|
Clans - Origins & Evolution
Though most clans consider they have a
distinguished lineage - in many cases claiming to be "a royal race" -
few are prepared to recognise the implication of having previously belonged to a
parent kindred that may in fact be a clan still in existence, or one from which
came other present-day clans. The desire for an immaculate conception is
particularly strong for those names struggling to assert themselves as
independent clans in the face of claims by others that they are merely a sept of
an existing clan; but refusal to accept links to paternal kindreds - whether
present day clans or not - defies the meaning of the word
clann
(children
or descendants - i.e. "family") and ignores the realities of kindred
history in the Scottish Highlands.
That reality is best understood by looking at the history of the most well
documented kindred in the Highlands: Clan Donald. Donald the progenitor of the
MacDonalds was a grandson of Somerled mac Ghillebrigte, and therefore a member
of
Clann Somerhairlie
; and Somerled was a descendant of the 9th century
warrior who appears in medieval chronicles as
"Gofraidh mac Fearghus,
toiseach Oirgiall"
(Godfrey son of Fergus, chief in Argyll), and
therefore a member of
Clann Gofraidh
- a kindred name that was still
applied to MacDonalds and their cousins as late as the 16th century. Those
cousins included the MacDougalls whose progenitor was a son of Somerled, and the
MacAlisters who were descended from a son of Donald himself - and the
MacAlisters have never felt that acknowledging a descent from the progenitor of
another clan in any way derogates from their existence as an independent clan in
their own right. Just as the father of a modern family is born into an existing
family, so the namefather - or as he's sometimes called, the
"eponymous" - of a clan is born into an existing clan; and since in
most cases the fame required to have a clan named after them required success as
a warrior leader or a politician, and only the sons of kings or chiefs had a
chance to attain such positions in the middle ages, it follows that most new
clans sprang from important existing clans (though there may be little if any
record left of the parent kindred as such). The process of the birth and
growing-up of potential new clans continued into more modern times and can be
seen in the survival of the much-debated concept of septs, and in the fact that
as late as the early 19th century many in the Highlands had in effect a choice
of surnames - the old parent kindred or the newly emerging clan (see separate
pages on
Septs
and
Surnames
).
Unfortunately
very few clans are as well documented as the MacDonalds and their cousins, but
the survival of some medieval clan pedigrees - such as the early 15th century
collection known as
MS.1467
- clearly show how some other clans share a
common ancestry that has sometimes been denied in more recent centuries. The
matter is complicated however by deliberate attempts on behalf of some clans to
claim other sorts of ancestry which were thought at the time to enhance their
reputations - such as the fake FitzGerald origin invented for the Mackenzies in
the 17th century by the then Earl of Cromartie - and the whole issue of
"Pedigree-Making and Pedigree-Faking" has been admirably dealt with by
David Sellar, the recently appointed Lord Lyon, in his article "Highland
Family Origins" in
The Middle Ages in the Highlands
, ed. Lorraine
Maclean (Inverness, 2024).
Much
of the modern idea of a clan comes from the institution as it was, or appeared
to be, in the 18th century - before the catastrophes of Culloden and the
Clearances. Many of the features of the classic clan of the 18th century are
themselves however either mythical or confined to that era, and bear little
resemblance to the clan as it evolved in earlier times. In most of the larger
clans only a minority of clansmen were in fact descended in the male line from
the chief whose surname they would use (if and when surnames were required), and
many of those chiefs were not themselves descended in an unbroken male line from
the progenitor of the clan remembered in the surname they so proudly bore. Few
clans had always lived on the lands they so fiercely defended; and some, maybe
many, of the smaller clans that did were no longer the lairds-in-chief of those
lands in the 18th century - having been conquered, absorbed, or taken under the
protection of incoming greater chiefs from elsewhere in the country.
Though clan
histories of the 17th and 18th centuries proudly pointed to a succession of
elder sons or nearest male heirs succeeding as chiefs in accordance with the
principles of primogeniture, right back to the eponymous of the clan - i.e. to
the concept of a "rightful heir" and any challengers as usurpers - in
fact the old Celtic system of succession (sometime called "tanistry")
survived at least into the 16th century in many clans. It allowed for the
succession of qualified cousins to the chiefship if they could convince the
leading men of the clan that they were the most suitable candidate for the job.
Thus it is that most clan genealogies - based on accounts written down in the
late medieval or early modern periods at the behest of the chiefs who
established the principle of primogeniture in their clan - are highly
misleading, even if not actually faked in the way previously mentioned. For
existing individual clan histories however please go to
Clan
Histories & Genealogies
.
|