Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (17 page)

couple
. 1: A pair of curved timber blades secured by a horizontal tie or collar-beam which provided the A-shape framework to support a roof 2: Of corn, the equivalent of two
quarters
or 16 bushels.

coupled house
. A house whose roof is independently or almost independently supported by trusses rising in couples from the floor or below the wall head.
See
cruck.

couple-beggar
(buckle-beggar). In the eighteenth century, a defrocked, unemployed or suspended clergyman (or indeed a person who had never been in orders) who celebrated marriages without licence for a small fee. Some were former Catholic or Anglican ministers who had been deprived of their posts for indiscipline, others were apostate Catholic priests awaiting a living in the Church of Ireland. Couple-beggars were resorted to by eloping couples anxious to wed secretly in defiance of family wishes but also on account of the lower fee charged and because no advance notice was required.

courant
. In heraldry, a creature in the act of running.

course
(two-course, three-course system). In a two-course system of agricultural rotation half of the land was left fallow each year. Under a three-course system, which appears to have been the predominant mode in the area of Ireland under Anglo-Norman influence, three divisions roughly equal in size were maintained: winter corn, spring crop and fallow. Soil quality appears to have determined whether a two-course or three-course system was employed. Two-course was used where the soil yielded one crop every two years; three-course if it could sustain a crop on two successive years. A fall in population may have prompted a reversion to two-course farming for the manpower necessary to cultivate according to the more onerous three-course system simply wouldn't have been available.

course, writ of
. The writ in standard form initiating a legal action, obtainable by the payment of a fee.

court baron
(
curia magna
). Granted by royal prerogative, the court baron was the manorial court which administered the set of regulations known as the
custom of the manor
. It recorded the surrender of and admission to land, enforced the payment of services due to the lord and dealt with debts, trespass and disputes between tenants. Sessions of the court baron were conducted perhaps every two or three weeks or as often as there was some business to be transacted.

court cairn
. One of the earliest Neolithic communal tombs to appear in Ireland, the court cairn comprises a long cairn of two or more chambers divided by jamb and sill. The chambers are entered by way of a (roughly) circular roofless court which forms a recess at the end of the cairn and probably served as a ritual area. The ceilings of the galleries are corbelled and the sidewalls are formed by large upright stones. Cremated as well as uncremated remains have been found in court cairns together with implements and vessels. Over 300 have been identified in Ireland, dispersed largely across the northern half of the country, Creevykeel in Co. Sligo being a notable example.
See
portal dolmen.

court leet
(
curia parva
). A manorial court which tried petty offences (assault and battery, blood drawing, theft and breaches of sanitary or other manorial regulations) that would otherwise have been dealt with in the royal courts. Through the
assize of bread and ale
it was also responsible for ensuring that bread and ale were produced to a reasonable standard and that short measures were not sold. Manor
constables
were elected at the court leet which was held twice a year at Easter and
Michaelmas
. The court leet was usually accompanied by the
View of Frankpledge
but, although included in royal grants, it is not clear to what extent this form of social control was employed in Ireland. All tenants owing suit to the court were obliged to pay ‘leet money' or ‘leet silver', usually amounting to a couple of shillings, to the lord. The
court leet
declined in the sixteenth century, yielding to the system of justices of the peace and the
quarter-sessions
.

covenanter
.
See
Reformed Presbyterian church.

cowlands
. In Byrne's country (Wicklow), the equivalent of 30
great acres.

