A Modern Scottish View of Clans (and Gathering)

[gilmore]

I'm still rather fascinated with the state of land ownership in Scotland (is it the same in England?). I worked several stints on a sheep croft in Sutherland, and when the owner told me that she owned her house but not the land it sat on... I couldn't get my head around it! Apparently all the land that her village sat on belonged to some Lady Such-and-such (given to her as a birthday present). I imagine it's like having an absentee landlord, but if the landlord is also a slum lord you're really f'd. And it's even worse cause you OWN your house and caint just up and leave... I can certainly understand Phil's frustration and cynicism after having to deal with that in a day to day real life scenario. I've certainly had my share of slum landlords.

That way of owning property isn't all that unusual. It happens in the US, even in your own state of Georgia, where Georgia Power Company owns the land around Lake Rabun in north Georgia, but allows some people to build and own houses on it.

I've often wondered myself why the clan chiefs are still "revered" or given some sort of status in British society, since there were really only a handful that were titled nobles (if I understand that correctly?). Were they ever given status as "Peers of the Realm" (I thought that had been discussed some years ago)? It has seemed to me that (especially after the '45) those of the Scottish upper echelon who could gain from joining British society did so, abandoning their Gaelic roots while reshaping their Highland traditions into a British model. That's of course putting a bit of a negative slant on it, but I would also recognise that this could be interpreted as a sense of "survival" in an era of considerable social change, too- adapt or "die" (or immigrate).

Of course from my clan's standpoint, MacGregors have been more or less landless since before the '45, so there's no notion that we (the common clansmen) were disenfranchised by our chiefs (but rather by our kings, ironically enough). Obviously the opposite is true in at least a few other cases. But I can't help thinking that by-and-large the Highland Clan System was not based on a feudal order, being Gaelic/Celtic, and that the Clan chiefs (who were not always thus by birth) were not so raised above their clan as a titular lord might be. Maybe yall would consider that the romantic version, but I've certainly read of historical accounts from 18th century observers who, being from south of the border, were taken aback that their host the clan chief was casually conversing with the labourers in the fields or what might otherwise be called common clansmen.

I'm not quite sure what I was driving at there, but I certainly find the topic interesting. I have to say that I appreciate Phil's candour- not the usual pomp and circumstance we're used to!

The clan system predated feudalism, and with the coming of the latter to Scotland was absorbed into it, with some chiefs being granted titles by the crown in the peerage of Scotland, and later in the peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. And of England and Ireland as well.

Whatever prestige the chiefs now have is more a matter of custom, rather than political power arising out of the law, compared to ancient times, other than a few odds and ends left over in the Scottish legal system and mostly regulated by the Lyon Court.