|
The High Kings of Ireland ((アイルランド語:Ard Rí na hÉireann)) were sometimes historical and sometimes legendary figures who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over the whole of Ireland. Medieval and early modern Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings, ruling from the Hill of Tara over a hierarchy of lesser kings, stretching back thousands of years. Modern historians believe this scheme is artificial, constructed in the 8th century from the various genealogical traditions of politically powerful groups, and intended to justify the current status of those groups by projecting it back into the remote past.〔Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, "Ireland, 400–800", in Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (ed.), ''A New History of Ireland 1: Prehistoric and Early Ireland'', Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 182–234.〕 The concept of national kingship is first articulated in the 7th century, but only became a political reality in the Viking Age, and even then not a consistent one. While the High Kings' degree of control varied, Ireland was never ruled by them as a politically unified state, as the High King was conceived of as an overlord exercising suzerainty over, and receiving tribute from, the independent kingdoms beneath him.〔Francis John Byrne, ''Irish Kings and High Kings'', London, 1973〕 ==Sacred High Kings== Early Irish kingship was sacred in character. In the early narrative literature a king is a king because he marries the sovereignty goddess, is free from blemish, enforces symbolic ''buada'' (prerogatives) and avoids symbolic ''geasa'' (taboos). According to 7th and 8th century law tracts, a hierarchy of kingship and clientship progressed from the ''rí tuaithe'' (king of a single petty kingdom) through the ''ruiri'' (a ''rí'' who was overking of several petty kingdoms) to a ''rí ruirech'' (a ''rí'' who was a provincial overking). (See Rí.) Each king ruled directly only within the bounds of his own petty kingdom and was responsible for ensuring good government by exercising ''fír flaithemon'' (rulers' truth). His responsibilities included convening its ''óenach'' (popular assembly), collecting taxes, building public works, external relations, defence, emergency legislation, law enforcement, and promulgating legal judgment. The lands in a petty kingdom were held allodially by various ''fine'' (agnatic kingroups) of freemen. The king occupied the apex of a pyramid of clientship within the petty kingdom. This pyramid progressed from the unfree population at its base up to the heads of noble ''fine'' held in immediate clientship by the king. Thus the king was drawn from the dominant ''fine'' within the ''cenél'' (a wider kingroup encompassing the noble ''fine'' of the petty kingdom). The kings of the Ulster Cycle are kings in this sacred sense, but it is clear that the old concept of kingship coexisted alongside Christianity for several generations. Diarmait mac Cerbaill, king of Tara in the middle of the 6th century, may have been the last king to have "married" the land. Diarmait died at the hands of Áed Dub mac Suibni; some accounts from the following century state that he died by the mythic Threefold death appropriate to a sacral king. Adomnán's ''Life'' tells how Saint Columba forecast the same death for Áed Dub. The same Threefold Death is said in a late poem to have befallen Diarmait's predecessor, Muirchertach macc Ercae, and even the usually reliable Annals of Ulster record Muirchertach's death by drowning in a vat of wine. A second sign that sacred kingship did not disappear with the arrival of Christianity is the supposed lawsuit between Congal Cáech, king of the Ulaid, and Domnall mac Áedo. Congal was supposedly blinded in one eye by Domnall's bees, from whence his byname Cáech (half-blind or squinting), this injury rendering him imperfect and unable to remain High King. The enmity between Domnall and Congal can more prosaically be laid at the door of the rivalry between the Uí Néill and the kings of Ulaid, but that a king had to be whole in body appears to have been accepted at this time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「High King of Ireland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|