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Lay abbots existed in the tenth century, also in the eleventh. Early church sites had no monks or clergy. In Gaelic the word in Ireland has no relation to Scotland. Instead hereditary tenants farmed the church lands, under lay abbots known as 'erenaghs'. And Deuars on a large scale were called Abbots, as owning substantial parts of the abbeyland. The coarb system of abbatial succession within the founder's family lent itself to a direct father-son transmission of office. The clerical marriage was common at that time in all the West and the reforms still in the future made the designation of Culdee, to have become equivalent to cleric in medieval Scotland. Scotland and England being at peace during later reigns, Alexander I the Fierce and son of Malcolm Canmore and St. Margaret of Wessex, David I, many Dunkeld nobility entered service in the northern wars. |
The north, meaning Tyrone where Niall became king of Meath at Tara apart from the Desmond seate of Eberian and Ithian members of the Southern Branch of Ó Neill. Walter Fitz Alan founded the monastery of Paisley in 1160. Dunkeld was increasingly a branch of Saint Columba or the abbots of Iona and where Niall and the son of Fiachra. In Desmond (South Munster), the Suibhnes (MacSweeney) were Military commanders under the MacCarthys, who, in the thirteenth century, brought a body of them from Tirconnell or Donegal, where they were celebrated as Chiefs under the O'Donnells; and hence the head of the clan was styled MacSuibhnena-dTuadh or MacSweeney of the Battle Axes.
In the 12th century Chester seems to have had a reputation for them. Gerald of Wales, who accompanied Archbishop Baldwin when he went to Chester in 1188 to preach the Crusade, told of two famous personages locally reputed to have become hermits in Chester and to be buried there: King Harold and the German emperor Henry IV (or V). The notion that Harold lived on after Hastings appeared in several stories, and a link with Chester was current by the later 12th century. It occurred in its fullest form in the Vita Haroldi, an anonymous work written c. 1200. There, Harold was said to have been taken to Winchester after the battle and nursed back to health, to undergo adventures abroad before returning as an old man to England. He eventually went to Chester, where he became a hermit in the cell of St. James, attached to St. John's church. The author of the Vita Haroldi ascribed the tale to a priest of St. John's named Andrew, perhaps the Canon Andrew of St. John's who attested grants to St. Werburgh's in the period c. 1150-80. In the 12th century Chester seems to have had a reputation for them. Gerald of Wales, who accompanied Archbishop Baldwin when he went to Chester in 1188 to preach the Crusade, told of two famous personages locally reputed to have become hermits in Chester and to be buried there: King Harold and the German emperor Henry IV (or V). The notion that Harold lived on after Hastings appeared in several stories, and a link with Chester was current by the later 12th century. It occurred in its fullest form in the Vita Haroldi, an anonymous work written c. 1200.
Fearchar Mac an t'Sagairt, who was apparently the grandson or great-grandson of Gillandres, one of the six earls who besieged Malcolm IV the Maiden at Perth in 1160, brought into closer connection with the crown. The lay Abbots of which Ferquhard was the head were the hereditary possessors of all the extensive territories which had for centuries been ruled and owned by this old and powerful Celtic monastery. In 1160 Ross takes precedence as the first erected clan in the time of Malcolm, Earl of Ross. Of Co. Monaghan, Earl Gillandres as probably forfeited for the part he took against Malcolm IV the Maiden Canmore. Uprisings continued in the northern district of Moray and Ross, and the Earldom of Moray was forfeited to the Crown in 1130 (not to be revived until after the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Earldom was conferred by King Robert the Bruce upon his nephew Sir Thomas Randolph). The twelve-year reign of the young King Malcolm IV the Maiden was marked with wars and insurrections, the most serious of which began shortly after he took the throne in 1153. These events ultimately had a bearing on the creation of the Earldom of Ross and the recognition of a new clan. King Malcolm MacHeth, two years after the incident at Perth, gave the earldom of Ross to Florence, Count of Holland, on that nobleman's marriage with His Majesty's sister Ada, in 1162, but the new earl never secured practical possession. He is, however, found claiming it as late as 1179, in the reign of William the Lion.
The name Ross derives from a Gaelic word meaning a headland - perhaps a reference to the Black Isle peninsula. The Norse word for the Orkneys - Hrossay meaning horse island - is another possible origin. Ross-shire (Siorrachd Rois), is a region of Scotland and a former Mormaerdom, Earldom and county. Pictish travel established monasteries such as Bangor, Applecross in Rosshire, Loch Maree, Sutherland, Banffshire, Deer in Aberdeenshire. The county bordered on Sutherland, Cromartyshire (of which it contained many enclaves), Inverness-shire and on an exclave of Nairnshire. The heraldic beast of the Clan Chattan, informally referred to as the Clan of the Cats: St. Cattan’s name means "little cat," and the Northern Picts had an ancient totemistic connection to the cat (hence the name of the province of Caithness in northern Scotland—Sutherland. The county also included the northern part of the island of Lewis. Reginald gave his brother Olave a certain island called Lewis. The area of Lennox once belonged to the Norse earldom of Orkney. For a long time sovereignty over Caithness was disputed between Scotland and the Norwegian Earldom of Orkney.
After the first crusade 1155 Uppland was rewarded with the archdiocese. The territory within these boundaries seems to have nominally formed part of the earldom of Orkney, but from the peculiar situation of Ross, it appears to have retained its independence, and to have been an earldom of itself, to which were attached some of the Western Isles. Norway held the Northern Isles and most of the Western Isles, and the border with England. Arkil, a Northumbrian chief who fled to Scotland to escape the devastations of William the Conqueror, received from Malcolm Canmore the custody of the Levanax or Lennox district, and became first founder of the family bearing that title. Alwyn, son of Arkil, was a frequent witness to the charters of David I. and Malcolm IV the Maiden., and was created Earl of Lennox by the latter King. One of the earliest traditions connected with the family has to do with the great Norse invasion of Cnut the Great and Hakon of Norway, which ended at the battle of Largs in 1263. Previous to that battle, Hakon sent Olaf the Red, King of Man, with sixty ships, up Loch Long. The Norsemen drew their vessels across the narrow isthmus of the MacFarlan country. Duncan, the second Laird of Arrochar, married Matilda, sister of Malcolm, fifth Earl of Lennox—he who was the friend of Wallace and Bruce, who fought at Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn.
Fife was founded by Queen Ermengarde, widow of William the Lion and great granddaughter of William the Conqueror, and her son King Alexander II (1214-49). With the Treaty of York, Alexander II abandoned traditional Scottish claims to the regions of Northumbria, south of the Tweed, and Cumbria and led a fleet and army to the shores of Argyllshire in 1249. Of the inhabited Hebrides islands two belong to Ross and Cromarty.