Eight works read against the bee-tract

The nineteenth-century editors treated bee-keeping as economically central, not curious.

“The culture of bees in the middle ages possessed an importance which, in our modern days, it has altogether lost… honey was largely employed as the only means of sweetening the food; and almost until our own days the consumption of wax for candle was very extensive.”

Introduction, section VII: Bee-Judgments

They read the tract as a school exercise in the law of possession rather than a field manual.

“The present tract must be considered as an exercise in which the question of the ownership of bees, their swarms, and their honey, is selected as a subject for dialectic subtility… questions relating to the ownership of bees were, in the ordinary course of life, dealt with on much less refined principles.”

Introduction, section VII

They print the legend of bees brought to Ireland by St Mo-Domnóc in full Latin from Colgan.

“Traditur enim primus esse, qui vel apes absolute… in Hiberniam transvexerit; unde magna deinceps in illo regno, qua ante caruit, apum et mellis abundantia remansit.” (Colgan, Acta Sanctorum, 13 February)

Introduction, section VII

Bechbretha and the water-course tract are neighbours in the manuscript and cite each other.

“CU occupies pp. 16–18, where it follows the much longer and more important ‘Bee-Judgements’ (Bechbretha)… The compiler actually refers to CU in the ‘Bee-Judgements’ (AL iv. 166. 23).”

Opening discussion of H 2. 15

Bee-keeping and water-mills posed the same legal problem: fitting an innovation into neighbour law.

“We have an interesting parallel with bee-keeping… In both cases the jurists would have been faced with the problem of grafting an important innovation on to their traditional law of ‘neighbourhood’ (comaithches).”

Discussion of mills and monasteries

Large-scale bee-keeping is linked with the monasteries, and the Mo-Domnóc legend with that fact.

“The legendary account of the introduction of bees from Britain by Mo-Domnóc… was doubtless based on the fact that apiculture on a large scale was first practised in the monasteries.”

Footnote 7

He quotes the bee-tract directly on the timing of swarming.

“na rrí soirche fo-cerdat in be[i]ch saithe ‘at any time during daylight that the bees swarm’ (AL iv. 172. 12, Bechbretha).”

Textual notes

The milch cow sat at the top of the scale of value.

“Under Brehon Law the highest unit of value was ‘the great milch cow’ worth 24 screpals of silver.”

Discussion of cattle values

Seizure was capped by the value of the damage claimed, a principle the bee rules also assume.

“Under this law it was not permissible to seize goods in excess of the value of the damage claimed.”

Discussion of distraint

Payments in kind were specified by measurable condition, not by rough estimate.

“A calf value a sack (of wheat), eight hands in girth, healthy after castration, grazed with the milking cows… with only the space of three fingers between his two loins and his kidneys.”

Cáin Aigillne repayments

Compensation had two parts, one fixed by the injury and one by the person's standing.

“The first element in the eric was that called body-price or coirp-dire, which was a fixed quantity for everyone depending on the nature of the injury… The second was a variable quantity depending on the rank of the injured party. This was called Enechlann, or Honour-price.”

Section on compensation

Honour-price reached far beyond injury claims.

“Honour-price was of great importance in several branches of the law, but was of paramount importance in determining the fine due in the case of crime or wrong.”

Section on compensation

A caution worth carrying: this is 1913 scholarship, written before the modern critical editions.

Read alongside the 1983 edition rather than as a substitute for it. (Editorial note, not a quotation.)

Whole article

The tract is presented as a serious body of rules, not an oddity.

“Another tract is entitled ‘Bee judgments’… Sugar being expensive, honey was largely employed to sweeten, and wax was extensively used for candles.”

Survey of the tracts

Ownership, honey and swarms are treated as minutely regulated, with injury rules attached.

“Their honey and their swarms are all minutely provided for… provision was also made not only to persons stung by bees, but to persons killed, either intentionally or inadvertently.”

Survey of the tracts

The article anticipates the Ancient Laws series as it was being produced.

“…a literary treat in store for them in the publication of the Brehon laws, now progressing under the editorship of Dr. John O'Donovan and Mr. Eugene Curry.”

Opening pages

Brehons are described as arbitrators of shared land and boundaries, the setting bee disputes belong to.

“In older times, the Brehons, doubtless, were often serviceable in arranging these allotments.”

Discussion of land division

Bees appear in the poetry of the season as labourers carrying their loads.

“Bees of small strength carry bundles in their feet, blossoms having been reaped.” (stanza 5)

Translation of the poem

The verb used of birds alighting is the verb used of a swarm settling in the bee-tract.

“…is used in Bech-bretha (Best and Thurneysen, The Oldest Fragments of the Senchas Már, 14) of a swarm of bees settling, in suidigther… ‘in which it settles’.”

Notes and glossary

Diet was graded by rank, with honey reserved for the highest.

“…salt for the sons of the commoners, butter for the noble grades, honey for royal children.”

Section on the fosterage diet

Liability for negligent loss of an animal is reckoned even in the fosterage setting.

“An animal is lost through negligence on the child's part, and the child…”

Section on duties in fosterage