It was after the office was thus thrown open to men of talent and industry that some of those ancient judges flourished in Erin, whose names and decisions are spoken of with the greatest reverence in the _Senchus Mor_. "It was," we are there told, "Sen, son of Aighe, who passed the first judgment respecting Distress at a territorial meeting held by the three noble tribes who divided this island." This points to legislation on the subject of Distress formulated at a tribe-assembly by a great jurist, and then solemnly ratified by popular consent. The gloss on this text adds that Sen was of the men of Connaught, and that the meeting was held at Uisnech in Westmeath. Another distinguished judge was Sencha, son of Ailell, on whose face three permanent blotches appeared whenever he pronounced a false judgment. Connla Cainbrethach (of the Fair Judgments) was the chief legal doctor of Connaught; he excelled the men of Erin in wisdom, for he was "filled with the grace of the Holy Ghost."[22] He it was who said that it was God, and not the Druids, who made the heavens, and the earth, the sun and the moon and the sea. This seems to imply that Connla was wise and courageous enough to reject the philosophy, and probably also the worship of the Druids. The Light had already arisen in the east, and the first faint dawnings of Christianity were beginning to illumine the horizon of Erin. Morann, another great judge, who flourished during the first century of our era, wore a chain around his neck, and if ever he pronounced a false judgment the chain tightened around his neck; but it began to expand again, when he came to speak what was just and true. These and other great judges of the same period appear to be undoubted historical characters, whose wisdom and learning, hallowed by the reverence of ages, appeared to their successors to be in some way divinely inspired. They were, it is true, at the time without the light of Revelation to guide them, but as the gloss says, the grace of the Holy Ghost would not be wanting to help men, who were striving according to their conscience to be just and good. Cormac Mac Art, of whose writings we shall presently speak, did much to encourage the systematic study of law amongst the Brehons. He appears to have been the first who reduced to writing the traditional legal maxims of the Brehon's court, and thus may be regarded as the author of the earliest Code of Laws in pagan Ireland. This great work was afterwards purified and perfected in the time of St. Patrick, when the _Senchus Mor_, as it is now known, was first compiled.