Obs. exc. Hist. Also 6 breighoon, 7 brehan. [ad. Irish breathamh or breitheamh, pl. breitheamhuin (pronounced bre·əvin), in OIr. brithem, gen. brithemon ‘judge,’ f. breth judgment.] An ancient Irish judge.
a. 1581. Campion, Hist. Irel., vi. (1633), 19. The Breighoon (so they call this kind of Lawyer) sitteth him downe on a banke.
1596. Spenser, State Irel., 4. In the case of murder, the Brehon, that is their judge, will compound between the murderer and the friends of the party murdered.
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), III. xviii. 345. In the territories of each Sept, judges called Brehons … sat … to determine controversies.
1875. Maine, Hist. Inst., ii. 24. They are … the creation of a class of professional lawyers, the Brehons.
b. Brehon law, the code of law that prevailed in Ireland before its occupation by the English, finally abolished in the reign of James I.
1596. Spenser, State Irel., 4. What is that you call Brehon Law?… It is a rule of right unwritten, but delivered by tradition from one to another.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, II. V. ii. 327. One that hath quite abolished a slauish Brehon Law.
1672. Petty, Pol. Anat., 375. Governed by different laws; the Irish by the Brehan law, and the English there by the laws of England.
1757. Burke, Abridgm. Eng. Hist., Wks. X. 334. The narrow notions of our lawyers, who abolished the authority of the Brehon law, and at the same time kept no monuments of it.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng., II. 248. The Brehon traditions—a convenient system, which was called law, but which in practice was a happy contrivance for the composition of felonies.
