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Appendices
we find Boniface writing to Fortheri, bishop of Sher-
borne, supporting the request of a man named Eppa for
the release of the latter's sister who had been kept in
bondage (captivae puellae) by Beorwald, abbot of Glastonbury,
and offering a ransom of thirty solidi for her
emancipation in order that she might spend the rest of her
life among her own people instead of in slavery. 1
The contemporary Irish literature bearing on the traf-
fic is copious and it supplements and illustrates the testi-
mony from outside sources. Thus the Leabar na g-Ceart,
a remarkable tenth century Irish work containing ele-
ments very much older and throwing a flood of light on
medieval forms of revenue in Ireland, has repeated refer-
ences to slaves brought into Ireland from over the sea,
describing them for the most part as "foreigners without
Gaelic," that is, foreigners who could not speak Irish.
From one reference it would appear that the ancestors of
the family of Ua Dubhlaighe, Anglicized O'Dooley, were
large owners of English slaves:
Entitled is the stout king of Fera TulacH
To six steeds from the middle of boats,
Six swords, six red shields
And six foreigners without Gaedhealga 2 (Irish).
Fera Tulach has the meaning of "men of the hills" and
is the name now applied to the barony of Feartullagh, in
Westmeath. After the establishment df surnames the
chief family in this territory took the surname of Ua
' 3
Dubhlaighe.
Another reference shows that English slaves figured in
1
1
Jaffe, Mon. Mag . 7. In another letter to Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury,
Boniface severely animadverts on the practice of English pilgrimages
to Rome and the frailty of the females taking part in them, declaring that
as a result there was hardly a city in Lombardy or France that had not an
English prostitute. (Haddan and Stubbs, iii, 381.)
2 Leabar na g-Ceart, or Book of Rights, translated by O'Donovan, p. 181.
s See also O'Hart, Irish Pedigrees, under Ua Dubhlaighe or Dooley.
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