due exercise of hospitality whenever the “overlord,” to use the feudal phrase, was entitled, on his _Cuairt_ or Visitation, to demand the “refection,” which was known amongst the Anglo-Saxons as “a night’s feorm.” It may be safely assumed that similar features were exhibited on a greater scale in the thanage, and in the holding belonging to the district judge; the obligation of “refection” in the case of the thane being confined to receiving the king, an earl, or an abbot or bishop, according as he held office under a lay or ecclesiastical superior. To judge from the parallel case of the Welsh nobleman, this was generally on the occasion of the great winter circuit, when the Scottish kings and magnates were accustomed to pass their Christmas amongst their thanes, much as the kings and Jarls of Scandinavia were wont, according to the old Icelandic chronicler, to move about during the winter months amongst their baronage, or _Hersirs_, who held their lands in a similar manner by the tenure of _Veitslo_, or provisioning the king. The same rule may be supposed to have been applicable to the earldom; whilst the principle of community of right in the kindred unquestionably extended to ecclesiastical dignitaries amongst the Gael, _Tanist_ and _Adbhar_ abbots--or the successor actually chosen, and all capable of being nominated to the abbacy--being continually met with in the Irish annals.[272] It may be gathered from the ancient Scottish laws that the limit of the immediate kindred extended to the third generation, all who were fourth in descent from a Senior passing from amongst the joint-proprietary, and receiving, apparently, a final allotment; which seems to have been separated permanently from the remainder of the joint-property by certain ceremonies usual on such occasions. On the death of a Senior, a redistribution of the land and offices belonging to the family invariably took place; and it was at this period, probably, that all who were beyond the limit of the immediate kindred received their final allotment. The fourth in descent from a thane, no longer entitled to his share amongst the joint-proprietary, or _Tigherns_, became an _Og-tiern_, he and his descendants holding henceforth of the representative of the Senior, by the same tenure as the thane held of the king; the lapse of the necessary period in both cases rendering them irremovable from their respective districts. The _Tanist_, or next in succession--for the “law of Tanistry” is only another phrase for the law of succession--was appointed at the same time as the Senior, receiving an allotment in proportion to the dignity of his office, and, at this period, generally holding the _Toshachdorach_, or captaincy of the family,--which, in later days, as the law of succession gradually altered, and the office of Tanist sunk into disuse, seems to have become the especial prerogative of the next in succession; and when the earldom, lordship, or thanage