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ABTHANE,
a title which occurs in Scottish history, and which appears peculiar to
Scotland, as no trace of it has been found in any other country. It is a
Thanedom or proprietorship of land held of the crown, and in the
possession of an abbot. Like a Thanedom also, it is the title of a Saxon
proprietor, that is, a proprietor under the Saxon laws, holding direct of
the crown, and is therefore exactly equivalent to that of a Norman baron.
Three Abthainries only have been as yet traced in Scotland, viz, those of
Dull, Kilmichael, and Madderty; the two former in Athol, the latter in
Strathearn. Mr. Skene, whose investigations supply the foregoing
information, seems to have established that all these three were created
between the years 1098 and 1124,—that is, between the accession of Edgar
to the throne and that of David I; that they were all held in
connection with the Culdee monks of Dunkeld; that they must have been in
possession of an abbot of that monastery; and that the party who then held
that dignity, and in whose favour they were created, was Ethelred,
youngest son of Malcolm III., who consequently had obtained them from one
of his brothers, Edgar or Alexander, the then reigning monarchs of
Scotland.
The fact
of the possession of these and other lands in Athol by the then reigning
family of Scotland, is one of the many circumstances adduced by this
gentleman to demonstrate the descent of Malcolm Ill., and after him a long
line of Scottish kings, from the ancient Maormors of Athol, one of the
many facts illustrative of early Scottish history for which we are
indebted to his careful investigations and ingenious inductions. See
ATHOL, EARLS OF. On the death of Ethelred, these lands again reverted to
the crown. In various charters so recent as the reign of David II. they
are described as the "abthanes of Dull" of "Kilmichael," &c. The second
family whose chief obtained the earldom of Lennox appears by an entry in
ass early history of the Drummonds to have been previously the hereditary
baillies of the abthainries of Doll, and on the promotion of its head to
that dignity, that baillierie passed to a younger branch or cadet of it
according to Celtic usage.— Skene on the Origin of the Highlanders,
vol. ii. pp. 129—137, 152, 153. |
