> [[sayers]]. "Mesocosms and the Organization of Interior Space in Early Ireland". *Traditio*, Vol. 70 (2015), pp. 75-110. [jstor](https://www.jstor.org/stable/24642651), [pdf](a/w-sayers2015.pdf) ## Abstract In early medieval Ireland, the cosmos was conceived as tripartite the heavens, earth's surface, and underearth and undersea. H tions with cosmic forces were assured by just royal rule. Crossi coordinate, which also had implications for the human hierarch function, were the manifold phenomena as known to human lif reality was mentally organized as a vast set of homologies, the r maintenance of which contributed to the prosperity and fertili dom. The literate record displays multiple taxonomies and ca expressed in numerical values. Among these are the pentad terms, the quincunx. This fivefoldness and the order it represen nized and replicated on a variety of scales: the five provinces family farm and its neighbors, the house and its outbuildings. A as mesocosms were the interior arrangements of royal banquet h kings on circuit and other travelers, and law courts. The qu ization of interior space reflects and promotes macrocosmic ord great corpus of literate works is the setting for disruptive hum the stuff of story — often associated with themes of the heroi rule. This conception of interior space was elaborated in th and, in formal terms, was readily accommodated in subsequent turies, with new hierarchies and the perdurable conception of t stabilizing fa