History of Scotland.

[Delbáeth]

Settlement on the Western Seaboard c. AD300-800: Dalriada and North Uist

Introduction

The lack of knowledge in many areas of the history of the western seaboard of Scotland is astounding, yet little effort is made to try and answer some of the fundamental questions that arise in this area. Some periods are slightly better known than others as detailed comparisons with other places have shown similarities in material culture and artifactual style.

One of the key periods in Scottish history however is little known, documented, or studied. This is a period which marks the beginnings of modern Scotland and the introduction of a new people into the geographical area of Scotland. A new people who were ultimately to give their name to that geographical area and who were to found the modern nation of Scotland. It is this period from c. AD 300-800 that I will be looking at.

Who were these people, why did they settle here and, more importantly, how can we identify and evaluate their settlements? It is these questions and others which I will be trying to answer in this dissertation. I will be using information from a site of acute archaeological importance in the Western Isles and trying to link it with the little archaeological information known from the 'heartland' of Dalriada to try to see what conclusions we can make -if any- about the Scots as a nation their culture and settlement patterns.

The date of AD 300 is not as arbitrary a starting point as it sounds. It was chosen because in 297 complaints were made of attacks on the fortified Roman frontier by two peoples the "Picti" and the "Scotti". Two peoples who were to be heavily involved both with each other and ultimately in forming the kingdom of Scotland.

The links between the two peoples were significant. Gildas wrote c. 450 of "foul hordes of Scots and Picts" when detailing the Roman evacuation of Britain the century before. The Scotti seem to have become allies of the Picts at an early stage and the seaborne attacks mounted on the Roman province to the south caused havoc and led to changes in Roman strategy. By 367 the Scots and the Picts were part of the Barbarian conspiracy which led to the overrunning of Hadrian's wall.

It is more than likely that this involvement of the Scotti in affairs outside their territory led to the settling of some Scots in Scotland after all, they could see Kintyre from Antrim and would no doubt have some idea what the geography across the water was.

Across Europe in this period there was a great wave of migrations of tribes and peoples, it seems only logical therefore, to expect evidence of this in relation to the Scots. It is possible that the evidence from North Uist to be outlined here may indeed represent an outpost of such a wave early in the 4th century.

The Scots of Dalriada were originally from Ireland, from an area along the Antrim coast and part of the province of Ulster (now counties Antrim and Down). The originator of the political territory of the Dál Riata in Scotland was Fergus Mór mac Eirc who arrived in Kintyre c. 500.

When Fergus Mór removed from Ireland to Scotland, there was no sundering of ties or relinquishing of authority between the two sections; and this continued to be the case under Fergus Mór's successors. Evidence for the continued rule of Dál Riata in Ireland by the Scottish branch is found at the Convention of Druim Cett. This was convened c. 575 to discuss the future relations and status of the Irish Dál Riata between Aed, son of Ainmire (d. 598) the leader of the Northern Uí Néill -the most powerful people in the north of Ireland at the time- and Aedán mac Gabráin king of Dál Riata in Scotland (d. c. 608).

The accounts of the convention, show that the status of the Scottish dynasty was more or less confirmed in its existing form. The right to levy taxes and tribute went to Aedán, while the right to raise the armed forces of Dál Riata in Ireland went to Aed, as overlord of Ireland. Essentially this meant that while Aedán and his successors could maintain their authority over the Dál Riata in Ireland, they had control of the government of the territory.

Involvement of the Scottish dynasty in Ireland was bound up with conflict between themselves, and the other two groups who shared Ulster with them. The Dál Fiatach (often known as the Ulaid)1 on the Down coast, and the Dál nAraide or Cruithne in the interior.2 The province of Ulster was ruled in turn by the Dál Fiatach and the Dál nAraide, and conflict between the two groups appears to have been common. The Dál nAraide and the Dál Riata became close and possibly went into an alliance with each other at least from the end of the sixth century.

Involvement of the Scottish Dál Riata in Northern Ireland came to a shattering end at the battle of Magh Rath. Domhnall Brecc brought the kings of Scottish Dál Riata into conflict with the kin of the abbots of Iona by backing his ally and possibly nephew, Congal king of the Dál nAraide and Ulster against the Uí Néill highking, Domhnall son of Aed mac Ainmerech.

The annals do not mention the Irish Dál Riata acting independently at all until after Magh Rath in 637. From this time, Scotland and Ireland began to go their separate ways, and it is possible that the Scottish dynasty forsook their claims to territory in Ireland.

The period after Domhnall Brecc's death in 642 at the hands of Owen king of Strathclyde, marked the beginnings of a decline of Dalriada and also Iona. Iona suffered a setback of huge proportions at the Synod of Whitby over the date of Easter and the tonsure. It was the political setback over control of the fledgling English church that was to cause the most harm to Iona. About 661 the seventh Abbot of Iona, wrote that Dalriada was being held down by "strangers", strangers who belonged to one or other of the four groups struggling for political hegemony at the time.

Kingship in Dalriada followed the Irish system with a rí ruirech, 'king of overkings', with two further grades below this, the ruirí or 'great king' and the basic level of the king of a tribe or petty kingdom, the rí. When the Scots arrived, they were divided into three kindred groups each with its own rí and territory. The Cenél Óengusa ('kindred of Óengus') occupied Islay. The Cenél Loairn ('kindred of Loarn') held Colonsay as well as present day Lorn and looked on the northern march with the Picts. And the Cenél nGabráin ('kindred of Gabran'), held Kintyre, Cowal, Bute and Arran and also the overlordship of the Scots.

The organisation of these groups for fiscal and military purposes detailed in the Senchus fer nAlban gives us a very important view of how their society was organised. The Cenél nGabráin enjoyed the overlordship of Dalriada for the sixth and much of the seventh century. and there is little doubt their status was enhanced by the ordination of Aedán mac Gabráin as overking of Dalriada by Columba in 573.

By the end of the seventh century the military failures that had befallen the Cenél nGabráin allowed a fourth kindred to emerge: the Cenél Comgaill, while they themselves were replaced as kings of Dalriada by the Cenél Loairn. This sudden rise to power of the Cenél Loairn was eclipsed less than a hundred years later by the rise of Pictish power in the east and the 'smiting of Dalriada' in 741. Yet, a century after this a king of the Cenél Loairn would become king of the Picts and unite the two nations into one, Alba.

Having laid out a brief outline of the history of Dalriada, what information can be gathered for settlement within that region and to what extent can it be juxtaposed in other areas? Let us first look at three sites from Mid-Argyll, which had, seemingly, by the late seventh century become part of the territory of the Cenél Loairn. We will then turn to look at a site of premier importance in Scottish settlement history, to see what we can gain in terms of useful comparison. We will then turn to look at a few settlement sites outside the Mid-Argyll area but important for giving a true picture of the settlement patterns of the Dalriadic Scots.

Chapter I

The Mid-Argyll Evidence3

Let us look now at the Scots of Dalriada, their social customs and organisation, and see if it can lead us to any conclusions regarding settlement. There have been very few documented sites that can be firmly and completely associated with the Scots of Dalriada and I shall look at some of these, situated in Mid Argyll within the territory of the Cenél Loairn.

The first of these sites is a crannog in Loch Glashan (map 3 no.60). This site yielded important information about the Scots and their culture, for many artifacts survived that are normally missing from dry land sites. Not only was there evidence of metal working in the form of crucibles and slag, but also leather and wooden objects point to other manufacturing processes. There were also examples of imported class E pottery vessels (E-ware) from the Atlantic coast of France whose date would be between the 6th and 8th centuries.

The crannog was investigated when low water levels associated with the building of a dam revealed part of it. It was constructed using layers of brushwood on top of mud on the landward side, while seaward layers of logs and revetted stones overlay brushwood. There was a thin scatter of stones across the site with indications of a hut on the north-west side. A rectangular structure 25ft x 15ft was defined by a series of massive oak timbers with flattened tops suggestive of the floor of a house. The hearth seems to have been constructed from stone slabs and sherds of Rhineland pottery were associated with it. As only part of the site could be excavated at the time there was no attempt to investigate the indications of an older structure underlying the other two buildings.

