‘He is not entitled to butter’: the diet of peasants and commoners in early medieval Ireland

CHERIE N. PETERS*

Department of Histories and Humanities, Trinity College Dublin

[Accepted 1 September 2014. Published 16 March 2015.]

Abstract

Hospitality was an important part of early medieval Irish culture and one of the ways this was expressed was through the preparation of meals for guests. Old and Middle Irish law tracts, written mainly in the seventh and eighth centuries, described the types of foods to which each level of free society in early medieval Ireland was entitled during these social visits and, as can be seen from the quotation in the title of this paper, certain restrictions based on grade and status applied. The legal entitlements of commoners to vegetables, dairy products, breads and, on the rare occasion, meats while in another person’s home was neither the full range of foods available in early medieval Ireland nor the totality of the foods an individual might consume in their own home or during feasts. An investigation into these law tracts as well as Old and Middle Irish sagas, poetry, other literary compositions and ecclesiastical descriptions of a penitential or hermetic diet suggest a wider range of available foods, including fruits, fish and wild game that both peasants and commoners were likely to have consumed on a seasonal basis.

Introduction

Although a number of factors impact the types of foods individuals consume, like environment, availability, access and nutrition, in hierarchical societies, such as early medieval Ireland, diet is also, partially, influenced by a person’s relative social status.¹ The quote from the title of this paper comes from the c. 700 Irish law tract entitled Críth Gablach, ‘Branched purchase’.² This clause, amongst others, referred to the minimum entitlements of commoners and nobles when they were entertained as guests in another person’s home. Although this law tract did not prescribe the exact foods individuals would have eaten at any one time, it allowed these guests to justly accuse their host of failing in his/her obligations if a named food, to which their grade was entitled, was absent.³ While Críth Gablach and other, similar, law tracts focus mainly on free adult male landowners and their rights, some details regarding the entitlements of women and children are also included, providing an emic perspective of the very least any one grade had the right to expect for his/her ordinary meals. Furthermore, the association between certain foods and commoners or nobles indicated their relative status as ‘luxuries’. Unfortunately, these law tracts do not provide any information regarding the food entitlements of peasants, as they were considered semi-free and not legally entitled to hospitality. There is some evidence to suggest, however, that the rights and responsibilities of some peasants may have been similar to those of low-ranking commoners.⁴ Thus, the foods that commoners were able to request during hospitality will be used as a foundation for a wider investigation into the alimentary practices of both peasants and commoners.

Outside of the law tracts, certain goods associated with the nobility were also designated as luxuries’ and these connections can similarly be used to identify the types of foods that were considered appropriate/inappropriate for peasants and commoners. An image of the Suidigud Tigi Midchúarda, ‘The seating of the house of the mead-circuit’, which survives in the Book of Leinster (c. 1160), expertly illustrates this principle. In this depiction, members of the king’s household are carefully positioned around a banqueting hall, and both their proximate position to the king as well as the portion and quality of meat they were afforded were based on their grade and status.⁵ Finbar McCormick has shown that the higher up on a cow’s back the meat was, the greater status it was afforded; the king received the tenderloin and the queen a rump steak, while the royal doorkeepers received the coccyx.⁶ This division of food based on personal grade and status can also be found in a dish entitled the cauldron of restitution’ (caire aisic), which appears in two twelfth-century Irish tales.⁷ In each instance, individuals placed their forks into the cauldron and pulled out a meal that was sufficient for the company according to their grade and rank’.⁸ Thus, the foods which people ate, or were seen to eat in early medieval Ireland, did not create social difference in this period but it was evidence of social difference and . . . it helped [to] perpetuate that difference’.⁹

Who were peasants and commoners?

Before an in-depth discussion of the types of foods afforded to, and eaten by, peasants and commoners can begin it is perhaps best to clarify to whom exactly the terms ‘peasants’ and ‘commoners’ referred in early medieval Ireland between c. 680 and 1170.¹⁰ The law tracts, written mainly between the seventh and eighth centuries by a combination of ecclesiasts and lay academics,¹¹ were ‘text-books’ composed in law schools and were used to guide judges through cases based on customary law. These texts offer a valuable perspective on social stratification, describing at least seven grades of commoners and a further three grades of semi-free peasants; many of these grades being, sometimes, further subdivided (Tables 1 and 2).¹² Descriptions of social classes and their property qualifications, found mainly in status-based texts, could vary from school to school and thus from tract to tract, but they all saw themselves as describing island-wide custom rather than regional variations.¹³

The grades of commoners can be categorised as free landowning non-noble farmers of varying degrees of age and wealth, of which the three most well-known grades are: the fer midboth (‘a man between [two] houses’), the ócaire (‘young freeman’) and the bóaire (‘cow freeman’, similar to the ceorl in Anglo–Saxon laws).¹⁴ These grades were especially important, since a person’s ability to participate in legal matters, such as a freeman’s ability to make contracts with lords (flathi) in the socio-economic relationship known as clientship, differed depending on these divisions.¹⁵ These clientship contracts, however, were only available to freemen (noble or commoner, not peasant). Although the law tracts offer less information about this social group, peasants (mainly the fuidri, tenants-at-will, and bothaig, cottiers) were also cultivators, but they were semi-free in the eyes of the law and, for the most part, did not own their own property, but cultivated land owned by lords, as labourers or sharecroppers (similar to the coloni in Carolingian Francia).¹⁶ Senchléithi (serfs) were a group of peasants hereditarily bound to the soil (adscripti glebae) and considered a permanent asset of a noble’s property.¹⁷

TABLE 1—Commoner grades listed in c. 700 Críth Gablach (from highest to lowest).

Aire coisring

Fer fothlai

Mruiger

Bíaire febsa

Aithech ara threba a deich

Ócaire

Fer midboth.ii.

Fer midboth.i.

TABLE 2—Commoner grades listed in eighth-century Uraicecht Becc (from highest to lowest).

Bíaire túise

Bíaire tanaise

Mruiger

Fer midboth

Gairid

Flescach

Inol

The extensive detail, regarding the grades of individuals, into which these law tracts delved, indicates an early medieval preoccupation with status, particularly the differentiation between commoners and nobles. This fixation may have been due, in part, to the fact that, outside of the law schools and their texts, it would have been difficult to discern a high-ranking commoner from a low-ranking noble or a high-ranking peasant from a low-ranking commoner.¹⁸ The lawyers, therefore, introduced a variety of social cues, including the foods one was entitled to consume in another person’s house in order to reinforce social differentiation. Consequently, these entitlements, though not representative of the total amounts and types of foods consumed by peasants and commoners, can be used as a dietary baseline for wider alimentary practices.

Unfortunately, these law tracts, as well as much of the contemporary secular and ecclesiastical literature, do not focus on the semi-free in society. As a result, this analysis will include both a wide variety of sources that relay information directly about commoners and those that indirectly describe a ‘poor’ diet. The Irish adjective bocht (poor) or in its substantive form ‘poor man’, along with its Latin equivalents, was used throughout Irish history in order to describe a restricted diet in both secular and ecclesiastical works. In the accompanying glosses to the eighth-century legal text Cethairlicht Athgabálae, ‘The four divisions of distraint’, for example, the rations for a cowherd (buachail), who was in fetters for failure to pay his debts, was, during ‘the time of milk’, described as ‘the fill of a poor man’s cup’ (lán eini in boicht), the capacity of which was twelve hen’s eggs or a Roman pint, c. six fluid ounces, and ‘in the time of corn’ he received a half-loaf (urchaelán), thin at both ends, in contrast to a round whole loaf.¹⁹ The diet of monks and ascetics was also frequently associated with this type of ‘poor’ diet; St Columbanus, for instance, insisted, in his monastic Rule, that the food of monks should be poor (vilis).²⁰ The association between the ecclesiastical diet and the diet of a secular peasant, however, should not be exaggerated. In his Rule for monks, St Augustine noted that a monastic diet was simultaneously inferior to a secular nobleman’s, but superior to a pauper’s.²¹ Furthermore, the surviving evidence attests that, although the ideal was ‘poor’ rations, many ecclesiastics consumed a broader diet, sometimes containing luxury goods.

Previous research into the study of diet in early medieval Ireland has focused on the two main activities for a settled economy, cereal growing and livestock rearing. A.T. Lucas, in his seminal work, ‘Irish food before the potato’, asserted that ‘from prehistoric times to the close of the seventeenth century corn and milk were the mainstay of the national food’.²² The otherwise excellent study denied meat any significant role in the diet of all socio-economic levels. More recently, Fergus Kelly’s exhaustive Early Irish farming included both cereals and meats as the cornerstones of the medieval diet; importantly, however, he also argued for a potentially balanced diet, depending on seasonal and regional availability of nutritious fruits and vegetables.²³ Both of these studies, however, focused on the diet of nobles, mainly due to the prestige-based nature of many of the surviving sources. While Kelly’s discussion included valuable information on restricted ecclesiastical diets and feasts, foods specifically related to the diet of peasants and commoners was often eclipsed by necessary generalisations. Recent archaeological and historical analyses have added to this growing dietary discussion by offering evidence for extensive fishing, fowling and gathering in early medieval Ireland. In order to obtain a clearer image of the diet of peasants and commoners, specifically, the prestige-based legal and literary tradition will, therefore, be counterbalanced by an analysis of literary descriptions of restricted diets and supplementary archaeological evidence.

The law tracts

Hospitality was a vital cultural institution in early medieval Ireland, for which every free law-abiding individual, ‘regardless of his rank or profession’, was eligible.²⁴ The seventh- and eighth-century Irish law tracts meticulously describe the types of foods to which each level of free society was entitled during these social visits. As can be seen from the quotation in the title of this paper, certain limitations applied to these meals, based on a person’s grade and status; nobles were generally allotted the ‘selection of the prime quality parts’, while commoners often received the remainders.²⁵ The nourishment of guests, therefore, reinforced the social hierarchy through these dietary entitlements. Yet, when guests were absent from the meal and the social construct was removed, peasants and commoners had some freedom over the foods they chose to prepare and consume (excluding those foods that were reserved for high-ranking guests and for legal dues owed to lords, kings or churches). As a result, these entitlements offer a vital glimpse into the alimentary practices of peasants and commoners, but do not prescribe a complete dietetic regime.

The two key texts for food entitlements during hospitality are the previously mentioned Críth Gablach (c. 700) thought to have been produced in a law school near Meath/south Ulster and Uraicecht Becc, ‘Small primer’ (eighth-century), thought to have been produced in a Nemed law school in Munster.²⁶ The authors of these texts record in exhaustive detail luxury food items only due to the nobility on these occasions, as well as standard foodstuffs to which commoners were entitled. A close reading of these two sources and their discussions regarding the entitlements of commoners will indicate that, although the anonymous authors of these texts approached the entitlements in different ways, allowing for some variety in social practice, they did, as Lucas asserted, focus, mainly, on rations consisting of cereals and dairy products; however, some fruits, vegetables and meat were also documented.

According to Críth Gablach, the food provisions appropriate to a visiting fer midboth, the lowest ranked commoner, were milk and cheese or cereals; the substitution of cereals for milk and cheese was likely to have been a seasonal allowance during the winter when stores of dairy products were at their lowest.²⁷ This law tract also specifically denies the fer midboth the right to request butter. While no particular reason was expressed, other than ‘he is not entitled to butter’ (ni dlig imb), the fer midboth’s inferior rank is the most likely basis for this prohibition, as higher grades of commoner, such as the aithech ara threba a deich, were entitled to request this particular dairy product.²⁸ The contemporary legal tract Uraicecht Becc likewise conveyes the provisions for a fer midboth, but it describes them exclusively as three loaves (bairgin); no seasonal substitutions are indicated.²⁹ The non-entitlement to butter, or, if Uraicecht Becc is to be relied upon, all dairy products, was the only limit specifically imposed upon the meal of a visiting fer midboth.

