Proliferation of the Standing Army( Feudal System)

This adoption of a ” standing army ” naturally increased the personal power of the chiefs at the expense of the clan, as the continued warfare against the Norse had done in an earlier period. Nor was this the only way in which feudal ideas were having an influence upon the Irish organisations.

 The great practical advantage of an established system of succession was being forcibly illustrated, and the feudal right of the son to succeed to the father was being partly recognised. Many of the disputes which occurred in the families from which the chiefs were selected were due to the conflict of the two ideas.

The chiefs were becoming territorial lords with the right of handing down their authority to their own families. The dues, or tributes, payable from the earliest times by the minor clans to the superior chiefs  were also materially altered.

The Normans were becoming ” Irishised,” as we shall see, but the clans, on their part, were becoming, to some extent, feudalised.