[4] 'All through the laws,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'there is ample evidence to prove that the tribesmen, or _Aires_, were bound to take stock from the _Ri_, or chief, only. The amount of this stock, called _Saer_, or free-stock, is strictly laid down, and the amount of the tribute payable for this stock, called _Bestigi_, or house-refection, or tribute, is also strictly laid down. But if the _Ri_ were wealthy he might offer more stock to his _Ceiles_, clients or vassals, on condition of paying him certain dues, called _Biatad_. The stock so given was called _Daer_, or base-stock; and its acceptance by a tribesman made a _Daer-ceilé_ of him, and placed him very much in the power of the _Ri_, or chief. No tribesman could accept _Daer-stock_ without the consent of his _Fine_, or sept, which would be bound by the acts of its members. A tribesman, with the consent of his _Fine_, might accept _Daer-stock_ from any _Flath_, or lord, in his own _Tuath_, or tribe. All the above applies to the tribesmen, or _Aires_, who alone constituted the free class. But besides the _Ceiles_, or clients, or free tribesmen, or _Aires_, there was another class, called _Fuidirs_. The markland of the tribe and the land held in severalty of the _Ri_, and the similar land of the _Cendfinne_, or chieftain (or captain, as he is called in the Scottish Highlands) of a sept was let out to various classes of _Fuidirs_. Some were _Saer_, or free _Fuidirs_, and others _Daer_, or base Fuidirs. The _Saer-fuidirs_, again, were of two sorts--broken tribesmen who went into another _Tuath_ and got stock as well as land from a _Ri_, or _Flath_, and _Saer-fuidirs_ who possessed some stock of their own which they grazed on land of a chief or of a _Flath_. Some of these free _Fuidirs_ entered into _daer_, or servitude, by accepting stock under certain conditions. The _Fuidir_ classes were the true tenants at will. The _Aires_ were of the clan, the _Fuidirs_, _Bottachs_, or cottiers, and other servile classes, _belonged_ to the clan. The giving and taking of _Daer-stock_ depended upon the impoverishment of a sept through cattle murrain, the levying of blood-fines on account of the misconduct of some of its members, &c. But the whole thing was voluntary, and depended on the poverty of a sept and the wealth and ability of the _Ri_, or _Flath_.' [5] Dr. Sullivan does not think Christianity was fully established by the middle of the seventh century. 'The Irish Church organisation,' he says, 'was ill calculated to influence the social habits and the political life of the people; unlike the diocesan and centralised system of the Latin Church. Hence a high spiritual life and intellectual cultivation within the numerous coenobiums was quite compatible with practical paganism and disorder outside.' [6] 'At all times' must be understood to refer only to those comparatively modern ages above mentioned.