In investigating the early social state of the Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain, we possess an advantage which does not attach to that of Ireland. For the Pagan period in the latter country we have no information except what is derived from native tradition; but in Britain we possess in addition a few incidental notices by contemporary writers of other countries, both as regards the native population of the Roman province and the Barbarian nations beyond its limits. These notices, few and general as they are, yet indicate the presence of a social organisation very similar to that of Ireland.

When we are told by one Greek writer ‘that its aboriginal tribes inhabit Britain, in their usages still preserving the primitive modes of life, and that they have many kings and princes;’^[241] by another, ‘that there are several states amongst them. Forests are their cities; for having enclosed an ample space with felled trees, here they make themselves huts and lodge their cattle;’^[242] when Cæsar tells us of the inhabitants of the interior, whom he calls indigenous, that ‘they did not resort to the cultivation of the soil for food, but were dependent upon their cattle and the flesh of animals slain in hunting for their food;’^[243] when Solinus reports of the inhabitants of the five Western Isles forming the southern group, that ‘they knew nothing of the cultivation of the ground, but lived upon fish and milk,’ which latter implies the possession of herds of cattle, ‘and that they had one king, who was not allowed to possess property;’^[244] when Tacitus speaks ‘of the numerous states beyond the Firth of Forth,’ and describes the great Caledonian army which Agricola encountered at the Mons Granpius as a federation of all the states of the northern population; and when we are told of the two great divisions of them in the third century—the Caledonians and the Mæatæ—‘that they inhabit mountains wild and waterless, and plains desert and marshy; that they live by pasturage and the chase, and that their state is chiefly democratical;’^[245]—we can see that they consisted of an aggregation of tribes occupying the land in common, and whose chief possessions consisted of cattle. When these writers add that they had their wives in common, they indicate at least that looser relation between the sexes which usually prevailed before the introduction of Christianity had invested a stricter rule of marriage with its sanction, and which led to a connection through females as being regarded with more favour than that through males.

