[3]: 7–9 Críth Gablach deals with the differences in status of free individuals outside the church, not considering "poets and anyone whose rank depends on professional skill or knowledge".
[4] The topic of status is dealt with in three surviving early Irish law tracts: Crith Gablach, Uraicecht Becc and Miadslechta.
[1]: xvii Binchy was sceptical about the reliability the picture of Irish society in Críth Gablach, accusing its author of "an extreme, and at times ludicrous, schematism".
[1]: xix T. M. Charles-Edwards, on the other hand, deems Críth Gablach "one of the few outstanding pieces of social analysis from early medieval Europe"[5]: 53 and "the nearest approach among the Irish laws to a text on kingship".
Another precise (though superfluous) terminus post quem may be provided by the tract's reference to an expulsion of the Saxons, i.e., the failure of Ecgfrith of Northumbria's invasion of Brega in 684 CE.