For there was a commonwealth of clans, the image, on a reduced scale, of the great commonwealth of European nations.

In the smaller of these two commonwealths, as in the larger, there were wars, treaties, alliances, disputes about territory and precedence, a system of public law, a balance of power.

There was one inexhaustible source of discontents and disputes.

The feudal system had, some centuries before, been introduced into the hill country, but had neither destroyed the patriarchal system nor amalgamated completely with it.

In general he who was lord in the Norman polity was also chief in the Celtic polity; and, when this was the case, there was no conflict.