In the outline of the meals that the next commoner grade, the ócaire, was allotted while visiting someone else’s home there emerges yet another distinction between Críth Gablach and Uraicecht Becc. According to Críth Gablach,an ócaire would have been presented with the same basic fare as a fer midboth, milk and cheese or cereals, with the same non-entitlement to butter.³⁰ He was, however, entitled to certain additional side dishes.³¹ These supplementary items included a wooden mug of twelve inches filled with a thickened sour milk (draumce)³² and ‘a full-sized [loaf]’ (bairgen) or ‘two [loaves] of a woman’s baking’ (di bairgin banuini).³³ These ‘loaves’ of bread measured, roughly, twelve ‘inches’ (ordlach) in circumference and were as thick as ‘a man’s little finger’ (lútu laime fir), according to the eighth-century legal tract Cáin Aicillne, ‘Law of base-clientship’.³⁴ Generally, these loaves were produced from barley or oats, as both historical and archaeological evidence has shown that these were the most popular grains cultivated in early medieval Ireland, since wheat and rye require especially rich soil in which to grow and were, as a result, considered luxuries.³⁵ These two grains, barley and oats, furthermore, lack gluten, a necessary leavening agent, and indicate that these loaves would have been quite dense. The inclusion of sour milk and loaves of bread would seem to indicate that the ócaire was not restricted to milk and cheese or cereals, but could request a combination of the three. In Uraicecht Becc, on the other hand, the ócaire was listed as being entitled to five loaves (bairgin) and he was allowed either milk or butter.³⁶ The potential substitution, in this case, may not have centred on the season, although butter could be salted and preserved for winter, but upon the contents of the homeowner’s larder. The choice, therefore, for milk or butter was, likely, not made by the visiting ócaire, but by the homeowner, who may have been of a similar grade and needed to reserve his butter stores for visits by higher-ranking individuals. While these two texts conflict over the amount of loaves or the type of dairy products appropriate for the meal of an ócaire, the character, cereals and dairy, remains the same.

As the grades of commoner progressed up the social ladder so too did the variety of food they were allowed to request while eating in another person’s home. The higher grades of commoners listed in Críth Gablach, some of which do not appear in Uraicecht Becc, were allotted the same basic fare, but with vegetables or various meats as side dishes. The aithech ara threba a deich, according to Críth Gablach, consumed the typical milk and cheese or cereals, but he was also permitted butter on Sundays as well as ‘a serccol of condiment with this, duilesc [dulse], onions and salt’ (serccol ta(r)rsain[n] la sodain–duilesc, cainnenn, salann).³⁷ In the Ancient laws of Ireland the editors translated serccol tarsain as ‘salted venison’ , but this was queried by Eoin MacNeill who, in his translation of Críth Gablach (above), left serccol untranslated and referred only, in his footnotes, to an ‘official’ translation of salted venison.³⁸ Fergus Kelly has interpreted serccol to mean a ‘titbit, delicacy’ and tarsunn, ‘a relish’, which applied to the dulse (a type of seaweed), onions and salt.³⁹ The translators of the Ancient laws of Ireland may have inferred venison in this particular instance as there are similar historical contexts in which deer meat constituted part of a ‘poor’ diet (see below).

The meals of the highest grades of commoners, according to Críth Gablach, the bóaire febsa, the Mruiger, the fer fothlai and the aire coisring, were entitled to meat, likely sourced from domestic livestock. The bíaire febsa was entitled to the same meal, milk and cereals, as the grades below him, but with the addition of, according to Eoin McNeill’s translation, ‘fresh or salted onions for condiment’ (firchainnenn nó aillte do tharsun[n]).⁴⁰ MacNeill’s translation was queried by Daniel Binchy who proposed, instead, that saillte, in this case, acted as a substantive and referred specifically to salted meat.⁴¹ Uraicecht Becc, unfortunately, does not offer any clarification and, instead, outlines ‘eight [loaves] for him with their condiment, and salt for their seasoning’ (ocht mbairgin do cona nandlunn ₇ saland dia tarsand).⁴² The Mruiger, according to Crith Gablach, was always allowed to have ‘butter with its condiment’ (imb do co tarsund), as well as ‘salted meat on the third, fifth, ninth, and tenth days, and on Sunday’ (sall dó i tr[e]isi, i cóicthi, i nómaid, i ndechmaid, in ndomnuch).⁴³ Both MacNeill and Binchy translated saill simply as salted meat, but, in a similar context, it could refer specifically to pork.⁴⁴ The fer fothlai was, likewise, entitled to salted meat while the aire coisring was allowed salted meat and titbits or relish.⁴⁵

In these lists of potential meals, the luxury status of certain items is clear; salt was a condiment to which only the grades of an aithech ara threba a deich or above were entitled and salted meat, specifically domesticated livestock, was reserved only for the highest grades of commoner, suggesting that fresh meat was indeed a luxury consumed mainly by the nobility. The restrictions on butter, however, become much more interesting when viewed in light of another eighth-century law tract that differentiates between the types of lords in Irish society, based on the renders they received in clientship. A commoner, who had acquired enough wealth to start lending to other commoners, could become what was known as a commoner lord (flaith aithig) and was described as the lord ‘who is only entitled to butter and seed[-corn] and live cattle’ as renders from his clients, distinguishing him from noble lords who were entitled to ale, and various forms of salted and fresh meat.⁴⁶ While this description was, mainly, used to highlight the prestige of ale and meat, it simultaneously underlined that the status applied to luxury items, such as butter, was relative.

An important caveat to these itemised lists of food, of which a commoner was allowed to avail while in another person’s home, was that certain restrictions on luxury or high-status items could, occasionally, be waived during periods of institutionalised caretaking, such as sick maintenance; a process, which involved the care and treatment of a wounded individual by the attacker. The two main law tracts on the types of food available to a wounded individual, Críth Gablach and Bretha Crólige, ‘Judgements on sick maintenance’, describe foods appropriate to both his illness and his status. Bretha Crólige maintains the restriction on butter for the fer midboth,⁴⁷ but relaxes this provision for other grades, such as the ócaire and the bóaire febsa.⁴⁸ The inclusion of butter in a sick person’s diet, almost regardless of status, may be indicative of the supplementary nutrients in this foodstuff. The ninth-century ecclesiastical document known as the ‘Monastery of Tallaght’ contains a story, which describes a group of saints seeking aid from heaven after witnessing penitents dying as a result of a strict penitential diet of bread and water. In response, an angel appeared and ordered the saints to ‘mix some meal with their butter to make gruel, so that the penitents should not perish upon their hands(?), because the water and the bread did not suffice to support them’ (ni de min do chummusc doib aranim combed menadach arna toitsitis an aes pende immallama fobithin arna forfoelnangair int uisce 7 int aran).⁴⁹

During sick maintenance, Binchy has argued, various members of commoner grades were also allowed to consume salted meat on Sundays between New Year’s Eve and Lent and fresh meat between Halloween and New Year’s Eve, although the exact days for the latter were not articulated.⁵⁰ The loosely worded section in Bretha Crólige simply notes that ‘every freeman from a fer midbad up to an aire ard is entitled to fresh meat’ (alid carnai cach aire otha fer midbod connicc airig na(i)rd), which the later glossators attempted to restrict solely to Sundays or festivals.⁵¹ These relaxations reinforce the notion that, outside of hospitality, a commoner is likely to have consumed a wider variety of foods.

Women and children

The discussion, so far, has focused on foods to which men were entitled in certain situations in early medieval Ireland, as more evidence survives for their consumption than for their wives or their daughters. Bretha Crólige is one of the only contemporary sources that describes the food entitlements of sick women; a woman on sick maintenance was entitled to half of the food (lethbíathad)to which her husband was entitled.⁵² A concubine, however, could only claim one-third or one-quarter of his food;⁵³ no mention is made of any compositional differences. The surviving sources offer very little information regarding any specific meals prepared for unmarried adult women of commoner grade. One reference, in the ninth-century ‘Prose Rule of the Céli Dé’, requires nuns who were menstruating to be given brochan (v.l. brothchán), a dish often reserved for invalids, made by heating milk with oatmeal and herbs.⁵⁴ Any law-abiding freeman was entitled to collect herbs for just such a concoction, even if the herbs grew on private property, according to one eighth-century law tract, Di Astud Chirt 7 Dligid, ‘On the confirmation of right and law’.⁵⁵

Relaxations of, and exceptions to, the normal fare (unfortunately not discussed) were also acknowledged as appropriate during pregnancy. At this time a woman, and her child, require additional vitamins and nutrients, and this need was recognised in early Irish society. The vernacular ninth-century hagiographical text Bethu Phátraic documents one pregnant woman’s quest for chives, while another legal tract shows that the smell of malt could trigger a pregnant woman’s desire for ale.⁵⁶ In the latter case, a person was exempted from any liabilities incurred during the pursuit of ale for a pregnant woman. Ale, mostly brewed from barley, was also an important beverage in the winter, as it provided the consumer with vitamins and nutrients lacking when milk and other vegetables were in short supply.⁵⁷ Though the law tracts do not describe the consumption of ale by commoners on a regular basis, Críth Gablach insists that a Mruiger should always have a ‘mug of beer [ale]’ (ian chorma) available for guests and a ‘vat in which a brew can be mashed’ (dabach’ i(n) roimmdeltar bruth) amongst his possessions, suggesting that much, if not all, of the brewing process could be accomplished domestically.⁵⁸ According to one eighth-century law tract, Cethairlicht Athgabálae, ‘The four divisions of distraint’, a man could be fined for withholding these longed-for foods from a pregnant woman:

For the longed-for morsel, i.e. the longing of a pregnant woman, i.e. what she longs for not being given her, i.e. by her own husband, and it was through penuriousness or niggardliness the food was withheld on this occasion, or it was in wantonness. The fine which is for it has a stay of three days, i.e. body-fine.⁵⁹

Brónagh Ní Chonaill has suggested that one of the reasons lawyers may have justified this fine was because a husband or partner might have withheld food intentionally in an attempt to cause the miscarriage of an unwanted child.⁶⁰ The absence of a specific list of foods apportioned to women on sick maintenance, or when on a visit to another person’s home, suggests that they were likely to be entitled to the same type of foods as their husband, based on his rank, but in smaller quantities.

On the other hand, there is abundant surviving legal evidence for the types of foods that were considered appropriate for children, as detailed in a list of responsibilities for a foster-parent. Fosterage, in medieval Ireland, was an institution through which a parent gave his child, generally at the age of seven or possibly even at infancy, to another individual to be raised in the proper manner, based on the status of the father.⁶¹ According to Bretha Crólige, all children in fosterage were given the ‘soft fare of fosterage’ (maotbiad altruma), explained by a later glossator as ‘the yoke of eggs, butter, curds and [porridge]’ (in buidecan ₇ im ₇ maotla ₇ lictiu).⁶² The types of condiments that were added to a basic porridge dish, however, were reflective of their father’s grade in society, as another law tract, Cáin Íarraith, ‘Law of the fosterage-fee’, states ‘porridge is given to them all, but the flavouring which goes into it differs’ (lite doib uile acht ni cosmuil tuma tet indte).⁶³ According to Cáin Íarraith, the children of commoners were allotted ‘porridge made with buttermilk or water’ (lite blaithighe no uisce), although quantities were quite small, as they could only expect ‘a bare sufficiency of it’ (a seangsaith doibh di).⁶⁴ While the children of nobles were entitled to have fresh butter added to their dishes and the children of kings were allowed honey, the children of commoners were only entitled to have ‘salted butter’ (gruiten) added to their meal ‘for flavouring’ (dia tumu),⁶⁵ further reinforcing the luxury status of fresh versus salted foods. The discussion in Cáin Íarraith did not detail the differences between the grades of commoners, but it, clearly, attempted to distinguish the child of a commoner from the child of a noble or king based on their food entitlements while in fosterage. Thus, it must be remembered that the foods discussed in the law tracts do not necessarily represent the total foods consumed by children in early medieval Ireland.

