We shall now proceed to give a few extracts, to prove that although the mere forms of civil law were adopted by Bracton in arranging his matter, yet the sources of the common law, as compiled by him, are drawn from ancient English statutes and judicial decisions. From him we learn the mode of administration of the law in the country by the judges itinerant. Before the arrival of the judges a general summons was issued for all persons to attend at a certain place and time. When they arrived the first step was to read the writs on commissions under which they acted; after this one of them, as Bracton says, the "major et discretior," propounded the cause of their coming, namely, to take notice of all violence, of justice, of murders, robbery, &c. Then they withdrew to some private place, and called four or six more of the principal men of the county (majores comitatus) together, to confer with them, and show them how provision was made by the king and his council for all persons being 15 years of age, to make oath that they would not harbour outlaws, robbers, murderers, &c., and if they knew of any would cause them to be attached, and report it to the sheriffs. The principal persons of the county were also sworn to do this. Then they returned to the open court for business, and the next step was the calling over the sergeants and bailiffs of the hundreds, each of whom was to swear to choose out of his hundred four knights, who were to come before the justices, and swear to select twelve other knights, or if knights could not be had, to take twelve freemen. When they had been gathered, these twelve men were sworn the capitula itineris (lists of cases) were read, and they were sworn to answer with their verdict upon every article. The cases inquired into, according to Bracton, were the old pleas of the crown, which had been begun before the former justices but not completed, and then the new pleas which had since arisen, the king's wards, the vacant churches, the king's estreats, his sergeanties, measures and weights, concerning sheriffs and bailiffs who held places under the crown, of usurers deceased and their chattels, of the chattels of Jews deceased, of counterfeiters of coin, of burglars, fugitives, outlaws, of those who had not given information of offenders, of new pretended custoras, of escape of thieves, of wrecks, of offenders in parks.* When a thief was taken in the act, with the thing upon him, it was called "handhabende," and " bacherende," and might be tried in the inferior courts. Lords of franchises had cognizance of such crimes under the titles of sok and sak, tol and team, infangthef and utfangthef. Infangthef was when a thief was taken with the thing stolen upon him within the lands of the lord, being himself one of his tenants. Utfangthef was when a stranger was so taken. If anyone killed a thief by night he would not be subject to any punishment, provided he could not save himself but by so doing; and if a person killed a "hamsoken" (burglar) he was not to be prosecuted.+ In illustration of this law Bracton quotes a case, and the judge who heard it :-"Sicut coram rege apud Windsore de quodam homine de Cocham coram W. de Raleghe tunc justitiario cui dominus Rex in tali casu pdonavit mortem." Proselytism was forbidden to the Jews, who were allowed to circumcise their own sons, but if they did so to a man of another religion castrati pœna irrogatur." * Bracton de Leg. et Consuet. Angliæ 116 and 116 (Þ), 117 and 117 (1). † Bracton, 144(b). quoted and their decisions alluded to, as "Sicut in itinere M. de Pateshull in comitatu Lincoln, de Thomas de Rasne." A case of disputed heirship is thus quoted:"Et de hac materia inveniri poterit in Rotulo termino Paschæ anno regis Henrici quinto in comitatu Norfolk de Petro constabulario de Manton et Muriella quæ fuit uxor Wilhelmi de Manton." A case concerning homage is thus cited:"Et quod homagium attornare non poterit nisi in casibus superi exceptis habetis de termino P. anno regis H. Septimo in comitatu Hereford de itinere et uno tenemento in comitatu Cant. de Wilhelmo filio Benedicti cive London et Galfrido de Luci tenente et Wilhelmo de Mandeville comite capitali dominis de tenemento N. de Gingesnyle."-Lib. ii., fo. 82. The references might be easily multiplied, but sufficient has been said to show that this compilation is purely English, based on the English cases extant in the records of the time. We must conclude this paper by a short resumé. We have seen that the study of law at Oxford, as at all other universities, interfered with the old arts' study, and that of such theology as was then read. In Paris the difference grew so general that Honorius III., in 1220, forbade the study of civil law at Paris, but the injunction was evaded, and though permission was never again given until 1679, the study went on. At Oxford the students of law ventured so far as to accept benefices until the practice was prohibited by Pope Innocent III. But these law studies were soon after eclipsed by the advent of the next phase of culture, which forms an epoch in the development of nearly all the great countries of Europe. For ages men had been labouring over words; they had passed out of that to the study of laws, and they were now advancing towards the study of thought, life, being, towards the investigation of natural phenomena, and the solution of those problems which have always occupied the human mind at certain stages of its career. EARLY IRISH BUILDINGS AND THEIR ARCHITECTS. WHO THE CUTHITES WERE. THE enigmas connected with the Round Towers and the other stone relics left us by our ancestors, were examined and sifted with some diligence in the last century. Discussions on their uses and their comparative antiquity have been kept up during the present century, nor is a theory which the two chief parties would adopt, likely to be promulgated at this side the year of grace 1900. Meanwhile we have before us a volume brought out at much expense, in which no half measure is adopted. Not only are the Round Towers, and our most ancient churches, and our stone crosses ascribed to the workmanship of the Tuath de Danaans, whom the author considers as