Di Astud Chor

Di Astud Chor ("On the Securing of Contracts") is an Old Irish legal tract on contracts. It treats the various circumstances that determine when contracts are binding on a party and when they are not. Its existence was first brought to the attention of modern scholarship by Neil McLeod, whose edition (with translation and notes) appeared in 1992.^[1] The tract is a collection of material from varying dates, some no earlier than the 8th-century, some much earlier.^[2] For instance, it contains a poem on contractual surplus adjustment that can be dated, based on style, to the early 7th-century.^[3]

Four versions were distinguished by McLeod, A (Corpus Iuris Hibernici 985.24–1002.31), B (CIH 1348.21–1359.25), C (CIH 2040.28–2045.36, 2046.34–2050.32), and D (1962.28–1963.35).^[4] McLeod divided it into 60 paragraphs of text in two distinct sections. Part one (paragraphs 1–36) concerns the general rules determining contracts to be binding, whereas part two (paragraphs 37–60) concerns exceptional cases, particularly cases where previously undisclosed defects exist, that allow a contract to be abandoned.^[5]

See also

• Early Irish law

Notes

1. ^ Breatnach, Companion, p. 244; McLeod, Early Irish Contract Law, passim
2. ^ McLeod, Early Irish Contract Law, p. 111
3. ^ Stacey, Road to Judgment, p. 50
4. ^ Breatnach, Companion, p. 244–5; McLeod, Early Irish Contract Law, pp. 95–101
5. ^ Breatnach, Companion, p. 245

References

• Breatnach, Liam (2005), A Companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici, Early Irish Law Series, Volume V, Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, ISBN 1-85500-184-5, ISSN 0790-4657 
• McLeod, Neil (1992), Early Irish contract law, Sydney Series in Celtic Studies 1, Sydney: Centre for Celtic Studies, University of Sydney, ISBN 0867586230 
• Stacey, Robin Chapman (1994), The Road to Judgment: From Custom to Court in Medieval Ireland and Wales, University of Pennsylvania Press Middle Ages Series, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 0-8122-3216-x