It is clear that some of the seventh- and eighth-century law tracts, along with their glosses and commentaries, differed as to the specific foods appropriate for different grades of commoners when in other people’s homes. What is consistent, however, is that, according to the jurists, the foods appropriate to commoners were not the same as those appropriate to nobles and kings, and that certain items were considered luxuries. Yet, a range of information from legal, literary, ecclesiastical and archaeological sources indicates that different grades of commoners, their wives and their children were not limited to these items within their own homes, during feasts or even when under certain legal constraints. For example, another one of the dishes to which the poor cowherd in fetters (discussed at the start of this paper) was entitled, is described as the ‘bread of the noble feast, with its condiment’ (bairgen huasallaithe cona handlonn).⁶⁶ A later glossator specified this as the bread eaten during ‘Easter or Christmas or Sundays’ (casc ł notlac ł domnaig).⁶⁷ Various hagiographical texts suggest that this feast bread was likely made of wheat; Finian of Clonard, who normally consumed ‘a bit of barley bread and a drink of water’ (boim do aran eorna 7 deogh do uisce), not unlike the meals listed above for commoners, was allowed to exchange this meal for wheaten bread and some broiled salmon on holy days or Sundays in one twelfth- or thirteenth-century vernacular Life.⁶⁸ Beyond these religious relaxations on the types of foods consumed, other foods such as pulse crops, vegetables, fruits, fish, fowl and meat, were all locally available, with certain regional variations. Although direct records of peasant or commoner consumption of these foods does not always survive, the extant literary and archaeological evidence indicates that these types of foods would have been consumed by a wide range of the population, including peasants and commoners.

Alternative sources for milk

As is clear from the discussion of the foods to which commoners, while in another person’s home, were entitled, milk and dairy products were important to the early medieval diet. However, the variety of milk types available is often underrepresented in modern discussions. Three domestic animals were bred, either incidentally or wholly, for milk production: cows, goats and sheep. Dairy milk was, by far, the most common type of milk consumed in early medieval Ireland, yet the milk of both goat and sheep was discussed in legal and literary compositions. Unlike cows and sheep, goats are not often found in contemporary literature, nor are their bones found in high numbers on early medieval archaeological sites (although this might have more to do with problems in species determination). Yet, goat’s milk was valued more highly than sheep’s milk in some Irish legal material despite the fact that sheep were generally valued more highly; a twelfth-century commentary on the legal text Bretha Éitgid, ‘Judgements of inadvertence’, valued the milk of a female goat at one and a third of a penny,⁶⁹ while the milk of a sheep was valued at one-half or one-third of a penny.⁷⁰ For the animals themselves, however, a female sheep could be worth up to three scruples, while the highest value a female goat could attain was two scruples.⁷¹ There is evidence to suggest that goats may have been given to clients by a lord in the economic arrangement known as clientship. Commentary to one eighth-century legal tract, Di Dligiud Raith ₇ Somaíne la Flaith, ‘On the due of fief and lord’s revenue’, describes the renders a client owed to his lord for the goat as ‘a [twelve]-inch mug of [sweet cheese] the first year, a full cúad of butter the second, and the makings of two íans (of butter) the third year—[man-butter and woman-butter], [four] inches, of standard quality, [woman-butter], five of [man-butter]’ (cuadh da ordlach .x. in .c.bliadain do milsen, cuad lan imme in tanaise, Damna da neine in tres bliadain, ferim 7 banimb, cethri ordlaigi indraic do baneim, a .u. do ferimb).⁷² Yet, part of the low value placed on sheep’s and goat’s milk in the contemporary sources may relate to their low milk yields; sheep and goats only produced, approximately, one-tenth the milk yield of cows.⁷³ One scholar has estimated that medieval sheep and goats only produced between 40 and 50 litres of milk a year, some of which needed to be reserved for the suckling of young.⁷⁴ This low yield suited domestic consumption of sheep’s and goat’s milk. Thus, although goat’s and sheep’s milk is likely to have played a role in the diet of commoners, as well as their lords, it remained a minor resource.

Pulse crops

Another minor resource in early medieval Ireland was legumes. While the invasion of the Normans increased the cultivation of pulse crops, both historical and archaeological evidence indicates that some parts of the country were already growing peas and beans in the early Middle Ages and that these crops were, occasionally, directly linked to commoners.⁷⁵ In the eighth-century legal tract Bretha Déin Chécht, ‘Judgements of Dían Cécht’, the penalties for wounding members of different grades were associated with different crops. While injuries to kings and bishops were commensurable with different types of wheat and rye grains, the wounds of commoners were linked to oats, peas and beans: ‘a grain of oats for a bóaire and every person of equal status corresponding to him’ (grainni coirce do boairig ₇ cech gra(i)d cuma frisidngair), while there was ‘a pea for an ócaire and every person of equal status corresponding to him’ (graine pisi do ocairig 7 cach gra(i)d cuma frisidngair) and ‘a bean for a fer midboth and every person of equal status corresponding to him’ (graindi sebe do fir midboth 7 cech gradh cuma frisitngair).⁷⁶ Pulse crops also featured in ecclesiastical diets; in his Rules for monks, St Columbanus included beans (legumina) in his list of acceptably poor (vilis), foods.⁷⁷ Archaeobotanical evidence, though limited, from a late eighth- to an early ninth-century phase of Talbot’s Tower in Kilkenny and an early medieval farm in Boyerstown, Co. Meath, indicate consumption of peas.⁷⁸ Finds from the Viking-Age towns of Dublin and Waterford also contained evidence for legume consumption and are particularly important, since the Irish word pónair, used almost exclusively after the tenth century, derived from Old Norse baunir (‘beans’).⁷⁹ The cultivation of pulse crops were, however, subject to great geographical variation; rural sites in Leinster, for example, have the most archaeobotanical finds of legumes, while they are almost completely absent from the archaeological record in Connacht.⁸⁰ Thus, while pulse crops were part of the diet, they too were a minor resource.

Vegetables and fruits

Various supplements of vegetables and fruits were also likely to have been part of the regular diet of peasants and commoners. The eighth-century legal tract Di Dligiud Raith ₇ Somaíne la Flaith noted that one of the services a client owed his lord was the preparation of a ‘garlic feast’ (crimeis), sometime before Easter;⁸¹ failure to hold this feast resulted in a three séoit penalty fine.⁸² Another eighth-century legal tract, Di Astud Chirt ₇ Dliged, ‘On the establishing of right and entitlement’, entitled every free person in good legal standing in a tuath the right to wild garlic’ (crim allda);⁸³ even though an accompanying gloss restricted this right to garlic found on common land.⁸⁴ Other vegetative plants were associated, more generally, with the poor. According to one story, found in the body of notes that accompany the ninth-century text of the Félire Óengusso, ‘The martyrology of Óengus’, St Columba desired to emulate a ‘miserable/poor’ (trógnait) woman by consuming a soup made solely from nettles.⁸⁵ Yet, when the saint asked his cook to prepare the meal for him, the cook added butter to the dish.⁸⁶ The addition of the butter may have been nutritionally necessary, but it simultaneously reaffirmed the relative luxury status of butter; although St Columba desired to consume the same meagre meal as a poor person, his nobility was affirmed by the addition of a prestige item.

In some cases, remains from archaeological sites can increase the amount and types of vegetables, not directly mentioned in the documentary sources, which were consumed by farmers. For example, the archaeobotanical remains from Viking-Age Dublin and early medieval rural sites, such as Ballynagallagh, Co. Limerick; Killederdadrum, Co. Tipperary; Lisnagun, Co. Cork; Raystown, Co. Meath; Boyerstown, Co. Meath; and Scart, Co. Kilkenny, contained the remains of wild radish, carrots and cabbage.⁸⁷ Some of these remains evidence consumption, notwithstanding that wild radish, in particular, was an invasive weed that occasionally contaminated the cereal crop (especially barley).⁸⁸

Specific cultivated vegetables were also consistently mentioned in legal and literary texts. When sick, any law-abiding free person in early medieval Ireland was entitled to ‘garden herbs’ (lus lubgoirt) ‘for it is for this purpose that gardens have been made’ (air is airi der[ō]nta lubgo[i]rt ar foichill notrusa).⁸⁹ A gloss on this section, however, restricts commoners to honey (mil)— presumably because a beehive may have been kept in the garden—cultivated onions and imus. During Lent these limitations were applied to both nobles and commoners.⁹⁰ Conversely, this statement is contradicted in a later section of the text, which restricts commoners from consuming honey, cultivated onions and unlimited imus.⁹¹ Commoners were, instead, only entitled to imus.⁹² While it is unclear in the historical sources as to which plant is referred to by the term imus it is generally believed to have been some type of an umbelliferous plant, possibly wild celery.⁹³ Plants which were cultivated in gardens clearly acted as a source of food, but so did invasive weeds and wild plants which often grew around rural settlements; although these wild plants probably would have accounted for only a small portion of the diet.

Many varieties of fruits available in early medieval Ireland also found their way into the meals of peasants and commoners. One fruit, in particular, is discussed throughout early Irish literature: the apple. The ‘wild apple tree’ (aball), was listed amongst one of the seven ‘nobles of the wood’ (airig fedo)in the eighth-century law tract Bretha Comaithchesa, ‘Judgements of neighbourhood’.⁹⁴ Additionally, a common motif in some hagiographical texts was the transformation of bitter wild apples into sweet cultivated ones.⁹⁵ While most literary texts reserve the consumption of sweet apples for the nobility, other sources indicate a much broader range of consumers. The seventh-century law tract Bechbretha, ‘Bee judgements’, notes that if a fruit tree lay on, or near, the boundary between two properties, any fruit which fell onto the neighbouring property was divided equally for three years.⁹⁶ In the fourth year the neighbour retained all rights to the fruit, but in the fifth year the cycle began anew.⁹⁷ Even if a commoner did not personally own property upon which an apple tree grew it was possible to obtain rights to the consumption of the fruit. Furthermore, one law tract indicates that wild apple trees sometimes grew on common land, yet, in some cases, it was possible to recognise private rights over trees, even on common land;⁹⁸ one reference in the eighth-century legal tract Di Astud Chirt ₇ Dligid described a ‘wild apple (tree?)’ (fíad aball), which, according to the gloss, had been appropriated by a lord, and strict penalties were enforced for stealing any of the fruit.⁹⁹ Common rights of consumption also applied to types of nuts. One Old Irish legal poem, dated between the seventh and the eighth centuries entitled any free person in good legal standing to ‘a handful of ripe nuts’ (bas chnoe foísce). ¹⁰⁰ Nuts, particularly hazelnuts, could be eaten whole or ‘crushed to form a kind of meal called maothal’ which Eugene O’Curry described as a meal ‘which consisted at first of nut meal and milk and afterwards of oatmeal, milk, cheese, etc.’ ¹⁰¹

Some early medieval sources also describe the distribution to and consumption of wild berries by the poor. In the ninth-century vernacular Bethu Brigte, Brigit is described as, twice, giving away baskets filled with apples and sweet sloes or plums (arni cumrae) to begging lepers.¹⁰² These fruit-based donations to the poor, however, should not be considered typical fare, but instead were exceptional contributions to their diet by a gracious saint. There is also a story in the Life of Cóemgen of Glendalough in which a group of sick people were given blackberries to satisfy their cravings. Blackberries, in particular, are directly associated with commoners in one hagiographical text. In the c. twelfth-century Life of Senán, his father, Geirgeann, is described specifically as an aithech (literally translated as ‘rent-payer’, aithech was a popular term used to describe commoners) and his wife, Senán’s mother, picks blackberries by a well.¹⁰³ Archaeobotanical remains, though often hard to recover, from urban and rural sites in early medieval Ireland further indicate the consumption of strawberries, rowan berries, sloes and bilberries.¹⁰⁴ Fruits and vegetables, which grew around a commoner’s property and in cultivated small gardens, were, therefore, exploited by a wide range of consumers in early medieval Ireland, including peasants and commoners; though the types and varieties of these side dishes would have depended, to a large degree, on the season and the geographical location.