The large numbers of wooden objects included troughs, bowls, a paddle, scoop, worked timber pegs and pins, together with scrap leather. Also found were sheaths, shoes a jerkin and a dug-out canoe. A bronze brooch with a possible amber setting gives an approximate date for the abandonment of the site at around 850. In addition a 'bearded' iron axehead and large numbers of quern stones, both whole and broken, were found.

When we link this with evidence from Dunadd and the somewhat enigmatic site of Brouch an Druimein (nos 18 and 67), we can get a picture of a fairly dynamic and sufficient society with trade links to the Continent. A fact which is borne out by Adomnan in his life of Columba.4
Brouch an Druimein is a contemporary to Loch Glashan although the evidence here is slight due to destruction by gravel workings. Discovered here were two timber buildings overlying one another which had at one time been destroyed by fire, it was at least partially enclosed by a ditch and evidence of metal-working and again imported pottery was produced. It is fairly safe to presume from the evidence here that several periods of reconstruction over a considerable time span is involved.

The next and possibly most important site is Dunadd. Several excavations here have produced a wealth of material and together with its source references and carvings give it a possibly unique place in the history of the region. Dunadd was a centre for the production of jewellery and the working of precious metals, as the quantity of moulds and trial pieces testifies. Imported pottery of class D (D-ware) comprising wheel made bowls and E-ware jars, beakers, bowls and pitchers were discovered, indeed, the assemblage of E-ware is the single largest known from any site in Britain.

The structure of Dunadd consists5 of some 5 plateaus each of which is defended by dry stone walling. At the top is the upper fortress that was extended at a later date to the original building giving it a curious kink in the north-west wall. Access was on the north-east where an uneven path had been cut into steps allowed access to the summit. Only a short stretch of the walling to this earlier fort is revealed today (see plate 1) some 4m thick and overlies earlier occupation. Possibly about the same time as this alteration was carried out, the shelf that lies some 5m below the fortress was surrounded by a wall some 2m thick linking rocky outcrops. It is well preserved on the north-east (plate 2) where four irregular courses can be picked up and standing to a height of 0.6m. This wall encloses the important group of carvings and inscriptions of the fort (plates 9,10 &11). Deposits in this area in the 1904 excavations were up to 5ft deep in places and produced many fine finds -although no record of stratification exists and there is no clear indication available where exactly finds were made. On the north-east side of B there exists a rectangular stonework structure, originally described as a buttress. The outer facing stones are still visible and it overlooks the east side of the interior of the fort. (plate 4).

The largest area of the fort occupies the irregular terrace outlined by the walls that run from the natural rock in the north in a series of straight sections with right angled turns round to the base of the rock below the summit fort. Parts of this wall are still well preserved, although much of it exists as tumbled ruin (plate 6). Excavation of the wall showed two phases of construction on it. Originally the wall was constructed between 2.6 and 3.1m thick with battering on both faces. A later phase increased this thickness to some 4m and in places nearly 5m.

The entrance to the fort is through a rather dramatic natural cleft in the rock on the south-east. The entrance is about 3m wide and has sheer sides of about 2.3m and presumably had a very substantial timber gateway at the junction of the cleft with the defensive walling.
Many walls were traced during the successive excavations in the interior of the fort. Most of these are now no longer visible on the surface. To the west there is a small cell or chamber (e) although quite what relation this had with the walling is unclear. In the area of wall D, there were discovered copious quantities of charcoal-rich black soil with large quantities of clay mould and crucible fragments. Indications are that wall D was demolished about the eighth or ninth century after this period of manufacturing was over.

Dunadd, it is clear, was not constructed in one period but over several periods although the precise relation one to the other will probably never be known satisfactorily.

Artifactual evidence abounds from Dunadd, although the lack of stratigraphy does not help us to date accurately objects from elsewhere. One of the most interesting aspects of these artifacts is the numbers of moulds and templates for the making of jewellery. Pieces of slate have been used as drawing boards for the working out of designs. One slate has animals, a bird and rosette motifs engraved onto it with one design drawn using compasses. Although known to be from the 'Upper Ridge-fort', it lacks stratigraphy and remains a datable problem.

There were large numbers of elaborate metal finds including a high quality 6th-7th century Anglo-Saxon example. A garnet in gold setting with filigree. Ironwork was also produced in large quantity, including weapons, knives, and tools. The pottery found here included large numbers of imported ware from the late 6th century to the 8th. Other pottery of later date was also found. Indications of a literate, probably ecclesiastic population at Dunadd were provided by an incised stone with the inscription I(N)NOMINE ('in the name of the Lord') of possible 8th century date and a piece of yellow arsenic sulphide used in the illumination of manuscripts.

A look at Map III shows to what extent Dunadd was one of many forts within a small area. The chain of forts and monuments up Loch Craignish, along the valley of the Add and up towards Loch Awe via Kilmartin and Ford, point to a highly able warrior aristocracy during the Iron Age, and it would be unlikely if these fortifications were not utilised by the incoming Scots. The lack of surviving settlement sites in Dalriada and wider afield in Pictland may indicate a penchant for building in wood, a material that will not last except on crannog sites, which is why the Loch Glashan site is so important. To look at other sites within the Mid-Argyll area but not on the map we can see a few cases of surviving indications of post-holed wooden buildings. At Auchategan (NS000643) we have a site with a possible long term occupational history.6 The interesting point to be made here is that a C14 date was taken from the hearth of a structure relating to period 4 (on-site terminology) gave a date of AD 660 ± 100 with involvement in iron working indicated. Two sites at Ardnadam (NS163791 & NS163789) again showed signs of industrial activity during this period. These seem to prove a scenario where recoverable and datable settlement is related to industrial and not necessarily undefended activity.

Two interesting sites to keep in mind regarding 'figure of eight' style buildings are at Brenfield Hill (NR822827, NR823829) and at Allt na Sac (NM989048)7 in Mid-Argyll. Both are at present on Forestry Commission land and access was impossible when I went to look at them, however Campbell and Sandeman in their survey8 noted that they bore a 'figure of eight' plan, and were alongside several others. Of particular interest here is the Brenfield complex which Campbell and Sandeman described as consisting of: A large group along the hillface, with some of types E [small ovals, ave. 18ft x 13ft] and G [sub-rectangular, ave. 23ft x 15ft], and one rectangular foundation overlying. A typical pair is 25ft x 15ft 6in max., and consists of an oval 10ft x 8ft (int.) with walls 3ft to 4ft thick, touching at one end an oval 6ft x 4ft (int) with walls 2ft thick.
The Allt na Sac site is described thus "A group of about six pairs, near a burn, with a large spread mound containing charcoal." From the descriptions and the geographical position of them these are vitally important sites and cry out for detailed investigation. They are also important for another reason. If archaeological evidence can be produced dating these to the same period as the Udal settlement we will have proof of Dalriadic settlement on North Uist.
It is more than likely that many other examples of this type of building or settlement complexes await discovery, and investigations of the machairs of Islay, Tiree and others may well turn up examples. Further detailed archaeological and field investigation is desperately needed to solve this problem.9

Chapter II

The Udal Evidence

The site of Coileagan an Udail situated on a peninsular on the north side of North Uist, marks a watershed in the settlement history of the western seaboard of Scotland. The sites there show an unbroken settlement pattern from the Neolithic until desertion in 1697, and as such are invaluable for dating evidence of other sites on the west coast.

