The early Irish hostage surety and inter-territorial alliances

Abstract

This article examines the legal evidence on treaty law in early medieval Ireland, focusing on fragments from the lost law text Bretha Cairdi (Treaty Judgements) and the short text Sl an n-aitire cairde (The Immunity of a Hostage-Surety in a Treaty). It aims to examine the ways in which jurists faced cross-border violence and to look at how law was used to forge a political alliance in extending legal allowances and duties beyond the frontier, and so permit designated enforcers from both sides to collaborate in the quest for legal satisfaction and social stability.