the descendants of Cush, son of Ham, but he inclines to think that our early hagiographers imposed on the world a considerable number of saints, who not only bore the names of some of the Pagan gods and demigods, but were made to figure in legends properly appertaining to these disreputable beings. His theory generally coincides with that advanced by the ingenious and deeplyread Henry O'Brien, and if he fails to convert many to his peculiar opinions, it will not be owing to the want of research or earnestness or skill in the arrangement of his facts to bear out his enunciations. "The race of Ham seem to have exercised the chief dominion in the earth from the days of Nimrod till about the time of Abraham. Justice was delayed till their iniquity was full. Thenceforth they seem to have become everywhere a proscribed race, and the religion which they had made corrupt became expunged, leaving only slight traditional legends, and ruins of magnificent edifices to attest their former greatness. This period of Cuthite rule may be reckoned an era of the world's history, followed by a dark age, out of which arose the literature and civilisation usually denominated ancient. The Cuthites dealt in mysteries: the facts of the past were concealed by them under symbols and words of double meaning, out of which, when the Cuthites themselves had passed away, arose ancient world which succeeded them." all the absurd mythology of the so-called As much as can be known or guessed concerning these children of Cush is found in the "Analysis of Ancient Mythology," by Bryant, published in 1774. Bryant himself laid under contribution the Doric Hymns, the fragments of Berosus,t of Sanchoniathon, and of the Sibyllines poetry preserved in the ancient *The Towers and Temples of Ancient Ireland: their Origin and History, discussed from a new Point of View. By Marcus Keane, M.R.I.A. Illustrated with one hundred and eighty-six Engravings on wood, chiefly from Photographs and Original Drawings. Dublin Hodges and Smith. This writer was a Babylonian priest, who wrote in Greek three books of Chaldean History about 260 B.C. He used the old temple archives of Babylon, but unfortunately his work has perished except some fragments preserved by Josephus, Eusebius, Syncellus, and others. Even these fragments are very valuable as dwelling on the most obscure portions of Eastern History. We are in worse plight with regard to this than the last-mentioned writer. Philo of Byblus, a Greek scribe of second century A.D., translated his History of Phonicia into Greek, but except some fragments of the translation preserved by Eusebius in his controversy with Porphyvy, both works have perished. Some critics say that Sanchoniathon was contemporary with Semiramis. Some say that he existed before the Trojan War, say 1250 B.C.; sounder critics, a short time B.C., but others of a cautious character, say that he was a mere myth, and that Philo advanced his own work as a translation of a very ancient one to give it authority, and to set Phoenician literature above that of the Hebrews. The portions preserved relate to the Cosmogony. § Some of the ancient writers allowed only four prophetesses of the Sibylline family, others ten. The reader must be content with a few of the names of Virgil's Sibyl Herophile, Phemonöe, Deiphobe, Amalthea. Tarquin having purchased her three unburnt books, they were diligently watched in a subterranean chamber of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. This temple and the books being destroyed by fire, 84 B.C., deputies were sent eastwards to collect all extant fragments, which being copied out were deposited in the rebuilt fane. Towards the close of the republic, spurious Sibyllines in classics. Bryant took no interest in Celtic archæology, and treated not of it at all, and our author is the better pleased therefor, as he finds coincidences and analogies between the Cuthite and the ancient Irish relics undreamed of by Bryant, and therefore the more curious and the more useful to his theory. Bryant attributes to these Cushites or Čuthites some of the enterprises and expeditions related of the Phoenicians.* They not only traded to the west;-these restless people settled colonies in the far East. Mr. Keane says, "They stood their ground at the general migration of families, but were at last scattered over the face of the earth. They were all of the line of Ham, who was held by his posterity in the highest veneration. They called him Amon, and having in time raised him to a divinity, they worshipped him as the sun, and from this worship they were styled Amonians." Bryant says, "They were a people who carefully preserved memorials of their ancestors, and of those events which had preceded their dispersion. It is mentioned of Sanchoniathon, the most ancient of all Greek writers, that he obtained all his knowledge from the writings of the Amonians." Bryant, on the authorities mentioned above, says that after the dispersion of these favourites of his from Chaldea, they formed settlements on the Northern borders of the Black Sea, Crete, Sicily, Egypt, and Spain. Keating, depending on the Irish MS., the "Book of Invasions," describes the Milesians as having made settlements or at least touched at these places. Bryant and Keating not having consulted each other's authorities, and having described the same facts, they are evidently the more likely to be true. We are told that these terrible Cuthites were indifferently denominated Giants, Titans, Centaurs, Cyclopians, Japetiæ, Scuthi, Hyperboreans, Lamiæ, Dæmons, Cabiri, and Shepherd Kings. Every student of mythology knows that the Titans were banished to Tartarus, which the Greeks placed under the dreary vein of rocks on the west side of the ocean stream beyond the Pillars of Hercules (see Odyssey). This is a sort of confirmation of the Cuthites being obliged to seek the west, and instead of the dreary Tartarus their enemies, intended for them, finding the isle of Irin, with its green meadows, fine rivers, ancient woods, and soft climate. A short confirmatory extract from Josephus will not be here out of place: "After the ruin of the tower, the priests who escaped from