Fish

This exploitation of natural resources also applied to the lakes, rivers and extended coastline in Ireland. The fish weirs of Strangford Lough, near Grey Abbey Bay and around Chapel Island in County Down, would have been filled with salmonids such as salmon and sea trout, flatfish such as flounder and plaice, mackerel, cod, grey mullet, skate and conger eels, while the Shannon Estuary contained many of the same fishes, including lampreys and shad.¹⁰⁵ These fish weirs were artificial barriers, of stone or wood, constructed in rivers or estuaries to ‘deflect fish into an opening where they could be trapped in nets or baskets’.¹⁰⁶ According to the Old Irish legal tract, Anfuigell, ‘Wrong judgement or decision’, the size of these weirs could be restricted, in case they interrupted the flow of fish to other weirs further upstream or downstream.¹⁰⁷

Land that had access to a river or estuary was highly valued, and often owned by high-status individuals or churches.¹⁰⁸ Yet, some glosses on the eighth-century law tract, Cethairlicht Athgabálae note that a fine (kindred) may have had common rights to fish weirs in early medieval Ireland¹⁰⁹ and, according to the eighth-century law tract Di Astud Dligid 7 Chirt, any free person in good legal standing was entitled to a ‘single swift dip of a fishing-net in a stream’.¹¹⁰ Additionally, some streams were freely accessible to all legal members of the community; Fergus Kelly noted one particular gloss from Cethairlicht Athgabálae which refers to a regulation on fishing-nets: ‘i.e. of fish i.e. a common place which is for the community in water’ (.i. piscium .i. āit coitcend bīs don tuaith i n-uisce).¹¹¹ Renting the use of fish weirs may also have been a possibility for those commoners who did not have direct water access. The early Irish law tract, Coibnes Uisci Thairidne, ‘Kinship of conducted water’, debates the legal ramifications of the construction of a mill race through a neighbour’s land. If a neighbour (a) needed water for his mill and he had to go across his neighbour’s (b’s) land to reach a lake, river, or pond, this law afforded (a) the legal right to build on (b’s) property, as long as (a) either paid (b) a fee or offered (b) usage of the mill.¹¹² These early medieval watermills could have ponded fish, which would have allowed a neighbour limited access to fishing;¹¹³ they were not, however, specifically constructed for fish, and it is unclear whether or not they would have been consistently restocked for this purpose.¹¹⁴ Yet, this law text also recorded that one of the entitlements which an heir could not alter was that of a neighbour’s fishing weir on his property, provided a fee had been paid to their family.¹¹⁵ It is possible, then, that, if the offer of payment and or usage was available for a mill race then the same might exist for a fishing weir: the owner of the land could have either been paid for fishing rights or received a share of the catch.

Shellfish offered another opportunity for peasants and commoners to add marine life into their diet. A cave in Kilgreany, Co. Waterford, for instance, may have been a seasonal habitation, where shellfish such as periwinkles, cockles, mussels, oysters and scallops were consumed.¹¹⁶ Despite the lack of early medieval settlements around the area, Marion Dowd argued that the cave would have been a home to commoners, based on additional finds, including small personal ornaments.¹¹⁷ Shell middens, or mounds of accumulated shells, from early medieval Ireland, such as the one in Cork harbour, which stretched over 125 meters long and was up to two meters thick in some areas, coexisted with good agricultural land, and suggests that the collection of shellfish in the early Middle Ages, as in the Mesolithic period, was ‘more than the product of a marginal lifestyle’.¹¹⁸ Other middens, like those at the ninth-century cashel at Rinnaraw, Co. Donegal, can be found near settlements and are evidence of either the focus of a seasonal habitation ‘designed to exploit the local marine resources’ or a permanent home in which the occupants were dependent on both local pasturage and marine resources.¹¹⁹

The importance of fish in the diet of peasants and commoners in early medieval Ireland should not, however, be overstated. Recent scientific techniques, such as isotopic analysis on human skeletal remains from early medieval burials, can help to determine the types of foods eaten by individuals based on the fact that that ‘different classes of food differ in their stable isotope ratio’.¹²⁰ Carbon isotopes can provide information regarding the ‘ecosystem of the consumer, distinguishing between terrestrial versus marine niches’ while nitrogen isotope ratios help to differentiate between herbivores, omnivores and carnivores.¹²¹ Thus, lower levels of δ¹³C can indicate a mainly terrestrial as opposed to marine diet, as was the case at the early medieval graveyard at Owenbristy, Co. Galway.¹²² Recent isotopic analyses on skeletons from Fishamble Street and John’s Lane in Viking-Age Dublin ascribe a mainly terrestrial diet to the inhabitants, but also point to ‘some marine protein consumption’;¹²³ some individuals moreover may have consumed ‘relatively large amounts of marine products’ within the last few years of their lives.¹²⁴ These conflicting results can represent both geographical variation (as Owenbristy is some distance from the coast), or a cultural preference. Although there is no ‘typical’ Viking diet, research from Scotland, England and Dublin does indicate the consumption of marine foods by these disparate Viking groups (see Pl. I, fishing hook found in a child’s furnished burial in Westness, Orkney).¹²⁵

PL. I—Iron fish hooks from Westness, Orkney, AD 800–1100. Reproduced with the permission of the National Museums of Scotland.

It is probable that farmers in early medieval Ireland, like farmers in medieval Icelandic communities, ploughed and harvested during the respective seasons, and, in the other months, focused more intensely on fishing to supplement their diet;¹²⁶ eels, for example, were regularly caught in the Shannon Estuary between October and November after crop harvesting in September.¹²⁷ After the growth of urban populations and improved methods of fishing in the tenth and eleventh centuries, however, fishing became more regulated and a source of great wealth and power.¹²⁸ During this time fish weirs, ponds, lakes and rivers fell increasingly under the power of a lord or the church, and were less likely to be owned by local commoners.¹²⁹ Nevertheless, the surplus of rivers and lakes in Ireland, as well as the surrounding coastline, allowed for a consistent small-scale consumption of marine life by local groups; the amount of fish in a commoner’s or peasant’s diet is likely to have depended on proximity to a waterway and his or her own resourcefulness.

Wild birds and domestic fowl

Enterprising peasants and commoners were also noted in the historical and archaeological record as consuming various types of wild birds. A blackbird, in one Middle Irish poem, lamented the loss of his wife and children at the hands of some cowherds (buachalla)¹³⁰ who, according to the eighth-century legal tract Cethairlicht Athgabálae, shared similar legal rights to slaves and peasants.¹³¹ A quatrain from a poem, ascribed to Colmán mac Léníne, in the Middle Irish preface to Amra Choluim Chille listed blackbirds and a female commoner (banathech), in contrast to items of higher-value, such as swans and queens.¹³² Excavations of a seventh- to ninth-century phase of a ring fort at Rathgurren, Co. Galway, indicated the types of birds likely consumed, including geese, small passerines, such as blackbirds, and seabirds, such as a Manx shearwater.¹³³ The latter was important for early medieval coastal ecclesiastical communities and pious laymen/women who may have substituted the Manx shearwater for the flesh of quadrupeds during holy days.¹³⁴ A part of the eighth-century law tract Bretha Sén Forma, ‘Judgements on nets for birdsnaring’, entitles any individual to trap a small bird (minnta), a heron (corr)or ‘a hawk or other large bird of prey’ (séig) on a neighbour’s property, without first obtaining permission.¹³⁵ Some late legal commentary on this law tract notes that in some cases the owner of the land was permitted a portion of the catch;¹³⁶ if a bird was caught on land owned by a commoner, he was entitled to one-fifth of the flesh and two-fifths of the feathers.¹³⁷ It has been argued, by some scholars, however, that the meat obtained from some wild birds would have been tough and generally unpleasant; additionally, in the case of smaller passerines, the amount of available meat was limited.¹³⁸

Peasants and commoners, however, did not have to actively hunt birds in order to consume fowl, as the historical evidence indicates that poultry was often kept on early medieval farmsteads.¹³⁹ The surviving historical evidence indicates that chickens, in particular, were kept, firstly, for their eggs and, secondly, for their flesh, as the value of a hen decreased considerably after it was no longer able to lay eggs.¹⁴⁰ Yet, these eggs were not always retained by the owner of the animal; the eighth-century legal tract Dligid Raith 7 Somaíne la Flaith includes hens as one of the loans a lord could give to his client to cement a clientship contract and describes the reciprocal render as a twelve-inch mug full of eggs.¹⁴¹ Since these hens were only expected to lay about 50 eggs a year, the client owed his lord a substantial part of its produce, limiting the amount of both eggs and fowl that commoners consumed.¹⁴² Geese were also commonly consumed in early medieval Ireland, but a high status could be attached to their eggs in contrast to hens’ eggs; the eleventh- or twelfth-century tale Fled Dúin na nGéd, ‘The banquet of Dun na n-Gedh’, describes a fight, which erupted between the high king, Domnall, and his foster son, Congal, king of the Ulaid, when Congal received a hen’s egg on a plate as opposed to a goose’s egg at a feast.¹⁴³ The outrage and war that ensued may have been due, partially, to size, as one quote from a lost legal text notes that a hen’s egg was only four inches in circumference and five inches along the vertical axis.¹⁴⁴ While the dimension of the goose egg was not given, it can be accepted that it would have been much larger, relative to the size of the bird.¹⁴⁵ The higher perceived value of a goose egg may also have derived from its limited availability; unlike hens, that could lay for longer periods of time, geese normally only laid in summer.¹⁴⁶ Through the processes of domestic fowling, as well as trapping wild birds, it is clear, then, that peasants and commoners consumed both the meat and the eggs of these animals. While some of these smaller birds may only have played a seasonal role, others, like hens, which lay year-round, could have supplemented the normal milk and cereal fare.

Meat

In early medieval Ireland various types of domestic livestock (goats, sheep, cows and pigs) were slaughtered for their meat. The consumption of goats, in particular, was not common in the early medieval sources, and would seem to indicate that they were kept mainly for milk and secondly for meat (as noted above);¹⁴⁷ one condemnation in some Middle Irish satire likened an unfortunate individual to ‘an evil, roasted goat’ felgabar/fonaide).¹⁴⁸ Sheep, on the other hand, were often consumed, but were prized in the literature more for their wool than their meat¹⁴⁹ and, unlike goats, sheep were frequently owned by commoners.¹⁵⁰ While wethers, castrated male sheep, were included in the food rents that a fer midboth owed his lord,¹⁵¹ one ninth-century poem, the ‘Lament of the old woman of Beare’, indicates a more general consumption of mutton on special occasions, such as weddings.¹⁵²

Beef, on the other hand, was noticeably lacking from most discussions in the law tracts regarding the foods that commoners could request. The importance of the cow in early medieval Ireland has been well established by modern scholars, such as A.T. Lucas, Fergus Kelly,¹⁵³ and by archaeozoologists, such as Finbar McCormick, who has shown that on many early medieval archaeological sites cattle bones clearly outweighed and outnumbered other domestic livestock.¹⁵⁴ There is some evidence, however, to indicate that peasants and commoners were likely to consume beef on special occasions. One of the tasks a client had to perform for his lord was to help with the harvest and groups of these commoners, commonly referred to as a band of reapers (meithel) were occasionally paid in food. An ox, for example, was prepared, by Columba, for a band of reapers in the twelfth-century Betha Choluim Cille, ‘Life of Colum Cille’.¹⁵⁵ In a similar story from the twelfth-century version of the ‘Expulsion of the Déssi’, however, the food prepared for harvest workers was loaves of bread, not beef. ¹⁵⁶

Unlike sheep, goats and cows, pigs were kept solely for consumption and, as noted above appeared in the dishes that a commoner could request while visiting (see Pl. II, pig about to be slaughtered). Similarly, the main dish served at most feasts during the festival of Samain was the ‘the piglet of Samain’ (banb samna).¹⁵⁷ One particularly eager suitor attempted to woo a young woman in a ninth-century love poem by promising her ‘fresh pork’ (muc úr).¹⁵⁸ This meat also, occasionally, found its way into the diet of the poor; the ninth-century ‘Monastery of Tallaght’ records that the monks’ leftovers should be used to feed ‘the poor with flitches of bacon’ (na mbocht de chrocaib saildi), indicating consumption by both monks and poor people.¹⁵⁹

PL. II—Detail of a miniature of a pig being slaughtered, in the calendar for December. © The British Library Board, Royal 2 B II, f. 6v.