The period around 300 marks a watershed concerning this site as with mainland Scotland. In 1972, underneath early Viking levels and overlying late Iron Age field systems and 'cremation platforms' a settlement of immense importance was discovered. It lay within the stratigraphic sequence of an hitherto unknown period in settlement terms, that period from AD 300 to 800. The only other excavated site existing in Scotland is at Buckquoy in Orkney, where there are problems due to a lack of stratigraphy. The evidence from the Udal site points to a possible tribal or political centre only some 75km north of the main Dalriadic heartlands.
The settlements at Coileagan an Udail are set into a shell sand machair landscape. In antiquity, a ridge ran from the tell Udal South (US), some 200m North to the tell Udal North (UN). In the Iron Age, the cultivation fields ran down this ridge, at the bottom of which were situated burning ghats of a ritual funerary purpose. The US sites hold the late Iron Age and Bronze Age foci with the UN tell consisting of the post Iron Age through until 1697 when the site was abandoned due to severe sand blow.

There is evidence to show that while there was settlement continuation there may well not have been an Iron Age population continuation, as the structures and artifacts change character abruptly and drastically. In all there were excavated some 8 'figure of eight' buildings with associated 'four poster' minor outbuildings, surrounded by palisading (see plan I).
The buildings themselves are almost unique in Scotland, and are constructed in an entirely new manner and form. They were sunk much deeper into the ground than the techniques for sand building normally require, suggesting the builders were unfamiliar with the matrix and building techniques required for it.

There appears to have been several phases of style and building custom at the Udal. The earliest buildings were constructed during the period XIV-XI.310 and consisted of simple oval structures (see plan I: buildings h, j, and c and the primary form of ST) with single cell 'satellites'. Slab lined hearths lay along the long axis together with a single 'sleeping' platform. A second phase of design saw the symmetrical placing of a satellite on the end of a large oval chamber 6m long. There a slab lined hearth in a long narrow floor of trampled peat ash was framed by two revetted platforms -probably 'sleeping platforms'- (n3.63 in its primary form and later phases of ST). The third and most complex phase was XI.1. This phase saw the basic 'figure of eight' heavily embellished with minor satellites11 (n3.1 and z). This phase must represent the growth of a fairly successful and growing settlement around the late eighth century before it is violently and finally wiped out by a Norse invasion around the year 800.

These later buildings were flanked by extensive palisading, shown up by the remains of post holes. This palisading was very important for N3.1 as it was replaced at least 10 times and on one occasion with 30cm squared timbers -in an area likely to have been without major timber stands.
Throughout these periods, small '4 poster' structures existed 2.4m square. These show slight slab lined hearths, trampled floors and post hole settings for roof support.The perimeters of these buildings however, are rarely well defined and no walling evidence exists. The possibility of outhousing or servant quarters is the conclusion which possibly has to be made here.

The drastic change in material culture around the fourth century associated with these buildings does tend to compel an invasion theory. A key indicator of this, is the drastic change in the style and quality of the pottery associated with them. Whereas the pottery associated with the late Iron Age occupation horizon is well fired, decorated and of fine quality, that associated with the new inhabitation is of very poor quality with simple undecorated shapes. It does exist however, in enormous quantities -probably due to its quality! An indicator of new practices comes from level XII where there was a heavily grass-marked and impressed pottery horizon that can be associated with similar Irish and Cornish examples and dated to the 6th century AD.12

Apart from pottery, other artifacts indicative of manufacture were uncovered including crucibles and metal casting moulds. Produced from level XI.11 was a gold gilt penannular brooch pin head. From level XII iron double-pronged and socketed forks and a decorated penannular silver ring were discovered. Worked bone was produced in copious quantity with indications of a bone pin industry. There were also bone gaming pieces, buckles and composite combs -another indicator of material culture change as during the late Iron Age here, the combs used were invariably of bone only.

What does all of this evidence suggest then? Can we say, as has been argued,13 that what we have is an example of the baile bíataigh of Irish documentation? Or do we have to look for other possible scenarios?
It is possible to argue the case for a baile bíataigh and we may indeed have here the settlement of a noble (aire déso) of the Dalriadic Scots with his client dóer-chéli. The number of buildings at the Udal corresponds to the division for rent and tribute laying (tech) and the division for naval recruitment (ceathramh) detailed in the Senchus fer nAlban.14 In both cases the lowest number is five and it is conceivable therefore, that we may indeed have a baile bíataigh here.

This may be of course, (and is likely to be) simply coincidence. The likely and logical answer seems to suggest a settlement of a small farming community on the outer arm of the kingdom of Dalriada, although no doubt participating in its affairs to an extent. It must always be kept in the forefront of the mind that the Udal is not actually all that isolated. In terms of sea transport it is very well located. Indeed there are good anchorages close to the site itself, with future excavation possibly likely to prove that this situation had existed back into Bronze and possibly earlier periods.

The importance of the Udal is not just in terms of this particular period. The ramifications of the knowledge and artifactual evidence from here in all periods from the Neolithic until the late Middle Ages are huge and incalculable. The scope for further investigation and insight into the history of the western seaboard of Scotland is greatly enhanced by this site and it is to be hoped that full publication will soon be forthcoming.15

Chapter III

Conclusion

What conclusions can be made, from the evidence available, about the settlement on the western seaboard of Scotland between the years 300-800 AD? Logically, we should be looking for some form of clear material cultural differences between the incoming Scots and the indigenous people of the country that they invade. There is a distinct possibility however, that in many respects there were no initial differences in the material culture between the Celtic peoples Scot, Pict or Briton in the Argyll area. Distinct material cultural differences exist at the Udal, and point to the survival of a pre-Celtic population there.

It is this fact which may partly explain why it has been extremely difficult to identify and categorise early settlement sites. At present, there is no difficulty, archaeologically, in identifying whether a settlement is Bronze, early or late Iron Age. The problem we have, is that while we can identify subsequent occupation, we can't put a population group to it.
It seems that one of the principal reasons for this inability to identify, date and categorise settlement sites in this and other areas is the materials used to build the domestic and dwelling structures. It would appear that most, if not all, of the dwelling structures were constructed of stone foundations with wooden walls, uprights and supports. Few of these foundations now survive as they were robbed in antiquity to build other houses, or dykes or enclosures. Consequently, we cannot get that first 'fix' of where to look for settlement and therefore we cannot pin down settlement to any great extent.

One means of trying to pin settlement down is though place-name study. Nicolaisen has shown that the key forms that we should be looking for on the west coast are the generics, sliabh, cill, baile and achadh. The problem here is the separation of these terms from their later 9th and 10th century forms, and also the fact that in many parts of Scotland the original Gaelic or P-Celtic place-names were replaced by Norse names. We will never be able to completely say where all of the settlement sites were in Scotland, although the discovery of a few more would certainly help to shed some light on the societies of the west coast of Scotland during the early historic period.

To look at the evidence which I have produced here, it appears clear to me that there is a sequence of events which could be logically and I feel successfully put together.

Taking Argyll first, around the year 300, in the face of pressure from the the northerly migrating Uí Néill, some Scots leave Antrim and move across the north channel to Kintyre and its surrounding area. There they mix happily with the indigenous people of Celtic origin. Over the next few centuries the Scots population gradually increases their territorial area and appear to thrive through utilisation of the indigenous strongholds: the forts and fortified settlements of previous periods. The Scots gradually expand and explore along the sea routes both north and south of Kintyre. They settle in Galloway and investigate the Western Isles.

The people of Loch Glashan, situated not far from Dunadd, capital of the Dalriadic kingdom, enjoy both the protection of it and their crannog dwelling. There were few disputes to disturb them and life is prosperous. Occasionally their menfolk march off to battle in Ireland or against Pict, Briton or Angle. Success is generally with them until disaster strikes in 736 and 741 when the Picts attack and overrun Dalriada.

For the people who live around Dunadd, life is extremely prosperous. Not only do they take advantage of the wealth of the capital, through its production of jewellery, they also used the land routes to Loch Awe and the sea routes south through Loch Craignish to take their wealth to other parts of the Dalriadic empire and elsewhere. Foreign traders follow in their tracks bringing goods and pottery from Gaul and further afield, adding to the richness and diversity of life in and around Dunadd.

Religion plays an important part in the lives of the Scots of Dalriada. With the coming of Christianity to mainland Scotland through the energies of Ninian and later Columba, power, both religious and secular, was exercised and increased over the pagan peoples to the east.