Cowper Commission
. A royal commission appointed to investigate landlord-tenant relationships, specifically the workings of the 1881
Land Law (Ireland) Act
and the 1885
Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act
. Reporting in February 1887, the commission attributed the collapse in crop and livestock prices during the previous two years to American competition, soil exhaustion and credit restrictions. Many tenants were now unable to pay even the judicial fair rents fixed by the 1881 act and those outside the terms of the act were worse off again. Evictions were increasing. The
Plan of Campaign
, a scheme devised by tenant leaders to compel landlords to lower rents, was hampering the work of the land courts. As the value of land had fallen to 18 years
purchase of current rent
, tenant leaders were advising tenants to hold off for better terms. Although the Purchase of Land Act of 1885 was working well, Ulster tenants were dismayed that those who had engaged in disturbances had achieved better terms from their landlords than those who had accepted the government scheme. In its recommendations the commission stressed the importance of maintaining law and order throughout the country. The interval for rent revision, they felt, should be shortened from 15 to five years and judicial rents be set according to the index of agricultural prices. The commissioners believed that land purchase schemes should be continued because landownership promoted good citizenship and loyalty. In areas where holdings were too small to provide a livelihood, purchase schemes should be discontinued and replaced by assisted immigration or emigration. The commission promoted the idea of central creameries as a means of boosting rural industry and increasing exports to Britain and recommended technical training for the youth of impoverished districts.
(
Cowper.)

coyne and livery
. (Ir.,
coin-mheadh
, billeting, Fr.
livrée
, livery) A general term for the various Gaelic exactions of
cutting and spending
which involved the free quartering of the lord's dependents on the country, including soldiers, horseboys and horses. Coyne and livery were also known as man's meat and horse meat because it involved the provisioning of men and horses. It was adopted by Anglo-Norman marchers to quarter troops on local populations in defence of the Pale. Coyne and livery was not welcomed by the inhabitants on whom it was imposed. They were required to billet, feed and sometimes pay the wages of the troops. In 1488 coyne and livery was criminalised within the Pale although march lords were permitted to impose it on their own tenants to maintain a standing force.
See buannacht
, coshering, cutting and spending, cuddy.

crannock
. A measure of corn used in Ireland at least until the end of the fifteenth century. The precise amount appears to have ranged between one (8 bushels) and two quarters (16 bushels) depending on the cereal. A crannock of wheat consisted of 8 bushels and of oats, 16.

crannóg
. (Ir., a structure of wood) A circular lake-dwelling.
Crannóga
were constructed on natural islands in lakes or were man-made. They were located in lakes for strategic purposes and access to them was gained by boat or causeway. It is estimated that there are the remains of upwards of 1,200
crannóga
in Ireland.

crastin, crastino
. In legal documents, refers to the day after any feast day.

creagh
. (Ir.) A prey or cattle raid.

creaght
. (Ir.,
caoraigheacht
, a herd of animals) A group of nomadic herdsmen and their cattle and sometimes the transportable wicker-work huts the herdsmen lived in. Creaghting was the practice of driving cattle from place to place for pasture.
See
comyn,
bó-aire
. (Prendergast, ‘The Ulster creaght', pp. 420–30.)

Crede Mihi
. The oldest record of the state of the parishes in the diocese of Dublin,
Crede Mihi
contains a list of the churches and associated chapels, the names of rectors, the value of rectories and the institution or ecclesiastic to which or to whom they were appropriated for the period 1179–1264. Although the original was created in the late thirteenth century, additional observations were appended by Archbishop John Alen in the sixteenth century. (Gilbert,
Crede mihi
.)

creel
. A wicker basket.

creepie
. A low three-legged stool.

crenelles
. The openings in a battlement, alternating with the solid merlons, from which defenders were able to launch missiles. Crenellated means embattled.

Críth Gablach
. An eight-century Gaelic tract on the legal status and social stratification of lay freemen. Freemen were divided into two orders, commoners and nobles (including kings) and each order was subdivided into many grades. The text discusses the nature of kingship and the relationship between kings and their subjects.
See
Brehon laws. (Binchy,
Críth Gablach
.)

crocket
. An architectural ornamentation, often of leaves or flowers, largely associated with the earliest
Gothic
style known as the pointed style.

croft
. A small, enclosed arable field or garden adjacent to a house.

cromleach
.
See
dolmen.

crown rent
. In feudal times, the rent payable to the crown upon the granting of land, commonly known as the chief rent.

