Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/30

 with the approval of his brehons and the assent of the people. This, it seems, was a power seldom exercised, for the ordinary operation of the law, went otherwise; but the Annals record instances of its use. He led the stateship in war when a hosting was demanded; and as, in the festivals at Tara, he met in assembly with the Kings of all the other stateships, it would seem that some code existed among them in order to bring the practice of their office into general uniformity.

The other executive officer held the alternative titles of Bruighin-Fer and Baile Biatach. He was primarily the Public Hospitaller. The Bruighin, or Hostel, had mensal lands attached to it by the stateship, and it was built with four doors to the four quarters in order to welcome all travellers, to whom hospitality was dispensed as a public dignity. Over this hospitality the Bruighin-Fer was placed in charge as host for the stateship; but another function attached to his office, and appeared in the second title he came to wear. For the houses of the craftsmen and tradesmen collected about the Hostel, and the whole became a township over which he ruled as mayor. Indeed, the modern Scottish word for mayor, baily, displays this origin quite clearly. The first intention of the Hostel was for the exercise of public hospitality; but inasmuch as the stateship, when it met in assembly to discuss and decide its internal affairs, or for that matter to debate national affairs, met in the same building, the office of the Hospitaller obviously became one of considerable importance in the general conduct