The law of the innocents: Ireland’s medieval precursor to the Geneva conventions

Chris Doyle, University of Galway

The Geneva conventions, which were signed in August 1949 in the aftermath of the horrors of the second world war, are generally accepted as the gold standard of international humanitarian law. They set the rules for the treatment of both combatants and civilians during wartime. But they were preceded by more than 12 centuries by a law drawn up by a monk amid the violence of seventh-century Ireland.

Adomnán, the Abbott of Iona, the great Columban island monastery off the western Scottish coast, was a man of many talents. Noted for his biography of St Columba, he was a scholar, teacher, mentor, poet, calendarist and negotiator. He was also known for his efforts to obtain legal guarantees from Pictish, British and Irish kings granting protection from violence to women, children, clerics and others, especially in wartime.

Conflict was commonplace in early medieval Britain and Ireland, we know that much from contemporary written sources, such as the Annals of Tigernach, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England and the Chronicon Scotorum. Civilian populations routinely ended up on the receiving end of military violence.

Adomnán knew only too well the effects of war trauma on non-combatants. He and his mother Ronnat had once encountered the horrific sight of a battlefield strewn with the mutilated corpses of mothers and babies. It was actually Ronnat who urged her son to do something about the murder of innocents in war.

While on a diplomatic mission in the northern British kingdom of Northumbria, Adomnán convinced its king, Aldfrifth, to release civilian prisoners of war into his care. Adomnán no doubt heard their survivor testimony as he accompanied them back to Ireland. Experiences like these led Adomnán to try to effect a change in attitudes among the powerful towards the defenceless and the innocent – not just during war but across society in general.

Lex Innocentium

And so, in AD 697, at a church synod in Birr, Co. Offaly, Ireland, Adomnán campaigned successfully for his vision of protection for civilians to be accepted. Called the Lex Innocentium (Law of the Innocents), it became known as Adomnán’s Law, or Cáin Adomnáin. According to surviving texts, the Lex Innocentium received the backing of approximately 91 Irish, Pictish and northern British kings, bishops, abbots and other senior figures. All present were required to swear oaths that they would uphold the law.

The Lex Innocentium is preserved in two manuscripts, a 15th-century copy held at Oxford’s Bodleian library and a 17-century version kept in the Bibliothéque Royale in Brussels. Biographical material had been added to the original text by the 11th century, but the guarantors list and legal stipulations themselves are accepted as authentic.

Among its rulings, the Lex Innocentium decrees a range of penalties for anyone found guilty of violence against women, children or clerics. Mostly, these penalties are fines of varying amounts, depending on the type of violence involved, but execution, bodily mutilation and forced penance in a monastery are also given as options.

Not everyone accepted Adomnán’s proposal. A group of Irish kings threatened to kill him rather than cede anything resembling freedom to women. The Ireland of Adomnán’s day was deeply patriarchal and organised by rank, status and wealth. The legal system was biased in men’s favour, mainly men of means.

Although women had some agency in situations such as marriage and divorce, their legal rights were very much restricted.

Adomnán is likely to have anticipated opposition to his Lex Innocentium but he dealt with dissenters quickly by cursing them and their families with divine retribution. This might seem strange to the modern mind, but the medieval world was rife with superstition, something Adomnán understood he could use against his adversaries.

Speaking truth to power

He was also unafraid to speak truth to power and it helped that King Aldfrifth of Northumria had once been Adomnán’s student, as had other kings. With friends like this, small wonder Adomnán had the confidence and poise to move amongst elite circles, seeking to form a coalition of the willing.

It is unclear how exactly the Lex Innocentium was enforced or even for how long it was observed. It was renewed at least once after Adomnán’s death and it was mentioned appreciatively in later sources. But no actual legal proceedings associated with it survived.

It may well be that the Adomnán’s Law represented an ideal that was never truly attainable, at least not at the time in which it was drafted. What does stand out from the story of the Lex Innocentium is Adomnán’s remarkable feat in getting buy-in for his proposal from so many prominent people.

Adomnán’s Law has sometimes been described as an medieval Irish forerunner to the Geneva conventions, a comparison that has been dismissed as wishful thinking. Yet what are the conventions if not a series of initiatives born in response to a time of darkness – a collection of efforts by conscientious individuals determined to make conditions that little bit better for human beings trapped in conflict.

If anything, the Lex Innocentium offers us a lesson in the impermanence of progress if it is not sustained and respected. That, perhaps, is the true legacy of Adomnán’s Law.

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