ABSTRACT
The Synodus Hibernensis, legislating on tithes, suggests that the monastic clients not only had the management of flocks and lands but were married. Christianity was introduced into Ireland through an episcopally governed church, but the monastic institutions which became popular in the sixth century probably expressed from the beginning the familial structure of society. The monastic clients gave the church an assured income whose continuity was guaranteed. Secular law divides the ‘classes of wisdom’ in the church into seven, and Uraicecht Becc gives the master of wisdom the same honour-price as the petty king. The priest in charge of the church had to hear the confessions of its manaig, men, boys, women, and girls. Kings were weak and political authority divided, and had the church been united in a hierarchical organization she would have been the most powerful institution in the country.