The foundation of monastic communities in Pictland was a major achievement for the church in its missionary mode. Iona in particular was the base for the setting up of these monasteries, Maelrubai the abbot of Bangor used Iona as a base when he set up the monastery of Applecross in definitive Pictland while others set up communities on Rum and Eigg from early in the seventh century if not earlier. This ecclesiastical growth and the huge prestige gained from it was perhaps one of the major successes of the Columban church. One which reflected much glory on the kingdom of Dalriada.

While investigating the Western Isles, a group of Scottish settlers comes across a settlement on a peninsular of North Uist. The people of this settlement are descended from the original Neolithic settlers of the area and have formed a small thriving complex. The Scots see this and move in, either enslaving or driving off the indigenous people before settling down.
When they settle down they move away from the insert buildings of the wheelhouse and build themselves a new settlement at the end of the existing field system. These early settlers don't have a particularly good idea of how to build in sand, and so they dig their buildings in to a good depth and construct their homes in a figure of eight style brought with them from Antrim.

Over the years, this settlement thrives and, no doubt, is involved with the political situation to the south. The arrival of Fergus mac Erc in Dalriada around the year 500, sees the population become part of a new political state. The lord of the Udal settlement is no doubt subject to overlords in Loairn and they undoubtably provide military service in the form of men for seven bench warships.

The period until the late eighth century appears to have been quite good for the inhabitants of the Udal, there is slight evidence of some adverse climate change,16 but things appear to have been generally prosperous for them. Then, around the year 800 Norse longships draw through the narrows of the sound of Harris and descend upon and destroy the settlement.

These new arrivals also see the advantage of staying on the fertile machair lands. They build over the buildings of the previous inhabitants, placing walls along the long axis. To protect themselves they also construct a polygonal fort at the site and begin their own manufacturing in metals and bone. A new epoch in the history of the western seaboard begins.

A factor of settlement along the west coast which was as true in the Neolithic as it was during the Norse period was maritime communication. The ease of navigation along the chains of islands that make up the west coast of Scotland and the ease by which access to the interior of the country can be made by boat facilitated settlement.

It is quite clear that the use of the Great Glen throughout the prehistoric and into the early historic period enabled communication and trade to be carried out. The Great Glen was, before the construction of the Caledonian canal, navigable by boat for most of its way with only a small number of portages required. It has been described as the "main communication route between Scottish Dál Riada and northern Pictland"17 a route which was to be used by the Norse with even greater proficiency in later times.

Looking at the evidence which has been presented here, we can see that it is possible, to a certain degree, to detail and discover a lot about the settlement patterns and society of the western seaboard from the archaeological evidence. Yet problems present themselves. The antiquarian interest of the late eighteenth and more especially nineteenth centuries led to the discovery of many fine and beautiful artifacts. It was not however, interest in the knowledge which could be gleaned from meticulous and careful excavation of the sites that was at the forefront of many antiquarians minds, rather, fortune hunting was the order of the day.

Many of the most important sites which could have given us so much rich knowledge were, unfortunately, disturbed and in many cases 'vandalised' by these antiquarians. Had they remained undiscovered, we could, with our improved techniques and knowledge on dating, greatly increase our meagre knowledge. Instead, we are left with collections of artifacts with little real information about where and when these artifacts came from or how they came to be where they came to be.

One example of this type of situation can be looked at by studying the great antiquarian Erskine Beveridge. Much of the collection of Dark Age finds in the National Museum of Antiquities in Queen Street was bequeathed by him during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He bought the island of North Uist around the turn of the century, and lived on the tidal North Uist island of Vallay not far from the Udal. In addition to much excellent work on the Island he explored and documented many other parts of Scotland.

His excavation technique was quite simple; he hired labourers to dig in likely, easy to dig spots until they found something! Occasionally he would visit the site to check on their progress and draw or photograph any interesting structures or finds. If they didn't produce anything exciting after a few weeks, he would move them on to another site to try his luck there.

An example here is his work at the Udal, on US. Beveridge knew that there was a great possibility of finding a site of importance as there were many artifacts here which could be picked up as they eroded out of the sand hills, and so he set his labourers to work. In due time they picked up the outer wall of a wheelhouse and souterainn. They didn't however, produce much in the way of artifacts and consequently Beveridge abandoned the site. He left a double wheelhouse complex and bronze smithy untouched, plus several other buildings and structures with their artifacts. The knowledge now gained from the Udal would have been considerably lessened had he continued to dig here.

We must not however, place too much blame on early archaeologists. Many closer to our own time have contributed to the disastrous direction which studies of settlement, and other sites underwent. The successive digs at Dunadd were conspicuous not only for the finds produced but also for the complete lack of any scientific or orderly procedures for execution of the dig. Reference to the excavation notes show that little attempt was made to stratify the site and so gain more knowledge from it.
So, where can we take settlement study to in the future? I feel that an extensive multi-disciplinary campaign of investigation involving archaeologists, historians, onomasticians and government bodies is seriously required. It is a disgrace that we continue to accept the paucity of present evidence and blithely repeat it without any concerted attempt to investigate even known or suspected sites for further evidence. If we continue to go along the lines where sites are only investigated or excavated when development or damage is threatened we will ultimately lose much of the evidence which must be, and is, out there for us to find.
In particular, I feel that the machair and westerly sites of the inner and outer Hebrides need to have extensive field work done on them -if nothing it will indicate the state of erosion on these coasts. The Udal sites are being seriously eroded each year by the weather, and it is only the huge mass of deposits that have helped to keep the sites intact. There must be several similar sites out there which are now being eroded with little attempt to find and excavate them.

It has to be said that, despite my criticism here, much good work is being done to increase our knowledge. In particular the publication of Anna Ritchie's book on the Picts and Scots should open new avenues of investigative possibility. The full publication of the Udal evidence will again open up and show the way forward for investigation and dating of west coast settlements.18

So in conclusion, the history of settlement along the western seaboard of Scotland can be seen in terms of a maritime and climate orientated culture. the political influences on the settlement here were at first only marginal- yet severe enough to force groups of Scots to leave Antrim and set sail for Kintyre some twelve miles away.

Once there, these people -as indeed all migrating peoples did- did not settle down at once but continued to explore and settle further afield. The political upheavals of the later eighth and ninth centuries subsequently caused a new wave of migration and settlement towards the east and the rich lands of Fortriu. In their wake, the Norse changed the linguistic and political map irrevocably and dramatically.

[Delbáeth]

Scotland c1000-1200: The Shire, the Thane, the Sheriff and the Sheriffdom

Detailing the origins and development of the shire, the thane, the sheriff, and the sheriffdom in Scotland from their earliest instances into the beginning of the thirteenth century is a difficult task due to the unclear nature of much of the evidence. While work has been done on the thane and the thanage and to a lesser extent the shire, little is known in depth about the early sheriff and sheriffdoms beyond the names of the early sheriffs and their sheriffdoms. The aim here is to try and bring together the evidence relating to the various institutions, and see where and why they developed in Scotland. To understand the ultimate development in Scotland of these institutions, we have to look to their origins in England and in particular the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia.

By the beginning of the eleventh century, England south of the Tees had been divided into shires, each of which formed a unit in the national administrative system. Except where Danish influences still prevailed, each shire was divided into smaller units called hundreds, for the setting of taxation, the maintenance of peace and order and the settlement of local pleas (see map I). This system had originated in the kingdom of Wessex, which by the end of the eighth century had been divided into shires. These shires were organised in dependence upon a particular town or royal estate which was defensible, and from which the name derived.1
A corresponding system is not known to exist in the independent kingdom of Mercia. The Mercian evidence points to a later introduction of the Wessex system there, with the the eastern half having shires representing the areas controlled by individual Danish armies between which it had been divided, with subdivisions known as wapentakes (vápnatak), while the western half operated a system similar to Wessex, which was in existence by 980, although whether imposed during the reigns of Edward the Elder or his grandson Edgar the Elder is open to question.

