Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 38 on 11/04/2008.

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Everything you need to know about... Scottish Clans

The word ‘clan’ originates from the Gaelic language and simply means ‘family.’ The population of the Lowlands, in particular the Scottish Borders, associated themselves with ‘families’ (Armstrong, Kerr, Johnston, Jardine, etc), not ‘clans.’ In addition, some of the Norman dynasties (Stewart, Bruce, Douglas) preferred to belong to a ‘house.’ The Scotland of long ago comprised Scots, Picts and Norsemen in the north; Angles or Saxons, Normans and Strathclyde Britons in the south. Put simplistically, clans belonged to the Highlands; the south was dominated by noble houses and families. It is important to appreciate this differentiation as it has increasingly become the practice to refer to all Scots as being members of a clan, which is not strictly incorrect, but is likely to be challenged by purists.

Writing in 1938, Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, then the Lord Lyon King of Arms, observed: “Clanship and the Scots’ instincts of belonging to a tribal grouping, the maintenance of subinfeudation, which the Plantagenets abolished in England, and the incorporation of many older Celtic customary provisions, made Scottish feudalism the means of perpetuating the hundreds of tiny Celtic provincial states or clan territories which together form the realm of Scotland. These little ‘countries,’ each of which originally formed as alloidal or duthus unit, held free of rent or service, were gradually resigned to the Ard Righ Albann (the High King of Scotland who thus became feudal overlord) to b.....

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By Sally Toms

Section : Scotland Life

Page number : 74