Lecture Seán Ó Hoireabhard: Is the Irish Book of Rights a useable medieval source?

On Thursday 11 December, the Utrecht University Centre for Medieval Studies (UUCMS) organises a lecture by Seán Ó Hoireabhard (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies). In his lecture, Ó Hoireabhard will discuss whether the medieval Irish Lebor na Cert ‘The Book of Rights’, with its many flaws, can be regarded as a reliable historical source.

The rights of kings

The Book of Rights is a Middle Irish text preserved in five manuscripts, the earliest of which dates to the late fourteenth century. It discusses the rights or prerogatives of the Irish provincial kings, charting the rents or tributes owed by constituent subkingdoms to the provincial overking, as well as the king’s obligations to them in terms of túarastal (‘stipend’).

The book claims to have been composed through the dictates of Benén, the disciple of the famous St Patrick. This claim was taken seriously up to the early twentieth century and was used for dating the book. From the mid-twentieth century onward, however, scholars began to question this traditional dating. More recently, a consensus has emerged placing the date around the turn of the twelfth century, during the reign of Muirchertach Úa Briain.

Even if this dating is accepted, problems remain throughout the text, and its testimony is rarely consistent or reliable. In his lecture, Ó Hoireabhard will explore the text, including its many insoluble flaws and internal contradictions, in the hope of establishing a renewed basis for its use as a source for medieval history. He will discuss the nature of the text and associated fragments, its date of compilation, and the genre to which it belongs.

The lecture will be followed by informal drinks.