This means that you will need to provide legal services either in Celtic Law`s beautiful and welcoming offices in mold or from the comfort of your own home. Kinship undoubtedly played a very important role in Celtic societies at the end of prehistory. The importance that ancestry had for the late prehistoric Celts is emphasized by several classical authors,[16] and seems to be confirmed – at least for some regions, at certain periods – also in archaeology by the effort for burials. [17] The structure of Celtic kinship groups can be reconstructed to some extent,[18] but few internal kinship relationships will have been formalized in a way that could be considered law. However, there are a number of important legal principles that can be reconstructed that relate to kinship or external kinship relationships. There is relatively strong evidence of a common requirement for loved ones to support and help each other, both in everyday life and in litigation. This seems obvious from historical sources[19], and would correspond well to what we find in the Irish and Welsh laws of the early Middle Ages. [20] It is problematic to be “common Celtic law” to date, and the best we can get is rough estimates. It is quite obvious that due to the parallels between Celtic laws and other Indo-European laws,[5] at least some of the legal principles that make up Celtic customary law must be very old, perhaps dating back to the early Bronze Age or even the Neolithic period. Others may have developed much later, perhaps even only through contacts with Mediterranean cultures (mainly the Greeks and Romans) in the late Iron Age and in antiquity. Although we cannot date or locate the origin of the various principles that make up Celtic laws in later prehistory (some of them probably from great antiquity, even when they became part of Celtic laws, others may not have developed before the Iron Age), once we find them expressed in Celtic legal terminology, we can reasonably call them “Celtic laws.” This development of Celtic legal terminology seems to have taken place some time in later prehistory, with the conventional date given as around 1000 BC, although this may be several centuries away. The “original (or general) Celtic law” cannot therefore be reconstructed, and only as a generalization.
[2] Such a generalization does not reflect the actual legal practice of the past, but can only show which general principles were probably typical of many (but not necessarily all) ancient Celtic laws. While we do not know what exact benefits a higher social rank could have brought, it is very likely that there were legal privileges for people of higher social rank. Since Caesar reports that the leaders of the Gallic factions are the ones with the most influence, whose opinion is most appreciated,[41] it is very likely that such differences in rank also had consequences in judicial proceedings, similar to the Irish case. [42] We have no direct evidence of how early Celtic laws treated outsiders during most of the late prehistoric Celtic world. However, with the tesserae hospitales of Keltiberia already mentioned,[13] as well as the practice in early European legal systems of considering foreigners without a local economic circle as fundamentally without legal protection,[71] we can assume that this was the case in most, if not all, of the late prehistoric Celtic laws. While foreigners without local relatives or without a local host would therefore have been a “free game”, it is likely that at least some members of late prehistoric Celtic communities were able to provide legal protection to foreigners (guests). This, in turn, would be well consistent with the situation of Irish and Welsh law in the early Middle Ages, where there is in turn related terminology for parallel practices of granting hospitality to foreigners. [72] There is, of course, no evidence that could actually provide such hospitality, but it seems, if we go to tesserae hospitals, that at least in Keltiberia, this practice was not necessarily limited to dominance over parents in larger communities, but was available at a relatively local level,[13] which could indicate that, as in Ireland and Wales in the early Middle Ages, many members of a particular community were able to provide hospitality.
Although they are based on generally similar principles, legal development has taken place locally or at most at the regional level in order to meet the requirements of a particular society. The interaction between these different societies must then have led to the adoption of useful innovations by many societies and their adaptation to their own needs, and to the abandonment of less useful practices. It is therefore very likely that the Irish and Welsh laws of the early Middle Ages, both of which have survived for posterity in sufficient detail to be reasonably interpretable, are local developments that originate from the place where they are documented but are constantly subject to external influences and internal innovations, and therefore other laws practiced in their vicinity at the time of their registration. are not particularly dissimilar. As with crime and punishment, we have little direct evidence of later history when it comes to legal proceedings. Caesar claims that the Druids are the judges of all kinds of disputes, both criminal and civil. [61] As for the latter, the examples cited by Caesar are disputes over heredity and limitations, suggesting that such conflicts were considered particularly important by his sources. The fact that the Druids were moral philosophers is also known from other historical sources such as Strabo,[64] which could indicate that at least some of the Druids were trained as professional lawyers. Emily is trained as a general practitioner. Emily has assisted clients with a variety of legal matters, including litigation, landlord and tenant issues, wills, trusts and permanent powers of attorney, commercial and residential real estate transactions, business advice and divorce.
The law is not static; It is constantly evolving to meet the needs of the society that regulates it. However, this does not necessarily mean that the principles on which these laws are based will change at the same rate. As far as Celtic laws are concerned, it seems that the guiding principles of law have remained quite similar over a longer period of time, from the end of prehistory to the Middle Ages. Of course, this does not imply a complete co-identity of legal systems between the communities of late prehistoric Gaul and those of early Medieval Ireland. Rather, it is the result of similar social, political and economic demands of societies subject to these laws, which seem to be sufficiently similar in space and time in this rather vast field, which has made fundamental changes in the principles of law superfluous. Given that kinship is an essential element in early Celtic legal systems, it seems likely that artificial kinship in the form of foster care was also an important element of these early customary laws. Evidence of the exchange of children as hostages is often found in historical sources,[32] which, like most of them were children of important nobles, must have been raised during this period, as one might have expected them to become important nobles themselves in the future. Similarly, Caesar`s reference to the fact that many Gauls sent their children to Druidry, which is best studied in Britain at its presumed place of origin,[33] as well as his remark that Gauls do not suffer from being seen in public with their children,[34] may indicate that care practices were widespread. This seems to be supported by the fact that care was important in Irish and Welsh society in the early Middle Ages,[35] and that there is related terminology in Irish and Welsh for the adoptive father/teacher that allows for the rebuilding of a Celtic.
*altros, “nutritionist, adoptive father, teacher”, as well as close friends/adoptive siblings, from Celt. *komaltros, “gemeinsam genährt, mitgefördert, Alumni”. [36] Networks of care, the establishment of artificial kinship and therefore political and information exchange networks are also a good explanation for the spread of certain aspects of “Celtic” material culture, such as La Tène art. [37] I have always been passionate about making legal services accessible and enjoyable to everyone, and after 8 years of experience as a general practitioner (i.e. assistance with all types of legal services, from moving to court visits), I decided to set up Celtic Law to bring me closer to my passion. The regulation of contractual relations is one of the most important elements of any legal system, especially in societies where there is no strong central state that applies codified law. As for the Celtic societies of late prehistory, all the evidence points to such a lack of strong central state control and enforcement of legal claims largely based on parents. [43] The regulation of contractual relations was therefore most probably the most essential element of all early Celtic laws. I believe that legal services and options for your jargon-free situation need to be clearly explained, and you are encouraged to ask as many questions as you wish. To some extent, exceptionally short textual evidence in the Celtiberian language also allows us to obtain information about what might have been a widespread Celtic legal practice.
