Brehons
group · 2 works · 3 mentions · 9 anchored passages
Brehon · Brehon commentators · Brehon judges · Brehon lawyers · Brehon textwriter · the Brehon · the great Brehons
in the texts
Lectures on the Early History of Institutions
The hereditary class of professional lawyers who produced and interpreted the ancient Irish law-tracts.
He tells us that the Druids were supreme judges in all public and private disputes;
We are now able to compare Cæsar’s account of the Gauls with the evidence concerning a Celtic community which the Brehon tracts supply;
The author of innovation and improvement was the learned Brehon, and the Brehon appears to have invented at pleasure the facts which he used as the framework for his legal doctrine.
Dissertations on Early Law and Custom
Class of ancient Irish jurists who declared the Brehon Law, comparable to Indian Brahmans.
The ancient Hindu lawyers claimed a descent from supernatural personages only second to the gods.
That most interesting system, the ancient Irish law, is known as the Brehon Law, because it is said to have been declared by the Brehons, who are in fact as nearly as possible the Brahmans of India, with many of their characteristics altered, and indeed their whole sacerdotal authority abstracted, by the influence of Christianity.