surety. Should the contractor default, the had to pay the debt from his own property. He could then attempt to extract the money from the contract. Assumedly, the only paid if the was unable to make the debtor pay. Since acting as a could mean a financial loss that might not be repaid, the law tracts apparently see the position as dangerous, as one of three "dark things of the world." The , like other sureties, were paid a fee when hired, which potentially made up for the risk they undertook. A person could not act as a in contracts worth more than his honour-price, though it was possible that one might act as a ráth for only part of a contract, in which case they were responsible for payment only up to their honour-price. Finally, the is a surety who became a hostage in the case of a default. Once the hostage was in captivity, the debtor had ten days to pay the debt to have the hostage released. If the hostage was not released by then, expenses to the debtor could become exorbitant. The had to pay his own ransom by paying his body price, which was expensive, and the debtor had to pay twice that fee plus the surety's honour price. The could enforce the debt to him by himself. Relationship to the church and church law Brehon law was produced in the vernacular language by a group of professional jurists. The exact relationship of those jurists to the church is subject to considerable debate. Brehon law at times was at odds with and at times influenced by Irish canon law. Vernacular church law A number of law tracts that originated from the church were written in Old Irish. The most famous of these is , which was apparently created in 697 under the influence of Adomnán and ratified by a number of ecclesiastics and kings whose names appear in the text. The idea of the law was apparently to supplement the punishments of Brehon law for crimes against women, children, and clerics. In some ways it follows the ideas embodied in Brehon law although there are differences; for instance, it uses capital punishment, which Brehon law avoids. Canon law More contradictions exist with Latin Canon Law, such as in the (Irish Collection of Canons), than with Vernacular Church law. Brehon law allows polygyny (albeit while citing