Domestic pig, however, was not the only type of pork available in early medieval Ireland; many historical sources also indicate that wild boar commonly appeared in the diet of hunters and, sometimes, commoners. One story survives in which a commoner was directly responsible for the death of a wild boar; a tract, preserved in the Triads of Ireland, outlined how a frustrated Finn Mac Cumaill failed to kill the boar of Druim Leithe as it was instead killed by an commoner: ‘It is not well that we fed our hounds,/ it is not well that we rode our horses,/ since a little [commoner] from a kiln/ has killed the boar of Druim Leithe’ (Ní mad biadsam ar cono./ ní mad ríadsam ar n-echa/ tan is aithechán átha./ romarb torcc Dromma Letha).¹⁶⁰ In this tale, the commoner was clearly not actively engaged in the hunt for the boar, and was, in fact, directly associated with the kiln in opposition to the hunter, Finn, but he does end up with the credit for the kill. Furthermore, the law tracts acknowledge that the ‘valuables’ of the woods were available to all members of the túath, to an extent. The eighth-century legal tract Di Astud Chirt ₇ Dligid includes ‘The wild animals of every wood’ (fíad cacha feda) amongst the list of entitlements every freeman in good legal standing enjoyed in the túath;¹⁶¹ an Old Irish gloss enumerates these wild animals as ‘badgers, deer and wild pigs’ (bruic, huis, muca aldti).¹⁶² Smaller wild animals were given a relatively low status in early medieval Ireland as one Middle Irish satire disparaged its target by comparing him to the ‘belly meat of a pine marten’(a feóil tarra togáin).¹⁶³

The consumption of wild animals was also noted as part of a poor person’s and an ecclesiastic’s diet. One of the best surviving examples for the consumption of wild animals by the poor can be found in the seventh-century Life of Columba by Adomnán.¹⁶⁴ In this tale, Columba blessed a stake for a poor man that had the power to hurt ‘neither man nor any cattle’, but would instead kill ‘only wild animals, and also fish’.¹⁶⁵ After he had affixed the stake, ‘in an out-of-the-way part of the district, frequented by wild creatures’,¹⁶⁶ it was not long before the beggar and his family were satiated with venison and the meat of other wild animals.¹⁶⁷ Unfortunately, the poor man was ultimately forced to destroy the stake, due to the unfounded anxiety of his wife, and the family became poor and hungry once again. This same focus on wild animals can also be found in a number of ecclesiastical texts. The ninth-century ‘Monastery of Tallaght’ notes that ‘not a morsel of meat was eaten in Tallaght in his [Máel Ruain’s] lifetime . . . (unless) it were a deer or a wild swine’ (nicodoes mír feolai dano hi tamlachdai inda bethusom . . . mad oss no muc allaid).¹⁶⁸ Although the author then qualified this statement to say that whatever meat was eaten was consumed by guests, wild pork and venison appear in another section of the text as part of the relaxations during Easter and, in this case, the monks were the consumers, for ‘he [Mael Ruain] does not reckon this as flesh’ (ar ní ar feoil adrime indísin).¹⁶⁹ The ninth-century ‘Prose Rule of the Céli Dé’ includes a similar relaxation and notes that at Easter ‘eggs, and lard, and the flesh of wild deer, and wild hogs’ (oga acas blonoca acas feoil oss n-allaid acas mucc n-allaid) could be consumed.¹⁷⁰

This need to seek out additional food sources from the surrounding landscape was particularly important during recurrent periods of famine and scarcity, which were consistently recorded in the early medieval annalistic record. Between AD 600 and 1170 there are over 50 recorded events of famines, scarcities or cattle murrains, many of which led to a significant loss of cattle, other animals and humans. During these scarcities and famines it was likely that woodland and marine resources were sought to supplement the diets.¹⁷¹

Conclusion

At its core, the diet of peasants and commoners consisted mainly of, prime facie, cereals and dairy products; yet, the resourcefulness of these individuals is often overlooked with such a simplification. Depending on the weather and the location, all sorts of fruits, vegetables, fish and fowl were resources, which could be, and, often, were, added to their normal repast. Meat, furthermore, often considered by historians to be the reserve of the nobility, was also a part, albeit minor, of the diet of commoners. Restrictions to their legal entitlements did still apply; certain items were considered relative ‘luxuries’, such as butter, wheat, honey and sweet apples. Nobles and churches could make it difficult for peasants and commoners to gain access rights to waterways and forests. The amount of food that commoners owed to their lords in base clientship, could, during recurring periods of famines and scarcities, consistently deplete their resources. Yet, variety did still exist. The lists of foods a commoner was allowed to request when dining in another person’s home, therefore, should not be considered the entirety of their diet, but they offer a brief glimpse at wider alimentary practices for both peasants and commoners.

* Author’s e-mail: petersch@tcd.ie
doi: 10.3318/PRIAC.2015.115.03

¹ See, for example, Marijke van der Veen, ‘When is food a luxury?’, World Archaeology 34:3 (2003), 405–27 and David Waines, “‘Luxury foods” in medieval Islamic societies’, World Archaeology 34:3 (2003), 571–80.

² Eoin MacNeill, Ancient Irish law. The law of status or franchise’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 36C (1921–4), 265–31; Daniel Binchy, Crith Gablach (Dublin, 1941, repr. 1970); Liam Breatnach, A companion to the Corpus luris Hibernici (Dublin, 2005), 244.

³ Fergus Kelly, A guide to early Irish law (Dublin, 1988, repr. 1991), 139–40. In one twelfth-century tale of the ‘first’ recorded satire, as a guest, the poet, Cairpre Mac Edaine, received only three small dry cakes and on the morrow uttered a justified satire upon his host, the king, Bres Mac Eladain: Vernam Hull, ‘Cairpre mac Edaine’s satire upon Bres Mac Eladain’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 18 (1930), 63–9. Similar penalties applied for the refusal of ecclesiastical guests, according to a seventh-century canonical tract: Ludwig Bieler, The Irish penitentials (Dublin, 1963), 172–3. If guests were fed rotten or nauseating food, varying penalties also applied: Daniel Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici: ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum recognovit (6 vols, Dublin, 1978), vol. i, 180.34–181.4.

⁴ Thomas Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh kinship (Oxford, 1993), 307–36.

⁵ Trinity College Dublin (TCD), MS 1339, Book of Leinster, c. 1160, 29: Fergus Kelly, Early Irish farming (Dublin, 1997), 356; George Petrie, ‘On the history and antiquities of Tara Hill’, Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy 18 (1839), Antiquities, 25–232: plates 8–9. The same chart, with slightly different placements, is also found in TCD MS 1318, Yellow book of Lecan, late fourteenth early fifteenth century, col. 244, written mostly by Giolla Íosa, son of Donnchadh Mór of the Mac Fhir Bhisigh family, in the fourteenth century.

⁶ Finbar McCormick, ‘The distribution of meat in a hierarchical society: the Irish evidence’, in Preston Miracle and Nicky Milner (eds), Consuming passions and patterns of consumption (Cambridge, 2002), 25–31: 28.

⁷ Whitley Stokes, ‘The Irish ordeals, Cormac’s adventure in the land of promise, and the decision as to Cormac’s sword’, in Ernst Windisch and Whitley Stokes (eds), Irische Texte: Mit Übersetzungen und Worterbuch (4 vols, Leipzig, 1891), vol. iii, 183–299: 205–06, §§9–10. This saga centres around the king, Cormac Mac Airt, who supposedly reigned in the third century; but the text, as it survives, is most likely a twelfth-century composition, preserved in two fourteenth-century manuscripts, the Book of Ballymote and the Yellow book of Lecan: Vernam Hull, ‘Echtra Cormaic Maic Airt, “The adventure of Cormac Mac Airt”’, Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 64:4 (1949) 871–83: 871; John O’Donovan, The banquet of Dun na n-Gedh and the battle of Magh Rath: an ancient historical tale (Dublin, 1842); Ruth Lehmann, Fled Dúin na nGéd (Dublin, 1964). For the date of the text see, Máire Herbert, ‘Fled Dáin na nGéd:a reappraisal’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 18 (1989), 75–87.

⁸ O’Donovan, The banquet of Dun na n-Gedh and the battle of Magh Rath,51–3.

⁹ P.R. Schofield, ‘Medieval diet and demography’, in C.M. Woolgar, D. Serjeantson and T. Waldron (eds), Food in medieval England: diet and nutrition (Oxford, 2006), 23953: 244.

¹⁰ The date AD 680 has been chosen as the terminus post quem for this discussion as one of the earliest law tracts from early medieval Ireland, Cáin uithirbe, can be dated, on historical grounds, between AD 678 to 683, see, Daniel Binchy, ‘The date and provenance of Uraicecht Becc’, Ériu 18 (1958), 44–54: 51–4; see also Liam Breatnach, ‘The ecclesiastical element in the Old-Irish legal tract Cáin Fhuithirbe’, Peritia 5 (1986), 36–52.

¹¹ Liam Breatnach, ‘Lawyers in early Ireland’, in Daire Hogan and W.N. Osborough (eds), Brehons, serjeants and attorneys: studies in the history of the Irish legal profession (Dublin, 1990), 1–13.

¹² See, for example, the grades of commoners outlined in eighth-century law tracts Crith Gablach, ‘Branched purchase’, and Uraicecht Becc, ‘Small primer in Tables 1 and 2. Both of these law tracts are translated in MacNeill,’ Ancient Irish law’, 265–31; for the grades enumerated in Crith Gablach, see Binchy, Crith Gablach, 1, ll. 16–18, §4.

¹³ Donnchadh O Corrain, ‘Nationality and kingship in pre-Norman Ireland’, in T.W Moody (ed.), Historical studies xi: nationality and the pursuit ofnational independence, papers read before the conference held at Trinity College, Dublin, 26–31 May 1975 (Belfast, 1978), available online at: http://celt.ucc.ie/nation_kingship.html (last accessed 25 January 2015).

¹⁴ Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘Crith Gablach and the law of status’, Peritia 5 (1986), 53–73; Thomas Charles-Edwards, ‘Kinship, status, and the origins of the hide’, Past & Present 56 (1972), 3–33: 9. See also, Martin J. Ryan, ‘That “dreary old question”: the hide in early Anglo-Saxon England’, in Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan (eds), Place-names, language and the Anglo-Saxon landscape (Woodbridge, 2011), 207–23 and Patrick Wormald, ‘Society: warriors and dependants’, in Christopher Haigh (ed.), The Cambridge historical encyclopedia of Great Britain and Ireland (Cambridge, 1985; repr. 2000), 81–7: 84.

¹⁵ Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh kinship, particularly chapter 8 on Irish clientship, 337–63.

¹⁶ See Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh kinship, 338–9, Paul Freedman, Images of the medieval peasant (Stanford, 1999), 9–10. Some fuidri may have possessed or held limited rights over kin-land, see Rudolf Thurneysen, Irisches Recht. I. Dire. Ein altirischer Rechtstext. II. Zu den unteren Ständen in Irland, Abhandlungen der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Nr 2 (Berlin, 1931), repr. in Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel and Rolf Ködderitzsch (eds), Rudolf Thurneysen Gesammelte schriften (3 vols, Tübingen, 1991–5), vol. iii, 233–55. See also, Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh kinship, 319–24.

¹⁷ Charles-Edwards, ‘Crith Gablach and the law of status’, 58–9; Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh kinship, 309; Gearoóid Mac Niocaill, ‘The origins of the betagh’, The Irish Jurist 1 (1966), 292–8.

¹⁸ This problem is particularly prevalent when modern archaeologists attempt to determine the status of an early medieval archaeological site when there is no linked historical association. For the types of social and economic clues that can be utilised, see Michelle Comber, The economy of the ringfort and contemporary settlement in early medieval Ireland, British Archaeological Reports, International Series, no. 1773 (Oxford, 2008).

