Mid-Argyll Theme
- 12
Adomnán's Law of the
Innocents
The Cáin
Adomnáin
A law binding Scotland and
Ireland
Adomnán mac Rónáin was the
ninth abbot of Iona,
the successor of Columba or Colum Cille. A renowned
scholar, leader of a monastery with a reputation
for sanctity and learning, head of a family of
monasteries in Scotland and Ireland, he was a man
of enormous religious influence.
In addition to his influence as a monastic
leader, he happened to be the kinsman of the most
powerful man in Ireland, Loingsech mac
Óengusso, King
of Tara. Adomnán was close to secular power
and influence, and he knew how to use it.
But he was also concerned with people who had no
access to power. In his Life of Columba he often
shows his patron saint aiding the poor and the
needy, powerless people in a world where violence
was a central feature of political activity.
Most dramatically, Adomnán tells the
story of Columba witnessing the murder of a young
woman by a 'cruel persecutor of the innocents'. The
woman sought Columba's protection, but her attacker
slew her with a spear and left her lying at
Columba's feet. The saint called on God, cursing
the murderer, who he fell dead on the spot.
This is a story about Columba the first abbot of
Iona, but remember that Adomnán, who is
telling the story, is Columba's successor. When he
writes the Life of Columba, he is describing the
ideal Iona abbot, and therefore describing his own
role. This is a manifesto
for himself.
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It was a manifesto that he vigorously
fulfilled. In the year 697, using all the
influence that his position gave him,
Adomnán summoned a gathering of
kings, bishops and abbots at Birr in the
midlands of Ireland. These secular and
ecclesiastical rulers came not just from
Ireland, but from Scottish Dál
Riata, and even from Pictland.
At this conference, the Annals of
Ulster tell us, 'Adomnán gave the
Lex Innocentium - the Law of the
Innocents - to the nations.'
The 'Innocents' in this context were
primarily women, but also children and
clergy - in other words, people who did
not carry weapons, and were therefore
'harmless', the literal meaning of
'innocent'.
Being harmless, women were not to be
counted as combatants. They were not to be
killed, assaulted or abused.
The Law of the Innocents bound rulers,
secular and ecclesiastical, to protect
women from all these dangers. It
prescribed the penalties that would be
imposed on those who assaulted women, and
it laid down the rules for its own
administration and enforcement.
The impressive list of individuals who
swore to uphold the law still exists. It
begins with a list of forty bishops and
abbots, and continues with a list of fifty
kings.
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The places of origin
of most of the
signatories of the Law can be
identified,
with varying degrees of certainty
- both secular (blue) and religious
(red).
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Later tradition says that
Adomnán used his bell to curse the
kings who rejected his law.
The law requires these men to protect
the innocent. It describes both the
secular fines which criminals must pay and
the ritual curses to which they are
subject - one of the earliest accounts of
such maledictions known to us.
The authority of Iona is invoked
constantly, as the ultimate source of this
law, and as the monastery which receives
the fines from law-breakers.
Here are a few passages from the
original text of the Law, to give a sense
of its tone and content.
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Adamnán's
Bell (replica, upright)
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34: The enactment of the Cáin
Adomnáin stands as an everlasting law for
clergy and women, and for innocent children
until they are capable of killing a man, until
they have taken their place in the tribe and
their first armed conflict be known.
37: These are the judges of the Cáin
Adomnáin in every church and in every
tribe: i.e. the clergy whom the community of
Adomnán shall choose and to whom they
commit the enactment of the Cáin
46: If it is charms which one person gives to
another which are the cause of another person's
death, the fine for it is the same as the fine
for murdering someone and hiding the corpse. ...
If suspicion rests on two people or a number of
people, let their names be written on leaves,
each leaf is put in an arrangement around a lot,
and the lots are put into the chalice on the
altar. The one on whom the lot falls, it is he
who is liable to the fine.
50: If there is rape of a girl, seven
half-cumals is the fine for it. If a hand is
laid on her, or on her girdle, ten ounces is the
fine for it. If a hand is put under her clothing
to her shame, three ounces and seven cumals is
the fine for it....
51: If someone makes a good woman
blush, by denying her children's paternity,
accusing her of concupiscence, seven cumals is
the fine for it, down to but not including the
wife of an ordinary lord. Seven half-cumals if
she is the wife of an ordinary lord. From there
down to the wife of a chieftain, seven
ounces.
The Law of Adomnán is a genuine
international law, formulated and promulgated by
several nations, and binding on them all. In it
Adomnán was giving local expression, in the
context of the Gaelic legal tradition, to a wider
Christian movement to restrain violence. St
Augustine's early formulation of the notion of Just
War was part of the same process, in a more
theoretical discourse.
The modern Geneva Convention, governing the
treatment of non-combatants, stands at the end of a
long historical struggle for justice in war - a
struggle in which Adomnán, abbot of Iona,
played a significant part.
References
- Markus, 1997
- O'Loughlin, 2001
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