This, therefore, was also St. Patrick's teaching to the Irish; and in and after his time, not a single raiding expedition goes forth from Ireland. Kuno Meyer has shown that the military organisation of the Fiana still existed to some degree in early Christian Ireland; but it gradually disappears, and in the seventh century the Irish kings cease to dwell, surrounded by their fighting men, in great permanent encampments like Tara and Ailinn. In the eighth century, we hear the testimony of Bede, that the Irish are "a harmless nation, ever most friendly to the English." Another change that came about, not suddenly, but gradually during this period, is the extinction of the old lines of racial demarcation in Ireland. The Church did not recognise these boundaries. Many noted ecclesiastics belonged to the old plebeian tribes. In this connection, we may note one feature of the Irish secular law, not traceable to the influence of Christianity. The word _soer_, used as a noun, has two special meanings; it means a freeman and it means a craftsman. The contrary term _doer_ means unfree--in the sense of serfdom rather than of slavery; there is a distinct term for "slave," viz., _mugh_. The plebeian communities are called _doerthuatha_. The inference, therefore, is that a skilled craftsman of unfree race became by virtue of his craft a freeman. Let us now take a cursory view of the course of political events during the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries, or rather, from the battle of Ocha, which secured the monarchy for the descendants of Niall in 483, till the coming of the Norsemen in 793. We have seen that the effect of the battle of Ocha was to exclude the Connacht branches of the monarchical family from the succession. The successful princes were a grandson and a great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages; and these two princes, one of the Southern, the other of the Northern Ui Neill, became the next two kings of Ireland. To understand this event more clearly, it is necessary to take a view of the Irish law of succession or inheritance. Under this law, a man's heirs were a family group called the _derbfine_ or true family. At the head of this group was the great-grandfather of its youngest members, whether he happened to be dead or alive. The _derbfine_ consisted of this family head, his sons, grandsons and great-grandsons--four generations. When the fifth generation came forward, the _derbfine_ subdivided itself, forming a new set of similar groups, the head of each being one of the sons of the man who was head of the older group.