able to pay the fines imposed, captives taken in
foreign wars, fugitives from other clans, and tramps, fell into the
lowest ranks of the _fuidre_--"serfs." It was as a captive that Saint
Patrick was brought in his youth to Ireland. The law allowed, rather
than entitled, a _flaith_ to keep unfree people for servile
occupations and the performance of unskilled labor for the public
benefit. In reality they worked for his personal profit, oftentimes
at the expense of the clan. They lived on his land, and he was
responsible for their conduct. By analogy, the distinctions _saer_
and _daer_ were recognized among them, according to origin,
character, and means. Where these elements continued to be favorable
for three generations, progress upward was made; and ultimately a
number of them could club together, appoint a _flaithfine_, and apply
to be admitted to the clan.

A _mog_ was a slave in the strict sense, usually purchased as such
from abroad, and legally and socially lower than the lowest _fuidir_.
Giraldus Cambrensis, writing towards the close of the twelfth
century, tells us that English parents then frequently sold their
surplus children and other persons to the Irish as slaves. The Church
repeatedly intervened for the release of captives and mitigation of
their condition. The whole institution of slavery was strongly
condemned as un-Christian by the Synod held in Armagh in 1171.

CRIMINAL LAW. Though there are numerous laws relating to crime, to be
found chiefly in the _Book of Aicill_, criminal law in the sense of a
code of punishment there was none. The law took cognizance of crime
and wrong of every description against person, character, and
property; and its function was to prevent and restrict crime, and
when committed to determine, according to the facts of the case and
the respective ranks of the parties, the value of the compensation or
reparation that should be made. It treated crime as a mode of
incurring liability; entitled the sufferer, or, if he was murdered,
his _fine_, to bring the matter before a brehon, who, on hearing the
case, made the complicated calculations and adjustments rendered
necessary by the facts proved and by the grades to which the
respective parties belonged, arrived at and gave judgment for the
amount of the compensation, armed with which judgment, the plaintiff
could immediately distrain for that amount the property of the
criminal, and, in his default, that of his _fine_. The _fine