The dominance of Wessex made the establishment of a uniform pattern of local administration throughout southern England possible generally without respect for ancient divisions. The midland shires in particular, have an air of artificiality about them. Many of these shires were formed by dividing lands long held by different tribes. Shropshire, for example, was formed from the lands of the Magonsætan and the Wreocensætan. Warwickshire represented the eastern part of the Hwicce kingdom and the Mercian lands south of the Arden. That these divisions occurred bears witness to a strong king indifferent to local tradition. It was Stenton’s opinion that Edward the Elder was the most probable candidate for the creation of the midland shires.2

With the gradual unification of England, the shire system spread north. The establishment of Yorkshire, the largest and last shire, brought the advance to a halt and a north/south split in systems with England south of the Tees divided into shires while the counties north of the Tees, Durham, Northumberland, Westmorland, Cumberland and the northern part of Lancashire contained no hundreds, wapentakes or shires of the southern form.

While the recorded history of most of the manorial estates of southern and western England does not begin until after 1066, we can infer from what we know that their character had not changed much in the century or so before the conquest. The custom of granting land out by kings or other great nobles to their household and in particular the retainer of noble birth - the thegn - as a reward for service was of long standing by the time of the conquest and had resulted in the creation of the first private lordships.

The position of thane originates in the society of Anglo-Saxon England. In the seventh century, the holder of this position was known as a gesith, literally the kings companion, with a rank above that of the peasant or ceorl, and with a wereguild of 1,200 shillings. The later change in name did not mean an alteration in status or in the relationship to the lord, with the wereguild remaining at 1,200 shillings, and with the rank becoming hereditary.

By 1066, many of the thegn holdings had been subdivided amongst sons into a number of very small holdings, held as ‘manors’ by thegns who were by this stage little better off than peasants. On the other hand there were other thegns with estates valued at five hides, and with specific duties in the kings household and with particular assets on the land.3 While many important followers of William were not well endowed, many of Edward’s thegns were still holding inherited estates some indeed holding land on a large scale in many different shires.

The thegn was important in Anglo-Saxon society for the role they played in government. The word thegn originally meant ‘one who serves another’, which like the meaning of gesith, marked a personal rather than social relationship, the standing of a thegn was based more on who his lord was than anything else. The leading thegns serving the king himself. These thegns attended court and would fill its offices in rotation. They kept the king in touch with the goings on in the country and could be used for many functions should the king desire it.4

The king’s thegns were a very important and wealthy class5 as were the thegns of the great earls. These thegns were seen as vitally important in any political crisis as evidenced by a measure of Edward the Confessor where the thegns of earl Godwine were to find surety that they would become the king’s own men.6 Thegns of the king were also allowed to have thegns of their own, and evidence from the Doomsday book shows that there were also considerable numbers of these lesser thegns with small holdings. While they might be on a par economically with the peasantry, these thegns were sharply distinguished socially from even the highest ranks of the peasantry.

That there were two types of thegn is brought out by the Doomsday book, here were detailed the tenant thegns of both ecclesiastical and lay magnates. They were however, probably outnumbered by thegns holding inherited land and owing service to magnates of their own choice. There were many thegns who were declared incapable of either giving or selling their land without the leave of their lord, while there were others accorded the right of alienation. It appears that the thegn who could alienate his land had come to it through inheritance and had placed himself under a lord; while those with inalienable land had come to it through a gift by a lord.

That many thegns and free men were willing to give themselves to a lord shows the changing structure of English society even before the conquest. The accumulation of estates by a small number of powerful families had reduced the role of the lesser thegns and also widened the gap between the richer and poorer branches of this class. The new relationship was purely one of personal arrangement in many different forms. Moreover, there was nothing to stop a man from linking himself with more than one man.7

Turning to government, we can see that public authority in secular government in the generation or so before the conquest was derived ultimately from the crown. The earls who filled the political stage were officers of the king’s appointment, although despite this, many of the great houses had risen in power, through inheritance, to a position which was almost invulnerable to action by the king. Although a revolt within an earldom or by its holder could enable the king to demonstrate that the earl was in his position by royal grant.

Within the shires, the earl possessed an authority and influence which put him above even great local magnates. By virtue of his office, he was entitled to lead the shire militia and it was also expected that both he and the diocesan bishop would sit as joint presidents of the shire court, where they were generally addressed by name in royal writs. The earl’s fundamental duty was to be the king’s representative in the region under his control, a political rather than an administrative function.

The century before the conquest saw a huge expansion in the provincial government, and the corresponding increase in the political importance of their holders. National politics between the accession of King Æthelred and the death of King Edward tended to detach the earl from the district under his charge. This meant that a new officer was required in local government, one who would be more familiar to to individual landowners than either the ealdorman or the earl had been. This position was filled by the appointment in each shire of a reeve -the scir gerefa- who was chosen by the king and responsible to him alone for the administration of local finance, the execution of justice and the maintenance of the custom which governed the shire (see map II).

It was probably as the guardian of the king’s interests that the sheriff first came to prominence on the shire court. As the financial representative of the king, he was directly concerned with the collection of the profits of justice, and due to the relationship between the king and sheriff, his opinion must have had weight when he spoke in pleas. He would, in the absence of the earl, have a good claim for the joint presidency of the court, and owing to the probable irregular attendance of the greater earls would probably have transacted much of the business of the shire court.
We have seen thus far the situation as existed in the south and midlands of England, we must now look at what was happening in the north of England to get a full picture from which to judge the development of the various institutions in Scotland. The situation in the north of England has many parallels for our study of the Scottish institutions, however understanding society in the north of England is fraught with problems.
The evidence of the Doomsday book is in many areas inadequate as it did not cover several of the the northern shires and, in those that it did deal with, the evidence is sketchy. The evidence, as it exists, has been the subject of study both by local historians and also the more scholarly heavyweights such as Maitland, Jolliffe and Stenton, in more recent years, Barrow and Roffe have added their weight to the study.

Much of the attention of these historians was taken up with the survival
of institutions after the conquest. Maitland was the first to look at the situation, although his arguments are not completely accepted. Stenton had, in his look at the manorial structure of the Northern Danelaw,8 opened up the study of Northumbrian society through his idea of the Yorkshire moat. Henceforth, Northumbria did not have to be studied in conjunction with the Yorkshire Domesday records and Yorkshire did not have to be studied in relation to the north and west. Stenton thus enabled the study of Northumbrian institutions to get underway without the problems of squaring evidence to Domesday.

Jolliffe took advantage of this and it is to him that we must look for the first clear picture of northern society. Jolliffe’s main précis was that the manor did not exist in Northumbria and Lancashire prior to the conquest,9 the vill being the basis for northern society. Jolliffe had argued, after an investigation of the obligations borne by the peasants, that desmesne cultivation was impossible due to the nature of the obligations. On the eastern coast the main obligation was in renders of grain, malt, and chickens for feasts, pannage and cornage. These services were classed as forinsec as they were not to a desmesne or manor house but to a lord’s hall. Jolliffe called an area where a group of vills supported a central desmesne with labour services and formed a jurisdictional unit a "shire" and argued that this system was general throughout the old Northumbrian kingdom in 1066 except for the areas of Yorkshire destroyed by the Danes.10

