smith, R. M., “Bretha im gatta” [Judgements concerning theft], Irish Texts, 4: (1934), 18–20.Google Scholar

³⁵ Corpus luris Hibernici, 1760, lines 12–26.Google Scholar

³⁶ Thumeysen, R., “Aus dem irischen Recht: I. Das Unfrei-Lehen,” in Zeítschrifi für 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.Google Scholar

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.Google Scholar

³⁸ Críth Gablach.

³⁹ Binchy, , “Legal Glossary,” 85–86.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Corpus luris Hibernici, page 462, line 19, through page 477, line 24.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² Críth Gablach; Thurneysen, , “Aus dem irischen Recht.”Google Scholar

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 Bohannan, P., “The Impact of Money on an African Subsistence Economy,” The Journal of Economic History, 19 (1959), 491–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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.

⁴⁵ Thurneysen, R., “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.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Bieler, L., The Irish Penitentials (Dublin, 1963), 170–71, §2.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ For example, ibid., §4; Càin Adamnàin: An Old Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnàn, Meyer, K., ed. and trans. (Oxford, 1905), 32–33,Google Scholar §50; Binchy, D. A., “Bretha Crólige: Sick Maintenance in Irish Law,” Eriu, 12 (1934), 6–7, §2.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Benveniste, E., “Livestock and Money: Pecu and Pecunia,” in his Indo-European Language and Sociey, Palmer, E., trans. (Coral Gables, Florida, 1973), 40.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Burns, A. R., Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times (1927; rpt. New York, 1965), 267.Google Scholar 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 Green, D., “The Influence of Scandinavian on Irish,” in Proceedings of the Seventh Viking Congress, Almqvist, B. and Greene, D., eds. (Dublin, 1976), 79.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Hughes, K., Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources (Ithaca, 1972), 37.Google Scholar

⁵¹ For example, see Binchy, D. A., “Bretha Déin Chécht” [Judgements of Dén Chécht], Eriu, 20 (1966), 30–31, §13.Google Scholar

⁵² Thumeysen, R., “Aus dem irischen Recht,” 347, §8.Google Scholar

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.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Ibid., 1609, lines 14ff.

⁵⁵ Binchy, , “Bretha Déin Chécht,” 26–27 §5.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Ibid., 40–41, §30.

⁵⁷ Thumeysen, , “Aus dem irischen Recht,” 359–60, §§15–17.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ibid., 384, §49.

⁵⁹ Binchy, , “Bretha Déin Chécht,” 26–27, §7.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Ibid., 40–41, §31. This paragraph is full of difficulties; see Binchy's note concerning them at pages 61–62.

⁶¹ Pryor, F., “The Origins of Money,” Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, 9:27 (1977), 393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶² Grierson, , “The Origins of Money,” 12.Google Scholar