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and decisively, for the good of the tribe. The kingship was originally a
sacral (sacred and official), and in a sense, sacrificial position. The
king performed a priestly function for the tribe, eliciting due awe from
the tribesmen, and living under religious restrictions ("gessa,"
or taboos).
There
were three pillars of Gaelic polity within the tribal structure; the Chief, the elders of
the kindreds, and the leaders of the church. Where matters of succession were concerned,
there was a rule of thumb in the Brehon law (the law of the Gael) which specified the
criteria for choosing precedence in each category; "Elder for kin, worth for
rulership, wisdom for the church" (Byrne 35). Worth here refers to the eligible
candidate with the most kindreds in his camp. This system helped foster good leadership
and keep it closely bound to the mass of tribesmen, and attuned to their needs and
desires. The chief acted in conjunction with the tribal council of elders, and with the
advice of the church. Although a strictly tribal ruler or dynast could be high-handed with
"alien tuatha" (subservient tribal groups), in keeping with the Indo-European
aristocratic tradition of their earliest ancestors, yet they could also treat them as
respected allies, and raise them to high position. In fact, even in the larger, more
centralized Kingdom of Scots in the late thirteenth century, Alexander Ill was known as a
highly accessible and personable king. He acted in the Gaelic tradition of contact with
his people, the local constituents of his kingdom, which was typical of the nobility of
the time (this was, of course, long before the urban population sprawl, and the anonymity
and social evils attributable thereto). In this way the Gaelic system came to resemble a
sort of tribal feudalism, in which accountability ran both ways.
Certain kindreds supported such hereditary
functions as law, religion, and the teaching of history and genealogy. Members of these
kindreds served as advisors when matters requiring their expertise were in question. In
the Celtic church, for example, certain kindreds maintained church lands, often as a
branch of the local tribe, and the heads of such kindreds were the bishops and abbots of
the Celtic church. They enjoyed princely status, and often descended from the founding
saint of the abbacy as well. They did not observe celibacy, for this was originally an
ascetic rule for certain monastic orders until its institution (twelfth century) in the
Roman church by the Pope as a means of controlling secular appointments generation by
generation. The Celtic church’s lack of celibacy should not be interpreted (as it has
been) as an indication that the church was decadent or degenerative, for it judged itself
by its own standards, and never duplicated Latin attitudes on this question. As Gaelic
society was different, so the church organization that emerged within this tribal
infrastructure was also different. Communities of Gaelic ascetics and hermits continued to
seek God in peaceful areas away from men, but their basic monastic system was from the
beginning adapted to the tribal society, and thus we have the abbey system of the Celtic
church. It is worth pointing out that the Celtic church was the first in Northern Europe,
and thus |