Ultimately, Jolliffe, based on his comparison with Welsh and Northumbrian customs, was to conclude that the Northumbrian institutions had been influenced by the Celts.11 To bring the early evidence in line with later material on the shire, Jolliffe combined these Celtic influences with the notion that the Normans had truncated the original shires after 1066.12
The similarities between Scottish and Northumbrian society have been brought out by Barrow in various articles.13 He showed that not only in Lothian and the Merse -where we would expect to find Northumbrian similarities- were there similarities, but in west Lothian, eastern Stirling, and generally up the east coast, thanes constituted the native nobility below the earls, holding land called shires in fee-farm from the king.14
The revenues which the king of Scots had the right to collect tended to support this case, with their parallels in Wales and the North of England. Throughout Scotia and the lands of the defunct kingdom of Strathclyde, the king received cain either every year or once every couple of years. This consisted of cows, pigs and cheese in the west and Barrow drew a comparison to the Northumbrian cornage. Also, the king of Scots collected coneveth, consisting of feasts owed to the king by the populace, similar to the feasts owed by the bondage vills in Northumbrian and Lothian under the name of waiting. By proposing a link between the cain and coneveth of the king of Scots, the cornage and waiting of the king of England, the commorth and gwestfa of the Welsh Princes’ and the pecunia and acconeuez of the king of Man, Barrow was suggesting a common system of extensive royal lordship, by implication from Scotia to Kent.15

There is doubt about this for two reasons. Firstly, the comparisons of customs is extremely overgeneralised and ignores several key problems. There are important differences between cain (principally grain) and cornage (cattle) and there was in fact a parallel system of grain render in existence in Northumbria.16 Secondly, the comparisons between the areas are based on Jolliffe, if he was wrong then the comparison could well be skewed. That is indeed what appears to be the case. Jolliffe created an artificial, primitive, essentially frozen system with no mechanism for change by forming his opinions working from the bottom of society up, in the process, he missed out an important body of people, "the lords of the shire", the men who actually held the shires.

In this case Kapelle may well be right that the one dimensional nature of Jolliffe and later writers stemmed from Stenton’s idea of the Yorkshire moat.17 An idea which is as convenient as it is artificial, allowing as it does Northumbrian historians to argue their case without reference to the Yorkshire Domesday and Danelaw Historians to give Danish origins to any institution without reference to the situation north of the Tees.
The question of the structure of society in the Danelaw has been touched on earlier in this essay, a few more words are I feel necessary at this juncture to spell out the situation and the ramifications which it has for studying the Scottish institutions. The Yorkshire moat idea is based on the précis that Eastern England appears to be different to the western Midlands and Wessex as described in Domesday, with in the particular characteristic of the soke and the sokemen. Moreover, the Danish had a huge impact on place-names, customary law and personal names in the Danelaw. The problem with this is that there is no evidence what impact the Danes had in their areas before 1066. So, even if eastern England appears different in 1066, we don’t really know if this area was distinctive in any way before the arrival of the Danes, especially as Northumbria is not described in Domesday.18

Key then, is the degree to which the soke was a Danish creation or a native institution which survived the Danish invasions. Sokes were essentially estates consisting of a main village with dependent pieces of land called berewicks and sokelands. The larger sokes covered wide areas and berewicks and sokelands could be either whole or parts of a village. Clear parallels can be drawn between the soke and the Northumbrian shire, yet they were not made because, according to Stenton, the soke was Danish. Stenton believed in a widespread settlement of the men of large Danish armies as:

"It was almost inevitable that the rank and file of this army, who are known to have kept their military organisation long after they had turned from war to agriculture, should group themselves upon the soil under the leaders who had brought them to England. There is every probability in a view which sees in such grouping the origin of the sokes characteristic of the Danish shires."19

Domesday could therefore be taken at face value as describing a society fundamentally altered by the Danish invasions, despite the lack of evidence.

This view was accepted by most people, including Jolliffe,20 although he was later to change his mind concluding that sokes and Northumbrian shires were analogous institutions based on ancient royal dues.21 Curiously, a view to be subsequently ignored by most people. Recent work has tended to support the idea that the territorial soke was either an Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Celtic institution. Sawyer has shown that the Danish armies numbered hundreds rather than thousands of men and also how they could influence place-names and the law as the Danes did.22 Davis thought that the soke was probably much like the Northumbrian shires, the Kentish lathes or Welsh commotes but blurred due to commutation of renders and royal grants.23

Using Davis’s definition of soke, Barrow postulated that there was no difference between the soke of East Anglia and those in the northern Danelaw. Therefore, the Danes could not have created them as they represented localised examples of a once common system throughout eastern England and Scotland.24 Clearly then, on recent evidence we should regard Northumbria and Yorkshire as having similar institutions and can therefore make analogies between the two.

The Northumbrian shire therefore, was nothing more than the arbitrary administrative district for the support of the Northumbrian kingdom.It acted as the mechanism for the extraction, for the king, of food and later labour from the peasants. Meanwhile, a similar system in origin operated below the Tees before replacement by either hundreds or wapentakes.
To recap the evidence, we have seen that from Kent to Northumbria and into Scotland, there was a common system of royal lordship based upon a unit of land known variously as lathe, soke, shire and also manerium cum appendiciis25 which survived long enough into the eleventh and twelfth centuries to be traceable. Associated with the management of the soke and shire was a class of freemen also with a wide variety of descriptors including sokemen, drengs and thegns.26 In Scottish Northumbria, the free population were addressed as both thegns and drengs in the first half of the twelfth century as were their counterparts in English Northumbria.27
Looking to Scotland then, it is possible, in the light of the English evidence, for us to trace and examine the shires. Unsurprisingly, there is evidence of shires in Scottish Northumbria and into Lothian. There is evidence that Tynninghame in East Lothian was a shire by 1094. Shires were also based on Ecclesmachan (West Lothian), Cadzow, Carluke and Renfrew and Mearns.28 In the southwest, the term shire was not used, although as we have seen there is evidence of a system where tribute was brought to centres of power.

North of the Forth, a similar situation existed. When Alexander I died in 1124, he founded a new chapel in Stirling endowing it with teinds from his desmesne in the soke (also known as shire) of Stirling.29 Within the shire of Stirling were recorded tenants classified as hiredmen, bonders, and gresmen- all familiar terms from the north of England.30 The shire of Stirling was later to become the basis of the later sheriffdom- much as the other shires would do.

In Scotia, there are many recorded shires, although generally smaller than those in Northumbria, due almost certainly to the nature of the area.31 These shires tend to be confined to the east and plains of Scotia and not in the west or more upland areas.32

The manager of the shire tended to be the thane, there were others whose duties were to manage desmesne land for their overlord: administering it, leading its inhabitants in battle, supervising justice and paying the renders due from it to the king or earl.33 The granting to feudal barons -where they replaced thanes- of jurisdiction of sake, soke, toll, team, infangtheif, pit and gallows in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, points to the role played by the thane in justice with the aid of the judex.
The time scale involved with the introduction of the institutions of the ‘shire’ and the ‘thane’ is important here. These two words shared a common origin with England and cannot have come into use in Scotland until at least the beginning of the tenth century at a time of Anglian influence.34 There is no clear evidence about the time of the adoption of the word ‘scir’, although given the interrelation of the two terms they must come into use about the same time.

If as Grant suggested,35 the introduction of the thane was a step along the road of increasing royal power, who should we attribute it’s introduction to? Certainly, Kenneth II (971-95) had witnessed the various aspects of Anglo-Saxon kingship at its height, or do we look to Malcolm II (1005-34) for the innovation. That he was an innovator is clear, he succeeded in diverting the main rival line of kingship into the mormaership of Fife, he extended Scottish power south after his victory at Carham in 1018 and he went against custom by making his daughters son his successor. Cowen showed that he was also regarded as ‘King of the Mounth’ ruling both north and south of it unlike his predecessors.36

Interestingly, John of Fordun associated the origins of the thanage to Malcolm stating:

"From Ancient times indeed kings had been in the habit of giving to their knights greater or smaller tracts from their own lands in feu-ferme, a portion of some province or a thanage. For at that time almost the whole kingdom was divided up into thanages. He [Malcolm II] apportioned these lands to each man as he saw fit either for one year, or for a term of ten or twenty years or life with at least one or two heirs permitted, as in the case of certain freemen and gentlemen, and to some likewise (but these only a few) in perpetuity, as in the case of knights, thanes and magnates, with the restriction however that each should make a fixed annual payment to the lord king."37

Is Fordun’s association with Malcolm a coincidence or is it a reflection of folk history which had come down to him?