¹⁹ ‘na dlegait biathad acht bochtan no urchaelan no bairgen huasallaithe cona handlonn’ Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. ii, 363.26–7; trans. in W. Neilson Hancock, Thaddeus O’Mahony, Alexander George Richey and Robert Atkinson (eds and trans), Ancient laws of Ireland (6 vols, Dublin, 1865–1901), vol. i, 107: ‘he is not entitled to any food except the ‘bóchtan’ or ‘urchaelan’ or cake of the noble feast with its condiment’. Bochtan is glossed ‘Icha dlegait biathad s lan eini in boicht’, Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. ii, 364.4; trans. in Hancock et al., Ancient laws of Ireland, vol. i, 107: ‘he is not entitled to any food but the full of the poor man’s [cup]’; see also Kelly, Early Irish farming, 577; The discussion of seasonal allotments (‘the time of milk’ and ‘the time of corn’) is found in the later commentary.

²⁰ G.S.M. Walker (ed.), Sancti Columbani Opera (Dublin, 1957), 124–5, §5 ‘Of food and drink’.

²¹ George Lawless (ed.), Augustine of Hippo and his monastic rule (Oxford, 1987), 80–1, ll. 19–21, §5. Augustine specifically warns that paupers should not join a monastery in hopes of increasing the quantity or quality of his diet. A sentiment that was repeated by the thirteenth-century Humbert of Romans in a sermon to lay Cistercian brothers, Massimo Montanari, The culture of food (La fame e l’abbondanza), trans. by Carl Ipsen (Oxford, 1994), 51.

²² A.T. Lucas ‘Irish food before the potato’, Gwerin 3:2 (1960), 8–43: 8.

²³ Kelly, Early Irish farming, 317.

²⁴ Catherine O’Sullivan, Hospitality in medieval Ireland, 900–1500 (Dublin, 2004), 31.

²⁵ Anton Ervynck, Wim Van Neer, Heide Hüster-Plogmann and Jörg Schibler, ‘Beyond affluence: the zooarchaeology of luxury’, World Archaeology 34:3 (2003), 428–41: 432.

²⁶ Kelly, A guide to early Irish law, 246 (for Uraicecht Becc) and 246–8 (for Críth Gablach); see also, Binchy, Críth Gablach, xiv and Binchy, ‘The date and provenance of Uraicecht Becc’, 44–54 for information regarding some locations and events which help to date and possibly locate the texts.

²⁷ First fer midboth: ‘Abiathad [a] oenur, ass ₇ gruis no arbur’, Binchy, Críth Gablach,2, ll. 26–7, §6; ‘his food-provision is for himself alone, milk and curds or corn’, trans. in MacNeill, ’Ancient Irish law’, 283, §66; second fer midboth: ‘Abiatha[d] [a] oenur, ass ₇ grús nó arbur’, Binchy, Crith Gablach, 2, l. 44, §7; ‘food-provision for himself alone, milk and curds or corn : trans. in MacNeill, Ancient Irish law’, 284, §69. MacNeill translated grus as curds, but it was translated in the Dictionary of the Irish language and by Kelly as cheese, and as such cheese will be the term used in this discussion, Dictionary ofthe Irish Language, available online at: www.dil.ie (last accessed 4 February 2015), s.v. grus (2) and Kelly, Early Irish farming, 326.

²⁸ Binchy, Crith Gablach, 2, l. 27, §6; trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 283, §66.

²⁹ ‘et teora bairgen a biathad : Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1610.23; ‘and three [loaves] his food-provision : trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 277, §34.

³⁰ Binchy, Crith Gablach, 5, l. 116, §10; trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 288, §82.

³¹ ‘biathad deise dó di as₇ grús nó arbaimm : Binchy, Crith Gablach, 5, ll. 115–16, §10. Though the nomenclature in Uraicecht Becc listed a biiaire tanisi, an analysis of grades and rank shows that the bóiaire tanisi and the óicaire were the same grade. As such, all references will be made to the ócaire not the bóaire tanisi. See, for example, Neil McLeod, ‘Interpreting early Irish law: status and currency. Part 1’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 41 (1986), 46–65 and Neil McLeod, ‘Interpreting early Irish law: status and currency. Part 2’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 42 (1987), 41–115: 72–4.

³² ‘Cùad dá ordlach .x. di draumcu ar lemlacht cechtar n-ai’: Binchy, Crith Gablach, 5, ll. 116–17, §10; ‘A noggin of twelve inches of draumce instead of new milk for each of the two’: trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 288, §82; Micheál Ó Sé, ‘Old Irish cheeses and other milk products’, Journal ofthe Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 53:2 (1948), 82–7: 86. Fergus Kelly called this a ‘whey drink’, Kelly, Early Irish farming, 328.

³³ ‘₇ bairgen in(d)ruic nó di bairgin banuini’: Binchy, Crith Gablach, 5, ll. 117–18, §10; ‘and a full-sized [loaf], or two [loaves] of woman’s baking : trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 288, §82.

³⁴ For the circumference of the loaf see: ‘Bargen trichat ungae mes/ ar da ordlach dec is coir,/ acht ma gabthai gortae dib/ dlegait in bráthair im nóin’, ‘A [loaf] of thirty ounces, in measure by twelve inches (in size), it is just, unless a famine take it from them, the brethren should get it about nones’ : text and trans. in Joseph O’Neill, ‘The Rule of Ailbe of Emly’, Ériu 1 (1907), 92–115: 102–03, §31a. John Strachan also has an edition of this text and dates it to before AD 800: John Strachan, ‘An Old-Irish metrical Rule’, Ériu 1 (1904), 191–208: 192. For the thickness described in Cáin Aicillne, see: Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1781.29 and Rudolf Thurneysen, ‘Aus dem Irischen Recht I’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 14 (1923), 335–94: 345, §6.

³⁵ See, for example, Michael Monk, John Tierney and Martha Hannon, ‘Archae-obotanical studies in early medieval Munster’, in Michael Monk and John Sheehan (eds), Early medieval Munster: archaeology, history and society (Cork, 1998), 65–75 and Finbar McCormick, Thomas Kerr, Meriel McClatchie and Aidan O’Sullivan, ‘The archaeology of livestock and cereal production in early medieval Ireland, AD 400–1100’, Early Medieval Archaeology Project, Report 5.1 (December, 2011).

³⁶ ‘cuic bairgin la hais do ł him, : Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1611.5; ‘five [loaves] with milk for him or butter’: trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 277, §35. See also Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. vi, 2327.19.

³⁷ Binchy, Crith Gablach, 6, ll. 149–50, §12; trans. in MacNeill, ’Ancient Irish law’, 290, §86; Kelly, Early Irish farming, 304–05; 313.

³⁸ Hancock et al., Ancient laws of Ireland, iv, 309; MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 290, §86, note 1.

³⁹ Kelly, Early Irish farming, 316–17; see also Dictionary of Irish language, s.v. serccol(l), tarsand.

⁴⁰ Binchy, Crith Gablach, 7, ll. 168–9, §13, trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 290, §88.

⁴¹ Binchy, Crith Gablach, 62, glossary, s.v. saillte.

⁴² Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1611.25–31; trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 277, §36.

⁴³ Binchy, Crith Gablach, 8, ll. 205–06, §15; trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 291, §90.

⁴⁴ See for example, a gloss in the Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus on Broccán’s hymn in which tinne ‘a flitch (of bacon)’ is glossed saille: Whitley Stokes and John Strachan (eds), Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: a collection of Old-Irish glosses, scholia prose and verse (2 vols, Cambridge, 1901–03), vol. ii, 339, l. 1, gloss no. 21. Dictionary of Irish language, s.v. saill, tinne (2).

⁴⁵ Fer fothlai: Binchy, Crith Gablach, 11, ll. 270–71, §19; trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 294, §94; aire coisring: Binchy, Crith Gablach, 12, ll. 300–01, §20; trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 295, §99.

⁴⁶ Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1772.34–1773.28; trans. in Thomas Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, 93.

⁴⁷ Neil McLeod, ‘Crólige mbáis’ in Ériu 59 (2009), 25–36: 33.

⁴⁸ Ócaire:’imb i suidiu i treisi, i cóicthi, i nóimaid, i ndechmaid, i ndomnuch’, Binchy, Crith Gablach, 5, ll. 118–9, §10, ‘butter, in this case, on the third, fifth, ninth and tenth day, and on Sunday’, trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 288, §82; bóiaire febsa: ‘imb(m) dó i ndeissi, i treisi, i cócthi, i nnómaid, i ndechmaid, i ndomnuch’, Binchy, Crith Gablach, 7, ll. 167–8, § 13; ‘butter on the second, third, fifth, ninth and tenth day, (and) on Sunday’, trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 290, §88.

⁴⁹ Edward Gwynn and W.J. Purton, ‘The monastery of Tallaght’, Proceedings ofthe Royal Irish Academy 19C (1911–12), 115–79: 157–8, §73.

⁵⁰ Daniel Binchy, ‘Sick-maintenance in Irish law’, Ériu 12 (1938), 78–134: 108–09.

⁵¹ Daniel Binchy, ‘Bretha Crólige’, Ériu 12 (1938), 1–77: 22–3, §26.

⁵² Binchy, ‘Bretha Crólige’, 24–5, §30, 44–5, §56; Binchy, ‘Sick-maintenance in Irish law’, 110.

⁵³ Binchy, ‘Bretha Crolige’, 44–5, §56; Binchy, ‘Sick-maintenance in Irish law’, 110.

⁵⁴ John O’Donovan, ‘Prose Rule of the Céli Dé’, in William Reeves (ed.), The Culdees ofthe British islands, as they appear in history: with an appendix of evidences (Dublin, 1864; repr. Somerset, 1994), 84–97: 93; Kelly, Early Irish farming, 349.

⁵⁵ losa brochain cacha muige’: Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 242.17–18; herbs for [an invalid’s] broth from every plain’, trans. in Kelly, Early Irish farming, 304, note 234.

⁵⁶ Kathleen Mulchrone, Bethu Phátraic: the tripartite Life of Patrick (Dublin, 1939), 120–1; Kelly, Early Irish farming, 257, 350; Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. iii, 1068.3.

⁵⁷ Kelly, Early Irish farming, 333.

⁵⁸ Binchy, Crith Gablach, 7, l. 184, §15 and ll. 174–5, §14; trans. in Daniel Binchy, ‘Brewing in eighth-century Ireland’, in B.G. Scott (ed.), Studies on early Ireland: essays in honour of M.V. Duignan (Belfast, 1982), 3–6: 4. In certain cases, when ale was owed to a lord in clientship, part of the brewing process was done by the commoner, but the final product was produced by the lord’s brewer (scóiaire), Binchy, Brewing in eighth-century Ireland’, 3–6.

⁵⁹ ‘i mir mend .i. mian mna torrcha, .i. gan a mian a thabairt di, .i. ó á fir féin, ocus ar daigin secdachta no crunnachta ro gabadh im in mbiadh ann, no cumad ar daigin esba. Ocus a fuil ann ar treisi, .i. in coirpdire’, text and trans. in Hancock et al., Ancient laws of Ireland, i, 180–1; text in Corpus Iuris Hibernici is arranged differently ‘i mir mend .i. in coirpdire .i. o fir fein .i. mian mna torrcha. .i. gan a thabairt di, ₇ ar daigin secdachta ł crunnachta rogabad imin mbiad ann, ł cumad ar daigin espba; ₇ a fuil ann ar .iii.’, Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. ii, 387.30, gloss, ll. 34–6. See also, Kelly, A guide to early Irish law, 154.

⁶⁰ Bronagh Ni Chonaill, ‘Child-centred law in medieval Ireland’, in R. Davis and T. Dunne (eds), The empty throne: childhood and the crisis of modernity (Cambridge, in press), 1–31: 4, available at: http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/3812/17Child2-Centred_Law.pdf (4 February 2015). See also, Hancock et al., Ancient laws of Ireland, iii, 550–3.