crown solicitor
. Prior to the nineteenth century it was unusual for the crown to prosecute at the assizes except in extraordinary cases and there was a single state solicitor for the entire country. From 1801, however, crown solicitors were appointed to each circuit as assize prosecutors. By 1880 there were twenty crown solicitors and a crown and treasury solicitor. Meanwhile, from the 1830s the attorney-general had begun to appoint sessional crown solicitors to conduct state prosecutions at the
quarter-sessions
(prosecutions at
petty sessions
were usually undertaken by the police). The offices of crown solicitor and sessional solicitor were amalgamated in the 1880s. The crown and treasury solicitor acted for public departments and prosecuted only at the direction of the government. The post was re-styled chief crown solicitor in 1888 when the offices of crown and treasury solicitor and crown solicitor for the city and county of Dublin were united. When the holder of the office retired in 1905 the post was split between two officials, the chief crown solicitor and the treasury solicitor.

crosslands
. Church lands lying within a
liberty
but subject to the crown and not to the lord of the liberty.

crowstep gable
. A stepped gable.

cruck
. (Literally, crooked) A naturally-curved, timber blade or truss rising from the floor, from below the wall-head or from the wall-head to the apex of the roof. In pairs or couples they are known as cruck trusses and several pairs form the support framework for the roof. Cruck trusses are differentiated by the type of cross-member used to secure each pair. A tie-beam secures the trusses at wall-head height; a collar-beam (or open cruck) knits the trusses near the apex. A truss is not invariably a single timber for two pieces may be scarfed (overlapped) to form a continuous blade.
See
couple, coupled house.

crusie lamp
. A pear-shaped, iron pan filled with oil with a strip of twisted cloth laid along the lip to serve as a wick. Originally the wick would have been of rushes and the oil from fish, lard or even butter. Many crusie lamps had a lower pan to collect oil from the wick.

Crutched Friars
.
See Fratres Cruciferi.

cuddy
. (Ir.,
cuid oíche
, a night's supper) The food and drink consumed by a Gaelic lord and his retinue as he coshered or progressed through his tenants between New Year's Day and Shrovetide.
See
coshering. (Simms, ‘Guesting', pp. 79–86.)

cúige
. (Ir., one-fifth) In geographical terms refers to the largest spatial subdivision of Ireland, the province. It was known in Gaelic as ‘one-fifth' because anciently there were five provinces in Ireland, Ulaidh (Ulster), Midhe (Meath), Laighin (Leinster), Mumhan (Munster) and Connacht, each of which was dominated by a great dynastic family. Ulaidh and Midhe were controlled by the O'Neills, Laighin by McMurrough-Kavanagh, Mumhan by the O'Briens and Connacht by the O'Connors. Apart from the main churches which have (or claim to have) retained a provincial structure continuously since the Synod of Kells in 1152, little use has been made of the province as an administrative division.
See
provincial council
and
composition
for early modern experiments.

cuirass
. Defensive plate armour which protected the body from neck to waist, comprising breastplate, backplate and metal hoops for the hips. Cuirassiers were mounted soldiers who wore such armour.

culdee
. (Ir.,
Céile Dé,
servant of God) The culdee monastic movement emerged as a reaction to the apparently relaxed discipline which characterised the older monastic foundations during the seventh and eighth centuries. A minority among the monks of their day, culdees often lived within larger communities but devoted themselves to an austere, ascetic life and adhered to the strict observance of their rule. Married men could become culdees but their wives had to live without the priory. Notable culdee leaders included Maelruain (d. 792), abbot of Tallaght, and Dublitter of Finglas (d. 796). (Gwynn,
The rule of Tallaght
; O'Dwyer,
Célí Dé
.)

culm
. Coal slack

culverin
. A long, slim-barrelled, sixteenth-century cannon, 5.25 inch bore, which fired an 18- to 20-pound missile. It was the heaviest gun in ordinary use at the time. A demi-culverin had a bore of about four inches.