Compensation

What would this have cost?

Early Irish compensation is not a price list. It starts from the standing of the person harmed and works outward through the nature of the harm and the circumstances around it. Pick a rank and a harm to see the reckoning written out.

Social rank of the injured party

Type of harm

Circumstances (optional)

Amount due

0.42 séts

≈ 0.14 cumals ≈ 0.42 milch cows

1 Start from the honour-price
Bóaire — strong farmer carries an honour-price of 5 séts.
= 5 séts
2 Apply the measure for the harm
A sting causing ordinary injury is reckoned at a twelfth of the honour-price.
= 0.42 séts

[1983] Bechbretha: An Old Irish Law-Tract on Bee-Keeping [1997] Early Irish Farming

A cumal is the standard large unit of value — originally a female slave, later reckoned at about three milch cows. A sét is roughly a third of a cumal.

Where this sits on the scale

Fuidir — semi-free tenant1
Ócaire — small farmer3
Bóaire — strong farmer5
Aire désa — lowest noble grade10
Aire tuiseo — senior noble15
Rí túaithe — king of a local kingdom21
Bishop or chief poet21
Your reckoning0.42

Bars show each grade's full honour-price in séts; the dark bar is your current reckoning on the same scale.

These figures are reconstructions. The tracts give ratios and worked examples rather than a complete tariff, and scholars differ over how the fractions combine. Treat the result as a way of seeing the reasoning, not as a settled amount.

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