crown, exercising as deputies the privileges of the sovereign, and retaining as their prerogative a portion of the dues they exacted in his name, stood in the place of the elective or hereditary magistrates of tribes and confederacies. The Thane, or _Tighern_, and the official known as the _Deempster_, represented the _Cean-cinneth_, or rather perhaps the _Toshach_, and the _Brehon_--the chief, or captain, and the judge of the clan; the earl or _Mormaor_ the provincial judge answered to the chosen leader and judge of the confederacy; the kindred of these officials, and the _Og-tiernach_, or “lesser lords,” formed the _Duchasach_ and _Duine-uasal_, the gentry or freeholders of the district; whilst none who could not claim to be enrolled amongst one of these kindreds were entitled to the privileges of free or gentle birth. The only tenure known at this period was the _Gavel_[271] one of the earliest forms of the original allotment, which was enjoyed in common by all within the limit of the immediate kindred--or, in Teutonic phrase, all embraced in the _Mæg-borh_--a permanent property in such a holding only being acquired by uninterrupted possession for the usual period of “three generations.” No fixed or individual property, in the modern sense of the word, was conveyed by such a tenure in any certain spot of land as long as divisible and inheritable property consisted of money, arms, and ornaments, and the stock and produce of the land; but rather a right of joint-occupancy in the family district or holding, shared by all who could claim a certain degree of kindred with the Senior of the race. The Senior was elective, every member of the kindred who had a right of joint-occupancy also having an equal claim to choose the head of his family; though under ordinary circumstances the precedency seems to have been generally conceded to the actual representative of the original “eldest born.” Seniority conferred privileges, but it also entailed obligations. To every kindred occupant of a lesser holding was assigned a portion of land, the Senior having the preference in the choice of allotments, with a joint right to feed his live stock on the common pasture, and a similar share in the house, barns, and stabling; the possession of the hearth in the “capital messuage” generally being included amongst the prerogatives of seniority. All that was not partitioned out in this manner fell to the share of the Senior, who in return for his privileges was responsible for the whole of his kindred. He was their _plegius_ or security, and their spokesman on all occasions,--or, in the language of the Anglo-Saxon laws, their _Borh_ and _Fore-Speca_. He asserted their joint rights, he avenged their joint wrongs, and he was answerable in their joint names for the receipts or payments invariably following injuries whether inflicted or received--for community in good or evil was the very soul of the system of kindred--as well as for the