Clan or Family?

Arms of the Chief

From the proliferation of Scottish clan societies in the last few years, it often seems as though every Scottish family name is trying to represent itself to the world as a highland clan. Possibly as a reaction to this phenomenon, some pundits have insisted that lowland Scottish names should always be called "families" and that only "true" clans originating in the Gaelic highlands should be referred to as clans. No highland clans have really functioned as such since the battle of Culloden in 1746 and lowland clans ceased to do so many years before that. In the case of the Johnstones of Annandale, it is necessary to look back to the sixteenth century for clarification.

The Johnstones did not live in the Gaelic highlands or Hebrides. In language and culture they were historically much closer to the Scots of the central lowlands than to those of the highlands or isles. They did not wear tartan or highland dress and were not led into battle to the strains of the highland bagpipe. However, prior to the first decade of the seventeenth century, the Johnstones did function as a tribal organization. McDowall (p. 283) writes: "By the middle of the fourteenth century an immense number of families bearing the Johnstone name were to be found in Annandale, all counting kinship with the Lord of 'Lochwood's lofty towers': their relation towards him being in every respect more like that borne by Highland clansmen to their chief than the feudal vassalage of Norman origin that generally prevailed throughout the Lowlands." In the words of W.R. Kermack (pp. 63-5): 

	

	The communities whom the Scots Wardens	controlled were 
	sometimes called by contemporaries "names" or "surnames,"	
	from the circumstance that most members	of each community 
	generally used a common	surname. Sometimes they were 
        referred to as "clans," as were similar groups in the 
        Highlands.

	             *     *     *     *     *	

	Border clans naturally differed quite widely from Highland 
        clans, who after all had an active existence that lasted a 
        century and a half longer than that of the border clans, 
        giving that much extra time for development. A main point 
        of difference was the possession by the Highland clans of a 
        Gaelic speach and culture of their own until 1745, which the 
        clans of Galloway and Carrick did for a shorter time possess, 
        but not those of the actual Borders. The Highlanders were 
        also geographically much more isolated from the general course 
        of Scottish history than the Marchmen were. Both Border and 
        Highland clans, however, had the essential feature of 
 	chiefship, and had territories in which a majority of the 
        clansmen lived.

Border clans did practice some Gaelic customs, such as tutorship when an heir who was a minor succeeded to the chiefship, and giving bonds of manrent. Although feudalism existed, tribal loyalty was much more important, and this is what distinguished the Borderers from other lowland Scots. In fact, the same is also true of the English Borderers.

The Johnstones were certainly referred to as a clan in contemporary documents. In 1587 the Parliament of Scotland passed a statute "FOR the quieting and keping in obiedince of the disorderit subiectis inhabitantis of the bordors hielands and Ilis." Attached to the statute was a Roll of the Clans, and contained both a borders portion and a highland portion. Below is a copy of the borders part of the Roll, showing the Johnstones as a clan with a chief in the West March.

Roll of the Clans

References

  1. Border Ideas of Clan and Kin
  2. Fraser, George MacDonald. The Steel Bonnets. London: Pan Books, 1974.
  3. Fraser, Sir William. The Annandale Family Book of the Johnstones, Earls and Marquises of Annandale. 2 vols. Edinburgh, n.p., 1894.
  4. ___________________. The Book of Carlaverock. 2 vols. Edinburgh, n.p., 1873.
  5. Great Britain. III Acts of the Parliaments ofScotland 461, 466-7 (1587)
  6. Great Britain. Historical Manuscripts Commission. The Manuscripts of J.J. Hope Johnstone of Annandale. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1897.
  7. Johnstone, C.L. History of the Johnstones. Edinburgh: W.& A.K. Johnston,[1909].
  8. Kermack, W.R. The Scottish Borders (with Galloway) to 1603. Edinburgh: Johnston & Bacon, 1967.
  9. McDowall. History of the Burgh of Dumfries (4th rev. ed.). Dumfries: T.C. Farries & Co. Limited, [1986].
Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Jeffrey M. Johnstone
All rights reserved

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This page was last updated on January 22, 1999.
Jeffrey M. Johnstone, FSA Scot jeff@eznet.net