THE RECONSTRUCTION
To reconstruct an actual law system from those few hints is, of course, only possible in its roughest basics, and only where texts like the ones quoted are available can we take a short glimpse at (maybe only short-timed and temporal) details.
What we can say with some certainty is that the basics of contract law are not too dissimilar to the Irish ones (as far as can be deduced from the few hints). Also we can assume that things similar to clientship contracts with tithes for the right to use land and maybe also other lent property, with the basic concept similar to the Irish one, although maybe strongly differing in the details. Even though Caesar notes that thieves, murderers and similar criminals were sometimes punished by killing them as sacrifices to the gods, obviously the more typical punishment for severe crimes was, also according to Caesar, the exclusion from the religious ceremonies (and with that, most probably, from the tribe and family as well). From the trial of Orgetorix, of which Caesar tells us in the beginning of his DBG, we can guess that, in court, oaths not dissimilar to the parallel Irish and Welsh practices were part of the legal procedure, and probably payment of a penalty was a common punishment. The status of nobles, according to Caesar, depended on how many clients they had, again quite similar to the Irish customs in this regard. Additionally we know about a number of magistrates with quite specific functions (like the street-controller mentioned above), who probably had some legal function – perhaps to control the quality of the streets in case of accidents or to prevent such. Other features like the palisades found in the oppida, but also on lowland settlements tell us that probably the rights of trespass were limited, again a system like the Irish one is quite probable. The legal function of an enclosed territory is also quite obvious from the Botorrita inscription.
Altogether we can, for the Old Celtic Law System, reconstruct parts of law code that are, even though we know no details, sufficently similar to the Irish and Welsh systems that we can assume that those parts which we have no hints about were roughly similar as well. Most probably the legal texts in the Old Celtic Law System had, in certain points, other priorities than the Irish and Welsh ones, and had somewhat differing solutions for one or the other problem, but were similar in the basic system. Maybe for instance there were stronger monetary elements in the Old Celtic Law System. But the law was there, and a class of learned judges and lawyers worked together with a secular authority to execute it.
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This article originally appeared as a multi-part message on CELTIC-L@Danann.hea.ie. If you want you may distribute it freely as long as it is not used for commercial purposes and you include the email-adress of the author (a8700035@unet.univie.ac.at) for responses.
This message is part of a series that have been and will be published on the Celtic culture mailing list (Celtic-L@Danann.hea.ie).
Monsieur,
Veuillez recevoir l’expression de ma gratitude pour votre générosité et votre travail.
Avec mes sincères salutations,
Michel Campeanu
Genève
né Campina Roumanie.
Editor’s Translation:
Please accept my expression of gratitude for your
generosity and your work.
Yours sincerely,
Thank you so much for posting this interesting article. While I am not sure I would call this a “short” summary, I find this extremely fascinating. Obviously you have studdied this subject extensively and passionately. All who read owe you gratitude for your hard work. I see yet one more way our ancient ancesters were civilized and not just barbarians as some would have had it. Every word dismantles one more brick of misconception layed by English and Roman alike.