⁶¹ Ni Chonaill, ‘Child-centred law in medieval Ireland’, 11–12. See also Brónagh Ni Chonaill, ‘The place of the child in medieval Irish and Welsh law’, unpublished PhD thesis, Trinity College Dublin, 2011.

⁶² Binchy, ’Bretha Crólige’, 42–3, §52. Binchy translated lictiu as gruel, but both O hInnse and Kelly preferred a translation of porridge. The latter will be used in this thesis: Seamus Ó hInnse, ‘Fosterage in early medieval Ireland’, unpublished PhD thesis, University College Dublin, 1943, 15, §16; Kelly, Early Irish farming, 84; Dictionary of the Irish language, s.v. littiu.

⁶³ Ó hInnse, ‘Fosterage in early medieval Ireland’, 15, §16.

⁶⁴ Ó hInnse, ‘Fosterage in early medieval Ireland’, 15, §16; Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1759.39–41.

⁶⁵ Ó hInnse, ‘Fosterage in early medieval Ireland’, 15, §16.

⁶⁶ See above, note 19. This may also be an early reference to the use of ‘trenchers’, slices of bread used instead of plates at feasts and which were distributed to the dogs or the poor after the meal had finished: Thomas King Moylan, ‘Dubliners: 1200–1500’, Dublin Historical Record 13:3–4 (1953), 79–93: 89.

⁶⁷ Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. ii, 364.7–8.

⁶⁸ Whitley Stokes (ed.), ‘Life of Findian of Clonard’, in Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore (London, 1890), 81, l. 2734, trans., 229.

⁶⁹ ‘pinginn ₇ trian pinginne ar scath a lachta’, Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 307.10–11; Kelly, Early Irish farming, 79.

⁷⁰ ‘lethpingind arin lacht’, Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 307.6 or ‘a aentrian arin lacht’, Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 307.7.

⁷¹ See Kelly for the relative value of a penny and a scruple: Kelly, Early Irish farming, 76–9.

⁷² Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. iii, 920.28–32, trans. in Bette Crigger, “‘A man is better than his birth”: identity and action in early Irish law’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 1991, 366, §11, with a few emendations based on Kelly’s discussion of the text; Kelly, Early Irish farming, 78; Breatnach, A companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici, 295.

⁷³ Kathy L. Pearson, ‘Nutrition and the early-medieval diet’, Speculum 72:1 (1997), 1–32: 17.

⁷⁴ Pearson, ‘Nutrition and the early-medieval diet’, 17.

⁷⁵ Michael A. Monk, ‘Evidence from macroscopic plant remains for crop husbandry in prehistoric and early Ireland: a review’, The Journal of Irish Archaeology 3 (1985–6), 31–6: 34; Aidan O’Sullivan, Finbar McCormick, Lorcan Harney, Jonathan Kinsella and Thomas Kerr, ‘Early medieval dwellings and settlements in Ireland, AD 400–1100’, Early Medieval Archaeology Project, Report 4.2 (December, 2010), 58.

⁷⁶ Daniel Binchy, ‘Bretha Déin Chécht’, Ériu 20 (1966), 1–66: 22–3, §2.

⁷⁷ Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera, 124–5, 126–7, §3.

⁷⁸ Nikolah Gilligan, ‘Archaeobotanical assemblage of medieval Talbot’s Tower, Kilkenny’, Heritage office, Kilkenny Local Authorities, 2012, 13; L. Clarke, ‘Report on the archaeological excavation of Boyerstown 3, Co. Meath,’ excavation report unpublished, available at: http://www.m3motorway.ie/Archaeology/Section3/Boyers-town3/ (25 January 2015); Finbar McCormick et al., ‘The archaeology of livestock and cereal production in early medieval Ireland’, ‘Plant remains gazetteer’, p20–8, available at: http://emap.ie/documents/EMAP_Report_5_Archaeology_of_Livestock_-and_Cereal_Production_WEB.pdf (25 January 2015).

⁷⁹ Siobhan Geraghty, Viking Dublin: botanical evidence from Fishamble Street (Dublin, 1996), 32; John Tierney and Martha Hannon, ‘Plant remains’, in M.F. Hurley and O.M.B. Scully (eds), Late Viking Age and medieval Waterford excavations 1986–92 (Waterford, 1997), 889; O’Sullivan et al., ‘Early medieval dwellings and settlements in Ireland, AD 400–1100’, 55. See also Kelly, Early Irish farming, 249. The word ponair can also be found in a gloss on Bretha Déin Chécht, Binchy, ‘Bretha Déin Chécht’, 22–3, §2.

⁸⁰ O’Sullivan et al., ‘Early medieval dwellings and settlements in Ireland, AD 400–1100’,

⁸¹ Crigger, ‘A man is better than his birth’, 356, §12; Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1910.24.

⁸² Kelly, Early Irish farming, 309; Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1910.24; iii, 918.38–9.

⁸³ ‘Ci’s lir rosuidigead rodilse cacha tuaithe ada comdilsi da cach recht hae aite | crim allda’: Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 241.19–20; ‘How many things have been established as the inherent rights of every territory, and which are equally due to every person . . . wild garlic’: trans. in Hancock et al., Ancient laws of Ireland, v, 483.

⁸⁴ ‘.i. arna bi techtugud’, Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 241.32; ‘which is not appropriated [i.e. held as common property]’, trans. in Hancock et al., Ancient laws of Ireland, vol. v, 485; Dictionary of the Irish Language, s.v. techtugad.

⁸⁵ Whitley Stokes (ed.), Féilire Oⁱ engusso Ceili Dei: the martyrology ofOengus the Culdee (London, 1905), 146–7, notes on the month of June.

⁸⁶ Stokes, Feilire Oⁱ engusso, 146–7, notes on June.

⁸⁷ McCormick et al., ‘The archaeology of livestock and cereal production in early medieval Ireland’, ‘Plant remains gazetteer’, p16, p27, p138, p157, p197, p210.

⁸⁸ Gilligan, ‘Medieval Talbot’s tower, Kilkenny’, 14; Geraghty, Viking Dublin, 38.

⁸⁹ Binchy, ‘Bretha Crólige’, 22–3, §27.

⁹⁰ Binchy, ‘Bretha Crólige’, 22–3, §27, gloss number 3.

⁹¹ Binchy, ‘Bretha Crólige’, 36–7, §45.

⁹² ‘ar ailid cac otrus humus(a) la Fēne ota airig etir da airic corigi fer midbod, aragair eslane nad comlui, aragair luge ndige nat fuiben fuile’, ‘for every (person on) sick-maintenance in Irish law from an aire itir da airig down to a [fer midboth] is entitled to [imus], which prevents sickness and does not stir it up, which prevents thirst and does not infect wounds’, text and trans. in Binchy, ‘Bretha Cr’lige’, 36–7, §45.

⁹³ Binchy, in his edition of the text, translated imus as celery: Binchy, ‘Bretha Crólige’, 23, §27; 37, §45. This translation was followed by Donnchadh Ó Corrain, but he worried about the potential toxicity of the plant, Donnchadh Ó Corrain, ‘Ireland c. 800: aspects of society ‘, in Dáibhi Ó Croinin (ed.), A new history of Ireland: prehistoric and early Ireland (Oxford, 2005), 549–608: 567. The Dictionary of the Irish language offered parsley as a possible alternative, but this was rejected by Fergus Kelly who instead proposed that imus referred to alexanders: Dictionary of the Irish language, s.v. imus; Kelly, Early Irish farming,254.

⁹⁴ Fergus Kelly, ‘Old Irish tree-List’, Celtica 11 (1976), 107–24: 113.

⁹⁵ Alan Orr Anderson and Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson, Adomnan’s Life of Columba (Edinburgh, 1961; repr. and rev. by M.O. Anderson, Oxford, 1991), 96–7, book ii, ch. 2.

⁹⁶ Thomas Charles-Edwards and Fergus Kelly, Bechbretha (Dublin, 1983), 103, notes to §12.

⁹⁷ Charles-Edwards and Kelly, Bechbretha, 103, notes to §12.

⁹⁸ ‘im crand ngabala bis i ndithrib : Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. ii, 395.23; ‘an appropriated tree which is in the wilderness : trans. in Kelly, Early Irish farming, 407.

⁹⁹ Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 238.31. For the fine: ‘.i. na flatha .i. u.s. ind do rigaib cona comgradaibh; amal glas fiadan he’: Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 238.34–239.1; ‘of the chief, i.e. there are five ‘seds’ for it to the kings, with those of the same grade; it is like a wild herb’, trans. in Hancock et al., Ancient laws ofIreland, vol. v, 475.

¹⁰⁰ Daniel Binchy, ‘An archaic legal poem’, Celtica 9 (1971), 152–68: 157, l. 47; MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 307–11.

¹⁰¹ Geraghty, Viking Dublin, 44; Eugene O’Curry, On the manners and customs of the ancient Irish (3 vols, Dublin, 1873), vol. i, ccclxv-ccclxvi.

¹⁰² Donnchadh Ó hAodha (ed.), Bethu Brigte (Dublin, 1978), 29, §§32–3.

¹⁰³ Whitley Stokes (ed.), ‘Life of Senán’, in Lives of saints from the Book of Lismore (London, 1890), 54–74, trans. 201–21: 57, l. 1880 and ll. 1890–4, trans. 204, l. 1880 and ll. 1890–4; Padraig O Riain, A dictionary of Irish saints (Dublin, 2011), 557–60.

¹⁰⁴ Geraghty, Viking Dublin,36–42; McCormick et al., ‘The archaeology of livestock and cereal production in early medieval Ireland’, ‘Plant remains gazetteer’, p113, p197, p217; since preservation was often achieved through charring, fruit remains are often difficult to find in the archaeobotanical record: Meriel McClatchie, ‘The plant remains’, in Rose M. Clery ‘Excavations of an early-medieval period enclosure at Ballynagallagh, Lough Gur, County Limerick’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 106C (2006), 58–66: 65.

¹⁰⁵ Aidan O’Sullivan, ‘Place, memory and identity among estuarine fishing communities: interpreting the archaeology of early medieval fish weirs’, World Archaeology 35:3 (2003), 449–68: 459.

¹⁰⁶ O’Sullivan, ‘Place, memory and identity among estuarine fishing communities’, 451.

¹⁰⁷ Whitley Stokes, ‘O’ Davoren’s glossary’, in Kuno Meyer and Whitley Stokes (eds), Archiv für celtische lexicographie ii (London, 1904), 206, §60; for the association between this section in O’Davoren s glossary and Anfuigell see Breatnach, A companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici, 165.

¹⁰⁸ Gearóid Mac Niocaill, ‘Tir Cumaile’, Ériu 22 (1971), 81–6, especially, 85.

¹⁰⁹ Kelly, Early Irish farming, 288; ł in cora coitcend na fine’, Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, ii, 369.15; ‘or the common weir of the fine’.

¹¹⁰ Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 241.20–2; trans. in Kelly, Early Irish farming, 286.

¹¹¹ Text and trans. in Kelly, Early Irish farming, 287, citing Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. iii, 888.15.

¹¹² David Binchy, ‘Irish law tracts re-edited’, Ériu 17 (1955), 52–85.

¹¹³ Niall Brady, ‘Mills in medieval Ireland: looking beyond design’, in Steven A. Walton (ed.), Wind and water in the Middle Ages: fluid technologies from antiquity to the Renaissance (Tempe, AZ, 2006), 39–68: 51.

¹¹⁴ Margaret Murphy and Kieran O’Conor, ‘Castles and deer parks in Anglo-Norman Ireland’, Eolas: The Journal ofthe American Society ofMedieval Studies i (2006), 53–70:55.

¹¹⁵ Binchy, ‘Irish law tracts re-edited’, 68–9, §9.

¹¹⁶ Marion A. Dowd, ‘Kilgreany, Co. Waterford: biography of a cave’, The Journal of Irish Archaeology 11 (2002), 77–97: 87.

¹¹⁷ Dowd, ‘Kilgreany, Co. Waterford’, 90.

¹¹⁸ Peter Woodman, ‘Mesolithic middens: from famine to feasting’, Archaeology Ireland 15:3 (2001), 32–5: 33.