that calamity, saved the implements of their idolatry, and whatever related to the worship of their Deity, and brought them to the city of Senaar, in Babylonia. But they were again driven from hence by a second dispersion." We make the next extract the more willingly that it confirms the justness of some observations which may be found in the late archæological papers of this Magazine. THE CORRUPTION OF PRIMEVAL REVELATIONS. "The policy of the first apostates from the patriarchal religion seems to have been to convert the primeval prophecies of a future Redeemer into fables of past incarnations of Divinity, preserving the facts communicated by God, but so distorting them as to render them wholly useless for the purposes for which they were revealed. From the schisms which arose out of this Tower of Babel) the widely-spread and apostasy sprang (after the building of the diversified legends of heathenism." In another portion of his book creased as fast as the quasi Colum Cille prophecies. Augustus, foreseeing the abuse of the institution, got together all that were procurable, burned the greater part, and kept the rest under lock and key in the temple of Apollo on the Palatine. This and its treasures being burned in the great fire of Nero's reign, there was an end of even the second-hand ⚫ predictions. We give only a slight adhesion to all later collections. Within a score of years an Irish scholar took on himself to add prophecies of things just accomplished, to the mass, of predictions attributed to the old saint, but in reality concocted by learned and unprincipled seers of past centuries, and adapted to things which had taken place in their own day. According to the best authorities, the Phoenicians were descendants of Shem. Preserved scraps of their history describe the earliest known to have removed to the neighbourhood of Sidon from the shores of the Persian Gulf. Such fragments of their language as have been preserved exhibit a relationship to the Hebrew. the author thus enlarges on the subject: "Abundant revelations were made by God to the Patriarchs, Noah and his predecessors, and all the subsequent abominations of heathenism were founded upon the perversions of such revelations. As men grew in years and in wickedness, their religion became more and more corrupted, until after the days of Abraham, when the intelligent nations of the earth who knew most of the origin of these traditions, and had done the most to corrupt them, began to be cut off by God's providential decree, leaving the other descendants of Noah in darkness and ignorance, but in a condition to learn the newly-revealed truths, if they would, from Abraham and his de scendants." Later on he applies this condition of things to the confirming of his theory that our old crosses, and sculptures representing modifications of the crucifixion, were the productions of Pagan brains and hands. This theory supposes that revelations of the future Saviour of the world dying on a cross, thus crushing the serpent's head, his being born of a Virgin, and other mysteries of the Christian dispensation, were made to our first parents, and by them transmitted to the antediluvian patriarchs; that from Noah they were passed on to his descendants, and in a debased form they were known to the after heathen peoples of the East. This accounts for the Cross being a reverenced symbol among the Egyptians, Thibetians, Hindoos, Persians, &c. No child that has opened a missionary tract will ever forget the figure of the radiant Krishna trampling on the Serpent. THE AUTHOR'S THEORY AT VARIANCE WITH It has evidently been a labour of love to Mr. Bryant and Mr. Keane to magnify the deeds and the importance of their favourite Cuthites at the expense of the decendants of Japhet, from whom the Indo-Europeans rejoice to claim descent. No doubt, Ham's posterity, though suffering under the malediction of their great ancestor Noah, performed mighty works;-witness the exploits of Nimrod, his architectural achievements, and the mighty piles, and rare sculptures, and literary relics, the productions of the decendants of Misraim in Egypt. Granting all this, why make the Milesians-the undoubted descendants of Japhet, so inferior to the posterity of the accursed race? We learn from our authority that the sons of Milidh the Spanish warrior having subjected these Cuthites, known to Irish historians as the "Tuath de Danaans" and appointed them tutors to their own children, and learned from them the true account of the wanderings of their forefathers from the cradle of the human race in Chaldea, employed their own fileas and seanachies to make up a wonderful story to which they transferred all the peril, and skill, and heroism of the Cuthite wanderers, for the glorification of their own ancestors. It is only right that we should point out in what the narratives of Dr. Keating and Mr. Keane differ, the elder historian merely quoting the ancient chronicle, the "Book of Invasions." The African pirates the Fomorach who indeed nearly resembled the Cuthites in some respects, won a severely contested victory over the settled colony of Nemidh at Tory Island, and the survivors departed in different directions. One portion settled in Cumberland under Simon Breac, another returned to Greece the mother country, the third betook themselves to South Sweden and Denmark. The Grecian immigrants being badly treated by their cousins, returned to Ireland under the name of Firbolgs, drove away the Fomorach, and lived in peace and plenty till disturbed by an unwelcome visit from their relatives the Danish colony who brought back with them to Ireland the Lia Fail (Stone of Destiny) now in St. Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey, a magic cauldron, a magic glaive, and a magic spear. There was a terrible conflict at the Plain of the Towers near Cong, and the last visiters, now bearing the name of Danaans, having conquered the prior possessors, suffered them to retire beyond the Shannon, and occupy the western maritime district. The great While in Greece they had been obliged to carry manure to the tops of hills in leather bags;-hence the name: Fir, pl. of Fear (man); Bolg, bag. |