When we come down, however, to Christian times, we find the existence of the Tuath both as the tribe and as the tribe territory fully recognised as characterising the social organisation of the population of Gaelic race. The ancient tract, termed the Amra Choluim Chilli, of Dallan Forgaill, preserved in the Liabhar na h-Uidre, contains repeated references to the Tuaths both in the sense of tribes and of their territories, and as regards the Pictish nation as well as the Dalriadic colony. Thus we are told that Saint Columba ‘illuminated countries and territories’ (Tir agus Tuatha), and that from him ‘the Tuaths used to be disciplined.’ Again, when it is said, ‘Through an idolatrous Tuath he meditated criminality,’ which is explained to mean, ‘when going through the Tuath or territories of the idols he would know their criminality towards God,’ it can only refer to the pagan nation of the Picts; and when we are told that ‘he sought seven Tuaths, viz., the five Tuaths of Erin, and two Tuaths in Alban,’ the latter must be identified with the territory given him by the Picts, who, according to Bede, inhabited the districts adjacent to Iona. In another passage, when St. Columba is referred to as ‘the son of Fedelimid for whom used to fight or whom used to serve the twenty Tuaths,’ the word is probably used in the sense of tribes, and it is still more plainly used in this sense, as existing among the southern Picts, when he is described as ‘the teacher who used to teach the tribes who were around Tai, that is, the name of a river in Alban,’ which can obviously be identified with the river Tay. In another passage they are referred to as the people of the Tay (Lucht Toi); and the Tuaths or tribes are indicated as existing both among the Dalriads and the Picts, when he is called ‘the champion who bound new things for the alliance of Conall, that is, the champion of the new things is not here for alliance, that is, for confirming the alliance of Conall, that is, between the Tuaths of Conall within, or at making their alliance with other Tuaths externally.’^[246] Conall was the king of Dalriada at the time when St. Columba came over from Ireland to Scotland, and the other Tuaths or tribes which were external to his kingdom can only refer to the neighbouring tribes of the Picts. The undoubted antiquity of this tract gives great value to these incidental references to the existence of the Tuath or tribe, not only among the Scots of Dalriada, where we might expect to meet them, but also among the two great races of the northern and southern Picts, and this is confirmed by other authorities of a later date. Thus, in the tract called ‘The Genealogy of Corca Laidhe,’ referred to in a previous chapter, we read that ‘Irial Glumnar, son of Conall Cearnach, had two sons, viz., Forc and Iboth. Rechtgidh Righdearg led them into Alban. They gained great battles, so that great districts were laid waste in Alban, until the men of Alban submitted to Rechtgidh Righdearg, so that he was king of Erin and Alban; and it was from them sprang the two Tuaths or tribes, Tuath Forc and Tuath Iboth in Alban.’^[247] Rechtgidh Righdearg was one of the mythic pagan kings of Ireland, and Irial Glumnar a traditionary hero of the Cruithnigh, or Picts of Ulster; but it is a fair inference from it that two Tuaths or tribes bearing the names of Forc and Iboth were known in Scotland, and the name Forc, which is the old form of that of the river Forth, indicates their situation on the northern shore of that river or estuary, that is, among the southern Picts. That a social organisation similar to the Irish tribal system prevailed among the southern Picts, to whom St. Columba’s mission was mainly directed, is confirmed by the Gaelic entries in the Book of Deer, which open with the statement that ‘Columba and Drostan, son of Cosgrach, his pupil, came from Hi, as God had shown them, unto Abbordoboir or Aberdour, and Bede the Cruthnech or Pict, who was Mormaer of Buchan, gave them that town in freedom for ever from Mormaer and Toisech;’ thus exactly corresponding to the grant of land to the church of Kells, quoted in a former chapter as free from rent, tribute, hosting, coigny, or any other claim of king or Toisech. Where there are Toisechs there are Tuaths, and the district of Buchan probably formed a Mortuath like the other districts ruled over by a Mormaer, the equivalent in Scotland of the Ri Mortuath of the Irish system.

The Scottish kingdom of Dalriada was at this time confined within very narrow limits, and could hardly claim a higher position than that of a Mortuath, as we find that it consisted of three tribes, termed, in the tract ‘Of the History of the Men of Alban,’ the three powerfuls in Dalriada. These were the Cinel Gabran, the Cinel Angus, and the Cinel Loarn, who traced their descent from the three sons of Eochaidh—Fergus, Angus, and Loarn—who led the colony from Irish Dalriada. We obtain from this tract some valuable information as to the constitution of these tribes. The Cinel Gabran occupied Kintyre in its old extent, including Knapdale, the district of Cowall, and the islands, that is, of Arran and Bute, and consisted of five hundred and sixty houses. The Cinel Angusa possessed Isla and Jura, and consisted of four hundred and thirty houses. The Cinel Loarn possessed the extensive district of Lorn, extending from Lochleven to the Point of Ashnish, and part of the opposite coast of Morvern, and consisted of four hundred and twenty houses. The districts thus occupied by these tribes surrounded an inner region, extending from the range of mountains called Drumalban to the arms of the sea termed Lochs Craignish and Crinan, consisting of the two districts of Lochaw and Ardskeodnish. This inner region seems to have been left to the older inhabitants of the country, and to have borne the name of Airgialla, possibly for the same reason that that name was applied to the extensive region in the heart of Ulster, wrested by the Scots under the three Collas from the Irish Picts.^[248] The houses of which these three tribes consisted seemed to have formed groups of twenty houses each, as we are told that their sea muster assigned twice seven benches or seats for rowers to each twenty houses, but the armed muster for the Sluaged or hosting was, for the Cinel Gabran three hundred men, for the Cinel Angusa five hundred men, and for the Cinel Loarn seven hundred men, but one hundred of these were furnished by the people of Airgialla.^[249]