At the upper level of pre-feudal Scotland’s Gaelic community there were the mormaer and the toísech; the mormaer became anglicised to earl and the toísech would therefore be expected to become the thane, although not every toísech was a thane.38 Jackson noted that a distinction should be made between the two concepts of toísech where "the Anglo-Saxon thane" was "borrowed and accommodated with a vaguely appropriate Gaelic title".39 Given that the many recorded names of the early thanes are generally Gaelic in origin,40 we can see how this happened. We should see therefore, the thane and local landlords existing side by side, with both having the status of toísech.

The records which survive provide a list of some 48 thanages and 23 places which had or almost certainly had thanes (see maps III & IV). The evidence for them is in general of thirteenth and fourteenth century origin but as there are unlikely to have been any created after David I came to the throne, these later references point to their existence in or before the time of David I. Although there were probably considerably more in existence at that time. As map III shows, thanages were confined almost entirely to eastern Scotia, between the Moray Firth and the Forth, the area which was held and controlled by the MacAlpins in the tenth and eleventh century. In the north and west there is only Dingwall, which may have been incorporated into Scotland earlier than the 1060s. South of the Forth, there are territories which bear similarities to those north of the forth. Despite the several shires however, there are only thanes found at Callendar and Haddington.

Looking at map III we can see that the thanages coincide to a great degree with the early earldoms of northern Scotland. While earls could have thanes, there are few instances of this and it would appear that most of the thanages were in royal hands in the early twelfth century. As we can see they cut a swathe through all of the northern earldoms from Fife to Moray. In the case of Moray, there is a problem regarding whether the thanages belonged to the crown or to the mormaers and earls of Moray before the forfeiture of the earldom in 1130.41

The thanes were essential to the smooth running and consolidation of the early Scottish kingdom. Their role in the delivery of either cain or coneveth (in the case of royal thanes both were given) was essential. Grant showed the extent to which coneveth involved the delivery of large quantities of cattle and food -including in one case over eight tons of cheese.42 This facilitated a peripatetic style of kingship, essential to ensure political power within the kingdom. The thanages from Fife to Moray certainly provided this and thus it could be claimed that they were the catalyst for the consolidation and extension of royal power, especially between the Forth and the Mounth.

When David I came to the throne, the thane did not lose out to any royal
policy of endowing Normans with thanages. One thanage was given to the church while Haddington was alienated briefly as part of the dower for Ada de Warenne his son’s wife. As Barrow has shown, David I managed to maintain "the balance of new and old"43 with the thane an extremely significant representative of the old.

The thanage was to have a role in post-feudal Scotland. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as feudalism north of the Forth gathered pace, the thanage, while losing importance, became the base for the introduction of the sheriffdom (see map IV). Outside Moray, over half of the twelfth and thirteenth century sheriffdoms were based upon thanages. It could be said that the sheriff while superior to the thane was not actually carrying out a role much different to that which the thane had been doing. Perhaps there is a case for Grant’s "super-thane" idea rather than the imposition of a new agent of government.44

The thanages of Scotland had a remarkably long life span. Of the 71 known thanages, 41 survived intact into the fourteenth century. Of the others, 14 were alienated by the crown to lay landlords between the reigns of Malcolm IV and Alexander III45, and 4 were alienated to the church by Malcolm IV46, William I and Alexander II. While it was fairly common for thanages to be slimmed down47, in a few cases they were cut back to a point at which they ceased to exist (see map IV).48

This points to an interesting situation. It is clear that the thanages were not swept away as a result of feudalism. Indeed, there were only two cases of outright and permanent alienation to members of the new ‘Norman’ families.49 In general, the alienations of thanages tended to be to close members of the king’s kin,50 with some grants only temporary.51
Where then did the land come from with which the incoming Normans were endowed? Barrow suggested that after Moray was forfeited, the comital lands were used for feudal grants there, while the existing royal thanages were held by the crown.52 In the rest of Scotland north of the Forth, the same pattern does tend to hold true.53

If the thanage survives into the fourteenth century, does the thane? The answer seems to be not necessarily. By the thirteenth century it was not a prerequisite for a thanage to be run by a thane. Where a sheriffdom was based on a thanage, the sheriff no doubt took over the thane’s duties (except in Aberdeen where there was both a sheriff and a thane). Magnates could also replace thanes without the feudal grant of the thanage, although this did not generally occur. It seems to be the case that whilst the thane lost his role as the crown’s main local representative, he still maintained a function within the locality.54 These functions, supervising the payment of teind, swearing not to harbour or assist criminals, recruiting and performing common army service, and suit at the sheriff court point to men who were part of an heritable landowning society, with all of the pluses and minuses involved.55

While the thanage no doubt meant the territory of a thane at the end of the twelfth century, during the thirteenth century, the terms diverged to such an extent that by the end of the thirteenth century we can find thanages run by sheriffs, feu-fermers -both lay magnates and ecclesiastical institutions- and fermers as well as by thanes. The crown would not mind who ran them however so long as they still received the revenue expected from them. A revenue which by the end of the thirteenth century was considerable.56

The thanage as an institution lasted into the fourteenth century when it received a mortal blow. The land policy of Robert I, meant the granting out of vast areas of land including many of the thanages, especially in Moray.57 The subsequent alienation of land by subsequent kings and the economic problems of the later fourteenth century would ensure the thanage’s demise.58

We have remarked already, that thanages were sometimes replaced at a later date by sheriffdoms, we should look therefore at these institutions and see their development. By the end of the twelfth century, the introduction of the sheriffdom had still to be completed. Although an artificial crown creation, the boundaries of the sheriffdoms coincided with the boundaries of other older administrative districts, and thanages. The reason for this must surely lie in the kin-based society into which the sheriffdom was thrust. It was impossible to ignore the kin and their territory in this respect, therefore the bounds of the sheriffdom never cut across kindred territorial bounds.

The earliest sheriffdom which we know of south of the Forth is possibly Haddingtonshire.59 This was controlled by a thane in David’s reign and had, probably before, but certainly by, 1184 become a sheriffdom.60 This sheriffdom, in conjunction with the later sheriffdoms of Linlithgow and Edinburgh was later to coalesce to form the sheriffdom of Edinburgh.61 Between David I and William I, there were several sheriffdoms created in the south of Scotland. The pace of their creation seems to have fairly slow if not ponderous - there was no sudden introduction of Anglo-Norman institutions in Scotland, so it proceeded at a pace to suit the situation on the ground.

Other sheriffdoms in the south before 1200, include Berwick, created by 1139. Lanark was created at some point during the reign of Malcolm, and was in existence by 1162.62 There was a sheriffdom at Traquair in 1184, which by 1233 had combine to form the sheriffdom of Peebles.63 The sheriffdoms of Ayr, Carrick and the district of Cunningham also combined to form a larger unit based on Ayr by the late thirteenth century.64 There was also a sheriffdom at Selkirk created during the reign of William I.65

North of the Forth, we have in David’s reign the sheriffdoms of Stirling, Stirlingshire and Callendar which were later to combine to form the sheriffdom of Stirling.66 The smallest and most unusual in that respect was the sheriffdom of Clackmannan which had been created a sheriffdom by the end of David’s reign. Exactly why this sheriffdom failed to undergo any form of coalescing is something of a mystery.67 The thanages of Kinross and Cromarty were turned into sheriffdoms, certainly by the late thirteenth century and possibly before.68 There were sheriffdoms created at Scone at some point between 1128 and 1136,69 Perth between 1147 and 1153,70 Forfar between 1162 and 116471 and Kincardine in the Mearns at some point between 1165 and 1178.72 Aberdeen and Banff were created about 1136.73 In Moray there were a number of sheriffs by the reign of William, although exactly where they were sheriffs is not clear.74

Large areas of Scotland south of the Forth were clearly outside the system by the end of the twelfth century although by the end of the next century much had been done to remedy this situation (see map V). Moreover, there is no evidence of any subdivision along the lines of the hundred or wapentake. The sub-divisions tended to be the smaller units which had formed the larger sheriffdom. The Scottish sheriffdom then, was not an exact replica of its English counterpart, it was a system, modified by the society into which it had been placed.

