Dark Speech: The Performance of Law in Early Ireland (The Middle Ages Series)

Winner of the 2007 James S. Donnelly, Sr. Prize for Books on History and Social Sciences from the American Conference for Irish Studies What does it mean to talk about law as theater, to speak about the "performance" of transactions as mundane as the sale of a pig or as agonizing as receiving compensation for a dead kinsman? In Dark Speech , Robin Chapman Stacey explores such questions by examining the interaction between performance and law in Ireland between the seventh and ninth centuries. Exposing the inner workings of the Irish legal system, Stacey examines the manner in which publicly enacted words and silences were used to construct legal and political relationships in a society where traditional hierarchies were very much in flux. Law in early Ireland was a verbal art, grounded as much in aesthetics as in the enforcement of communal norms. In contrast with modern law, no sharp distinction existed between art and politics. Visualizing legal events through the lens of procedure, Stacey helps readers recognize the creative, fluid, and inherently risky nature of these same events. While many historians have long realized the mnemonic value of legal drama to the small, principally nonliterate societies of the early Middle Ages, Stacey argues that the appeal to social memory is but one aspect of the role played by performance in early law. In fact, legal performance (like other more easily recognized forms of verbal art) created and transformed as much as it recorded. "What does it mean to talk about law as theater, to speak about the "performance" of transactions as mundane as the sale of a pig or as agonizing as receiving compensation for a dead kinsman? In Dark Speech, Robin Chapman Stacey explores such questions by examining the interaction between performance and law in Ireland between the seventh and ninth centuries." "Exposing the inner workings of the Irish legal system, Stacey examines the manner in which publicly enacted words and silences were used to construct legal and political relationships in a society where traditional hierarchies were very much in flux." "While many historians have long realized the mnemonic value of legal drama to the small, principally nonliterate societies of the early Middle Ages, Stacey argues that the appeal to social memory is but one aspect of the role played by performance in early law. In fact, legal performance (like other, more easily recognized forms of verbal art) created and transformed as much as it recorded."--BOOK JACKET. Introduction 1 1. The Play's the Thing 15 2. Jurists on Stage 53 3. The Power of the Word 95 4. Voicing Over 135 5. Voices Within the Law 172 Conclusion: The Dangers of Performance 225 List of Abbreviations 251 Notes 253 Bibliography 315 Index 337 Acknowledgments 353 In Dark Speech, Robin Chapman Stacey explores the fascinating interaction between performance and law in Ireland between the seventh and ninth centuries.