The only other districts of modern Scotland in which a Gaelic population remained are those of the Lennox and of Galloway, and in the latter we can trace the remains of the same tribal system. Thus in the year 1276 we find King Alexander the Third confirming a charter by which Neil, Earl of Carrick, granted and confirmed to Roland of Carrick and his heirs the right of being head of their kin in all pleas relating to kenkenoll and the office of bailie, and the leadership of the men of the country under the earl. This shows that the Cinel or tribe, with its head or Ceannchinel, had formerly existed among the Gaelic population of Galloway; and the same thing is indicated by some notices of lost charters preserved in the ancient Index published in 1798. Thus there is a charter by David II. to Donald Edzear of the captainship of Clanmacgowin, and a charter ‘anent the Clan of Muintircasduff,^[250] John M‘Kennedy captain thereof;’ this term of Captain being the equivalent of the Toisech of the Irish and Scottish Gael,^[251] and the word Muintir, or people, being one of the appellations of a tribe.

These indications of the existence of a tribal organisation analogous to that in Ireland among the Celtic population during the period when, with the exception of Saxon Lothian, both king and people were Celtic, comprise in the main the information we are able to gain from the most trustworthy sources available to us; but after the purely Celtic dynasty of kings of Scottish race came to an end in the eleventh century in the person of Malcolm the Second, this tribal system became exposed to powerful external influences, which greatly modified its character, and finally resulted in its disappearance in the eastern districts under feudal forms, and its passing over in the mountainous regions of the north and west into the clanship which was afterwards found there.

Soon after the death of Malcolm the Second the northern districts of Scotland fell under the dominion of the Norwegian Earl of Orkney, while the Celtic Mormaer of Moray reigned in a kingdom the centre of which was at Scone; but when the usurper was expelled by the heir through a female of the ancient line, and Malcolm Ceannmor was established on the throne by the powerful aid of the Angles of Northumberland under their Earl Siward, and the northern districts reverted to his sway on the death of the Norwegian Earl, Saxon influences became predominant; and the new dynasty, still more closely connected with the Saxons through the marriage of its founder with the Saxon Princess Margaret, found its support mainly in the Anglic population of Lothian, which now became the most important province of the extended monarchy. His son Eadgar reigned in reality as a Saxon monarch, and when on his death the kingdom was divided between his brothers Alexander and David, the former consolidated his kingdom north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde upon the basis of Saxon institutions, while the latter ruled over the districts of British Strathclyde and Anglic Lothian as a feudal lord, with Norman sympathies and supported by a powerful following of Norman nobles. During the reigns of Eadgar and Alexander there was a silent advance of Saxon colonisation, and a progressive assimilation of the people to Saxon customs, which led to a Saxon nomenclature being imposed upon their Celtic institutions which found analogous forms in the Saxon laws; and thus in the kingdom of Alexander the First we find the Celtic Mormaer appearing as Comes or Earl, while the name of Thanus or thane was applied to the Toisech,^[252] and the tribe territory is now termed Thanagium or Thanage. In the British district of Strathclyde the Celtic forms disappeared before the advancing feudalism of David; and when upon the death of his brother he became the first feudal king of all Scotland and its first lawgiver, the constitution of his kingdom was based upon the feudal system; and as its leading principle was that the king was feudal superior of all the territory, and all rights to land emanated from him, all land not given out as feudal holdings was held to be Crown land, and the tribe territories not placed under feudal lords, and now termed Thanages, were regarded as royal demesnes.^[253]

When Fordun, therefore, in the forty-third chapter of his fourth book, tells us that ‘of old almost the whole kingdom was divided into Thanages,’ he was not referring to that fabulous state of matters described in a previous chapter, when Thanes were supposed to be governors of provinces, with an Abthane over them as high steward—a state of matters which never existed in Scotland; but, as is evident from the context, to those smaller territories termed Thanages in his own day, and, viewing these Thanages as representing the more ancient Tuaths or tribe territories, he is reporting a genuine tradition of the tribal organisation which preceded the Saxon and feudal forms.