¹¹⁹ Michelle Comber, ‘Tom Fanning ‘s excavations at Rinnaraw Cashel, Portnablagh, Co. Donegal’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 106C (2006), 67–124: 108.

¹²⁰ Jonny Geber, ‘Human remains from Owenbristy in Finn Delany and John Tierney (eds), In the lowlands of South Galway: archaeological excavations on the N18 Oranmore to Gort, National Road Scheme Monograph 7 (Galway, 2011), 88–97: 91.

¹²¹ Laurie J. Reitsema, Douglas E. Crews and Marek Polcyn, ‘Preliminary evidence for medieval Polish diet from carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes’, Journal of Archaeological Science 37:7 (2010), 1413–23: 1413–4.

¹²² Geber, ‘Human remains from Owenbristy’, 91.

¹²³ Kelly J. Knudson, Barra O’Donnabhain, Charisse Carver, Robin Cleland and T. Douglas Price, ‘Migration and Viking Dublin: paleomobility and paleodiet through isotopic analysis’, Journal of Archaeological Science 39:2 (2012), 308–20: 317.

¹²⁴ Knudson et al., ‘Migration and Viking Dublin’, 317.

¹²⁵ Knudson et al., ‘Migration and Viking Dublin’, 312.

¹²⁶ Robb Robinson, ‘The common North Atlantic pool’, in David Starkey, Chris Reid and Neil Ashcroft (eds), England’s sea fisheries: the commercial sea fisheries of England and Wales since 1300 (London, 2000), 9–17: 12.

¹²⁷ O’Sullivan, ‘Place, memory and identity’, 459; Kelly, Early Irish farming, 237.

¹²⁸ O’Sullivan, ‘Place, memory and identity’, 462.

¹²⁹ O’Sullivan, ‘Place, memory and identity’, 462.

¹³⁰ Kuno Meyer, ‘A Middle-Irish lyric’, The Gaelic Journal 4 (1889) 42–3: 42, ll. 9–12.

¹³¹ ‘Ni mug. ni fuidir. ni fulla. ni augaire. ni buachail. ni crette cuaine : Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. ii, 363.23–4; ‘No slave, nor fuidir, nor lunatic(?), nor shepherd, nor cowherd nor dog s-body (poet s apprentice)’. For more information on the crette cuaine na filed: Liam Breatnach, Uraicecht na Riar (Dublin, 1987), 112–3, §18 commentary.

¹³² Whitley Stokes, ‘The Bodleian Amra Choluimb Chille’, Revue Celtique 20 (1899): 31–55, 132–83, 248–89, 400–37: 40–41. See also, Maria Tymoczko, ‘The semantic fields of early Irish terms for black birds and their implications for species taxonomy’, in A.T.E. Matonis and Daniel F. Melia (eds), Celtic language, Celtic culture: a festschrift for Eric P. Hamp (Van Nuys, 1990), 151–71: 157.

¹³³ Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, ‘Exploitation of birds and fish in historic Ireland: a brief review of the evidence’, in Eileen M. Murphy and Nicki J. Whitehouse (eds), Environmental archaeology in Ireland (Oxford, 2007), 102–18: 107; Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, ‘Fish and fowl bones’, in Michelle Comber, ‘M.V. Duignan’s excavations at the ringfort of Rathgurreen, Co. Galway, 1948–9’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 102C (2002), 137–97: 192–3.

¹³⁴ See, for example, the monastic community at Illaunloughlan, Co. Kerry: Emily Murray, Finbar McCormick and Gill Plunkett, ‘The food economies of Atlantic Island monasteries: the documentary and archaeo-environmental evidence’, Environmental Archaeology 9:2 (2004), 179–88.

¹³⁵ Stokes, ‘O’Davoren’s glossary’, 460, §1480. On Bretha Sén Formae see Breatnach, A companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici, 308; Kelly, Early Irish farming, 189.

¹³⁶ Kelly, A guide to early Irish law, 106; Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. vi, 2108.24–9.

¹³⁷ ‘Mas ar ferannn na ngradh fene roinnled gin fiarfaigid 1 cu fiarfaigid, cuicedh feola ₇ da .u.eth cluime’: Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. vi, 2108.28–9; ‘If it is on the land of the commoner grades that it was trapped without permission or with permission, one-fifth of the flesh and two-fifths of the feathers [are owed]’.

¹³⁸ Although it has been argued by Umberto Albarella and Richard Thomas that, in medieval England, the rarity of some wild birds increasde the perceived status of the consumer regardless of the taste of the bird itself: Umberto Albarella and Richard Thomas, ‘They dined on crane: bird consumption, wild fowling, and status in medieval England’, Acta zoologica cracoviensia 45 (2002), 23–38.

¹³⁹ Kelly, Early Irish farming, 102–05.

¹⁴⁰ ‘da miach ar circ cein dotas, Miach ar caileach cein niunas, lethmiach iarmotha’, Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. v, 1609.38–9; ‘two sacks for a hen while it is hatching, a sack for a cock when it is treading, half a sack thereafter’, trans. in Hancock et al., Ancient laws ofIreland, vol. v, 83.

¹⁴¹ ‘Somuine chirce: a aithgin, cuad da ordluch .x. lan d’uighe’: Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. iii, 920.35–7; ‘Render for a hen: it’s restitution, a twelve-inch mug full of eggs’

¹⁴² Kelly, Early Irish farming, 104.

¹⁴³ O Donovan, The banquet of Dun na n-Gedh and the battle of Magh Rath, 31.

¹⁴⁴ Stokes, ‘O’Davoren’s glossary’, 461, §1484.

¹⁴⁵ See Dale Serjeantson, Birds (New York, 2009), specifically 165–83.

¹⁴⁶ Consequently the geese eggs in Fléd Dún na n-Gedh were particularly hard to find since it was not the appropriate season: O’Donovan, The banquet of Dun na n-Gedh and the battle of Magh Rath,16–17, particularly note ‘m’.

¹⁴⁷ See above for the equal value attached to a she-goat’s milk, flesh and kids.

¹⁴⁸ Roisin McLaughlin, Early Irish satire (Dublin, 2008), 142–3, §27.

¹⁴⁹ The seventh-century Audacht Morainn, for example, noted that a king should ‘estimate sheep by their covering which is selected for the garments of the people’ rather than by their meat: Fergus Kelly, Audacht Morainn (Dublin, 1876), 13, §44.

¹⁵⁰ Ócaire: Binchy, Crith Gablach, 4, ll. 89–91, §10; trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 286, §77.

¹⁵¹ Binchy, Crith Gablach,3,ll. 71–6, §9; trans. in MacNeill, ‘Ancient Irish law’, 286, §73.

¹⁵² ‘Ni feraim cobra milis;/ ni marbtar muilt dom banais;/ is bec, is liath mo thrilis;/ ni liach droch-caille tarais’,’I speak no honied [sic] words; no wethers are killed for my wedding; my hair is scanty and grey; to have a mean veil over it causes no regret’: text and trans. in Gerard Murphy, ‘The lament of the Old Woman of Beare’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 55C (1952–3), 83–109: 94–5, §11.

¹⁵³ A.T. Lucas, Cattle in ancient Ireland (Kilkenny, 1989); Kelly, Early Irish farming, 27–66.

¹⁵⁴ Finbar McCormick and Emily Murray, Excavations at Knowth: Knowth and the zooarchaeology of Early Christian Ireland (Dublin, 2007); Finbar McCormick, ‘The decline of the cow: agricultural and settlement change in early medieval Ireland’, Peritia 20 (2008), 210–25. Margaret McCarthy, ‘The faunal remains’, in Rose M. Clery, ‘Excavations of an early-medieval period enclosure at Ballynagallagh, Lough Gur, County Limerick’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 106C (2006), 1–66: 54; Aidan O’Sullivan, The archaeology of lake settlement in Ireland (Dublin, 1998), 117.

¹⁵⁵ Whitley Stokes, ‘Life of Columb Cille’, in Lives of saints from the Book of Lismore (Oxford, 1890), 20–33, trans. 168–81: 31, ll. 1055–63, trans. 179. For Máire Herbert’s more recent edition of the text see: Máire Herbert, Iona, Kells, and Derry: the history and hagiography of the monastic familia of Columba (Oxford, 1988), 239, §60, translation 262–3.

¹⁵⁶ Richard Best and Osborn Bergin (eds), Lebor na hUidre: the Book of the Dun Cow (Dublin, 1992), 137, ll. 4350–5; Vernam Hull, ‘The later version of the Expulsion of the Dessi’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 27 (1958–9), 14–63: 25, §3, trans., 46. A similar story of bread baked for labourers can be found in the twelfth-century anecdote, ‘The quarrel about the loaf’: T.P. O’Nowlan, ‘The quarrel about the loaf’, Ériu 1 (1904), 128–37: 132–5.

¹⁵⁷ Kelly, Early Irish farming, 461.

¹⁵⁸ Gerard Murphy, Early Irish lyrics: eighth to twelfth century (Dublin, 1998), 107, §7.

¹⁵⁹ Gwynn and Purton, ‘The monastery of Tallaght’, 128, §3.

¹⁶⁰ Text in Kuno Meyer, The triads of Ireland (Dublin, 1906), 30, §236; trans. in Kelly, Early Irish farming, 281.

¹⁶¹ ‘Cis lir rosuidigead rodilse cacha tuaithe ada comdilsi da cach recht . . . fiad cacha feda’: Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. i, 241.19–20 and 241.24–5; ‘How many (things) have been established as the inherent rights of every territory, and which are equally due to every person? . . . the wild animals of each wood’, trans. in Hancock et al., Ancient laws of Ireland, vol. v, 483; see also Kelly, A guide to early Irish law, 106.

¹⁶² Binchy, Corpus Iuris Hibernici, vol. iii, 916.40–41; trans. in Kelly, Early Irish farming, 282, note 74.

¹⁶³ McLaughlin, Early Irish satire, 150–51, §46.

¹⁶⁴ Anderson and Anderson, Adomnan’s Life of Columba, 148–9, book ii (ch. 37).

¹⁶⁵ Anderson and Anderson, Adomnan’s Life of Columba, 149, book ii (ch. 37).

¹⁶⁶ Anderson and Anderson, Adomnan’s Life of Columba, 149, book ii (ch. 37).

¹⁶⁷ Anderson and Anderson, Adomnan’s Life of Columba, 149, book ii (ch. 37).

¹⁶⁸ Gwynn and Purton, ‘The monastery of Tallaght’, 129, §6.

¹⁶⁹ Gwynn and Purton, ‘The monastery of Tallaght’, 146, §51.

¹⁷⁰ O’Donovan, ‘Prose Rule of the Céli Dé’, 85.

¹⁷¹ These records are taken from a total of nine annalistic compilations: John O’Donovan (ed.), Annala Rioghachta Eireann: annals of the kingdom of Ireland, by the Four Masters, from the earliest period to 1616 (7 vols, Dublin, 1841–51; repr. 1990); Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill (eds), The annals of Ulster (to A.D. 1131) (Dublin, 1983); Seán Mac Airt (ed.), The annals of Innisfallen (MS Rawlinson B 503) (Dublin, 1944; repr. 1988); Whitley Stokes (ed.), ‘The Annals of Tigernach’, Revue Celtique 16 (1895), 374–419; 17 (1896), 6–33, 116–263, 337–420; 18 (1897), 9–59, 150–303, repr. (2 vols, Felinfach, 1993); Conell Mageoghagan, The annals of Clonmacnoise, ed. Rev. Denis Murphy (Dublin, 1896); William Hennessy (ed.), Chronicum Scotorum: a chronicle of Irish affairs, from the earliest times to A.D. 1135 (London, 1866); Joan Newlon Radner (ed.), Fragmentary annals of Ireland (Dublin, 1978); William Hennessy (ed.), The Annals of Loch Cé: a chronicle of Irish affairs from A.D. 1014 to A.D. 1590 (Dublin, 1871); Séamus Ó hInnse (ed.), Miscellaneous Irish annals (A.D. 1114–1437) (Dublin, 1947).