To function, the clan system relied on fairness and respect, which remain cornerstones of Scottish culture to this day. This is what clans were really all about. ![]() Those relationships were vastly outnumbered by the almost infinite cross-connections between clan members, maintained by friendships, inter-marriage, local trade, and mutual support. So determining your actual clan (or even clans) can need genealogical research.īut it's a serious error to see clans only in terms of vertical power structures, up to and down from the Chief. Confusingly, some sept names are shared by more than one clan, due to migration or clan boundaries shifting over time. Clans may maintain an unofficial list of septs, but there is no central register. These are surnames, families or other clans that historically, currently or for whatever reason the chief chooses, are associated with that clan. These loosely related dependent families are known as septs. But equally they were bound by alliances and ties of trade, marriage (with dowries) and mutual defence against invaders - mostly the English. Clans might feud, raid, or wage war on neighbouring clans. This typically centred around an ancestral castle, with regular clan gatherings forming part of the social scene. In return members might receive protection, aid at times of hardship, and a sense of shared identity. Payments to the clan (known as manrent) came in the form of money, labour, goods, death duties (called calps), or, sometimes, life and limb in fighting. But ordinary families rarely had any blood tie of kinship with their Chief. Clansmen (it being largely patriarchal) might take the chief's name in solidarity, particularly when surnames came into common use after the sixteenth century. A clan comprised all living on the chief's lands, or on territory of those pledging allegiance. Specifically this loyalty was to the chief, an inherited position, mostly traceable to the 13th or 14th centuries with some going back to the 11th. Once established, the clans were largely made up of mostly tenant farmers and crofters, who accepted the authority of the dominant family of the area. This makes it different to the tribal arrangements found in many aboriginal groups around the world. The Scottish kings maintained control by granting charters for land, in return demanding taxes and support in the eternal fights against the English. These early clans were far from racially pure, comprising surviving Norse, plus a multicultural influx of Normans, Anglo-Normans, Gaels, Flemish, and more.Ĭlans were largely loyal to the Scottish Crown, in a feudal structure reinforced by Scots law. This gave Celtic war lords the chance to impose their dominance over local families in return for protection. The system evolved when the Scottish Crown first pacified the northern rebellions of the 12th and 13th centuries, then won Argyll and the Outer Hebrides from the Norsemen. Historically clans developed as a form of territorial political organisation in the sparsely populated northern expanses of Scotland above the 'Central Belt' between Edinburgh and Glasgow. And that's why we welcome you to join us. That's why we're proud to call our web site CLAN. For it was in the clan system that today's largely progressive, inclusive national culture is rooted. But the real clan system all but died out after Bonnie Prince Charlie's failed 1745 uprising against the English king.ĭespite this, to get a grasp of modern Scotland you need to understand clans. And clan organisations live on formally though clan chiefs and a network of international clan associations. The clan system originated in the Highlands of Scotland. As we'll explain below, clans are born of social ties more than blood ties. You don't need to descend from a common ancestor to share the benefits of belonging to a clan. So it's basically an extended family, right? ![]() And a clan is known by its chief's surname. Our modern word "clan" comes from clanna in Scottish Gaelic, which means "children" or "offspring".
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