To turn then to the sheriff, we have seen how the sheriffdoms north of the forth tended to be based around thanages. The origins of his office were as like that of the thane, to be found in England. We have seen in our earlier look at the Anglo-Saxon institutions,75 that the sheriff had gained an important position, as the king’s representative and judicial officer. He was, by the eleventh century, at once the judicial, financial, administrative and military officer of the crown. When the Normans came in, they adopted the institution of the sheriff as they found it finding parallels with their similar office of Vicomte. As the chancery moved over to Latin, the sheriff became the Vicecomes and the sheriffdom the Vicecomitatus. As time went by, the sheriff remained an Anglo-Saxon institution, but was modified to fit in with the practices of the time.

To the Normans, the sheriffdom was more important than the Anglo-Saxon earldoms in which they were based. Consequently, the old earldoms were abolished, making the earl less of an official and more of a private lord holding no public duties unlike his predecessor. The development of separate ecclesiastical courts left the sheriff in sole possession of the shire court, and hence he soon became the only representative of the kings government in the shire. In order to ensure that the sheriff was respected by the magnates of the shire, he tended to be of baronial rank, and by holding the position of sheriff he enhanced his position -and was also to become the chief expression of Norman oppression. As Morris showed:

"The greater power and prestige of the Norman as compared to the Anglo-Saxon sheriff are evident. No longer was he a man of moderate means, overshadowed by the nobility and prelates of the shire; on the contrary, he was often himself the greatest man in all his region and not infrequently a benefactor of the church. Since no official superior stood between him and the king, he enjoyed great freedom of action. As a baron and a personal adherent of the king, he combined the prestige of a local magnate and the status of a trusted official."76

This was the situation which David I saw at work in England. To David the sheriff must have been very important, after all, here was a crown appointed official, in close proximity and relation to all sections of the population in the localities. The sheriff, as with the thane, was to be the means of extending and consolidating royal power to throughout Scotland. There is little doubt that David introduced the sheriff to Scotland and therefore we would expect to see some form of connection between the introduction of the sheriff and the existing society. As the sheriffdom adapted to the existing society, so we would expect the sheriff to adapt.
To see how David introduced the sheriff in Scotland, it is instructive to look at who the first sheriffs were. Of the 19 earliest sheriffs which we have on record, 11 were native Scots,77 4 were probably native,78 and 4 were definitely incomers.79 In no case was the first sheriff appointed an incomer. This last point is important. For the four incoming sheriffs to get the post, they must have lived within the sheriffdom and become accepted by that time. It made sense for David and his successors to appoint men with local knowledge.

The rank to which the sheriffs belong is important to look at next. The three upper grades of society, in Scotland, north of the Forth can be summarised thus:


East West South Gaelic Latin Scots Gaelic Latin Scots rí rex king rí rex king mormaer comes earl rí dominus lord toísech thanus thane rí / toísech dominus laird

because the area north of the Forth-Clyde line was conquered by the Scots, it became more centralised than Dalriada, this may well account for the fact that by the twelfth century, there were more crown officials there than in the west.

To the south of the Forth-Clyde line, it is difficult to see what is happening very clearly due to the paucity of evidence. It is a question of whether the offices are coming south from Scotia or north from Northumbria. As we have seen, it was often the thane / toísech who became the sheriff north of the Forth, while in south, the evidence also points to this third grade as the one from which the sheriff was chosen.
The reasons for this are twofold. David had seen that the baronial sheriff was becoming to powerful in England and so chose to use the next rank to ensure their loyalty to the crown. Secondly, while it would seem a more obvious choice to have the brithem as the sheriff, (after all, these hereditary lawmen had the knowledge and legal standing to take on that side of the sheriffs responsibilities) they were themselves, despite having the the privileges of a noble, not noble. Moreover, the legal side of the sheriffs responsibilities was not so important in the twelfth century.

Evidence of the rank of the sheriff within society can be drawn from both north and south of the Forth. In Haddingtonshire, we have seen that there was a sheriff in 1184 and that it was administered by a thane before that. North of the Forth, we have seen that thanes became sheriffs with their thanages becoming sheriffdoms. Where a district was too small and amalgamation took place, the most important sheriff ruled the new larger unit with the subordinate sheriffs becoming his deputies.80 A brieve of William I relating to the payment of teinds also shows the grade of sheriff north of the Forth. Here a defaulting villanus was to be compelled to pay by the toísech, should the toísech default, he was to be compelled to pay by the sheriff with a penalty of 8 cows, a defaulting sheriff was to be compelled by the justiciar and also pay a penalty of 8 cows. The sheriff therefore was equal to the toísech in his private capacity.

There is not much evidence of the functions which the sheriff carried out in Scotland. Later evidence of the sheriff can be traced back to give us an idea of the general duties of the sheriff. There were three head courts held at the caput of the sheriffdom each year which were summoned publicly with 40 days notice. In addition, there were lesser courts which were held elsewhere within the sheriffdom, in some instances at the caputs of the constabularies of the sheriffdom, once the centres of the smaller amalgamated sheriffdoms.81

The sheriff court was composed of the local landowners who owed suit to the court in respect of their land. The suitors were there to decide on a judgment either as a jury or as a whole body. At the end of the thirteenth century, the sheriff did not have the judicial role which he was later to hold.

The sheriff was essentially an executive officer, addressed by name in charters, he witnessed royal documents, received royal brieves, and perambulated the marches if there was a dispute. In this respect he is not any different to his Anglo-Norman counterpart, where he seems to differ is in the military role appointed to him. There are slightly conflicting ideas about this. Dickinson pointed to the Scottish sheriff’s military role. He noted the references in the exchequer rolls at the time of the invasion by Haakon of Norway to the building works of sheriff of Inverness, the inventory of arms of the sheriff of Roxburgh, the watchmen appointed by the sheriff of Stirling and the stores of bolts, quarrels and oars provided by the sheriff of Ayr.82

In Scotland clearly, the sheriff had a logistical as opposed to an offensive role in military matters. In combination with the thane he made sure that all members of the locality were prepared for campaign if required to under Scottish service. It may have been the earl who led them in battle, but it was the sheriff who made sure that they would be effective when they got there. Dickinson may be missing the mark when he states:

"In England the sheriff was the leader of the local levy from the earliest times, but when such a system was introduced into Scotland, or when the earl ceased to be the local military leader (a position always accorded to him in the Sagas) we cannot say."83

As the sheriff was a crown appointee, the crown had to have a method of controlling him. In consequence the crown appointed justiciars to oversee the work of the sheriff. These justiciars, modelled on the English justice, were appointed to Scotia, Lothian and Galloway, and their earliest reference comes from the reign of Malcolm IV84 - although it is probable that as David introduced the sheriff, he also introduced his supervisor. As the justiciar would be the next in rank behind the king, it is not surprising to find that the justiciars were invariably the great magnates, often hereditably,85 while in England the justice was a legally trained man of middle rank.

The sheriff in Scotland, as a man simply slipping into established society with little more than a change of name was not, in contrast to England, seen as a representative of alien oppression. The hereditary nature of the sheriffs office soon led to it becoming increasingly bound up with magnates holding the office of sheriff. By the thirteenth century earls were holding sheriffs offices hereditably.

In conclusion, we have seen how Anglo-Saxon and Celtic institutions were taken up by the early Scottish kings and modified to meet the conditions in Scotland. As time went on these institutions were used to extend and consolidate royal power in the localities. The different roles undertaken by the thane, the sheriff and the shire and thanage were vitally important to this. The strength of the early medieval Scottish kings was that they could rely on a strong base in the localities derived from the thanages and later the sheriffdoms, which was why they were loathe to alienate them. In contrast, the weakness of the later Stewart kings could, amongst other things, be put down to weakness because they had alienated their strongholds in the localities.

Ewan Innes, April 19 1994