Sir John Davis
historical figure · 1 work · 6 mentions · 11 anchored passages
Davis · Sir J. Davis
in the texts
Lectures on the Early History of Institutions
English official who condemned Brehon law as barbarous.
’ It is the same ‘lewd’ and ‘unreasonable’ custom which Sir John Davis contrasts with the ‘just and honourable law of England,’ and to which he attributes such desolation and barbarism in Ireland, ‘as the like was never seen in any country that professed the name of Christ.
Spenser and Davis certainly suggest this opinion, and several modern writers have adopted it.
In Sir John Davis’s report of the case and of the arguments before the Court, it is recited that hitherto all land in Ireland had descended either under the rule of Tanistry or under the rules of Gavelkind.