Fír flathemon
Fír flathemon [ fʼiːr 'flaθʼevon ] ( Old Irish "ruler's justice") denoted in Irish legal texts and myths the prince's duty to always judge and act fairly. The opposite was called gáu flathemon [ ɣʼau 'flaθʼevon ] (“injustice of the ruler”).
Similar rules are known from India ( ṛta, dharma ), Greece ( dikē ) and Egypt ( maat ).
Fír flathemon
This justice of the ruler was geis (command, taboo) and thus one of the most important tasks of the king, because it ensured the prosperity and happiness of his kingdom. This virtue of the ruler is written in the Audacht Morainn ("Morann's legacy / testament"). The legendary Irish judge Morann put up a catalog of the fir flathemon for the instruction of his foster son, the Irish king Feradach Find Fechtnach . Although these doctrinal sayings were probably written in the 7th or 8th century, it is believed that these rules were already known in pre-Christian Celtic times .
Gau flathemon
Injustice ( gáu flathemon ) was the cause of every misfortune of the king and his subjects, the king could be deposed and - possibly even with death - punished. In the anonymous work De duodecim abusivis saeculi (“On the twelve grievances of the world”) this is cited under the title: rex iniquus (“the unjust king”).
This injustice in the rule of a king was named with the rough term cacc for enech ("shit on his face / his honor").
Examples are given in the story Cath Maige Mucrama ("The Battle of Mag Mucrama") about Lugaid mac Con - he reaches an unfair judgment in a legal dispute in favor of his wife; in Togail Bruidne Da Derga ("The Destruction of the Hall Da Dergas") Conaire Mór does not intervene against his criminal stepbrothers; Conn Cétchathach violated this righteousness when he married the fairy Bé Chuma and banished his son Art from the royal seat of Tara for a year .
See also
literature
- Helmut Birkhan : Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 , p. 889.
- Bernhard Maier : Lexicon of Celtic Religion and Culture (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 466). Kröner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-520-46601-5 , p. 129.
- Wolfgang Meid : The Celts. Reclams Universal Library , Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-15-017053-3 , pp. 100, 110 f.