How was
the tribal system suppressed? An outline of the process by which
Scotland became a feudalized country will be found in the Appendix,
where we shall also have an opportunity of referring, for purposes of
comparison, to the methods by which clan-feeling was destroyed after the
last Jacobite insurrection. Here, it must suffice to give a brief
summary of the case there presented. It is important to bear in mind
that the tribes of 1066 were not the clans of 1746. The clan system in
the Highlands underwent considerable development between the days of
Malcolm Canmore and those of the Stuarts. Too much stress must not be
laid upon the unwillingness of the people to give up tribal ownership,
for it is clear from our early records that the rights of
joint-occupancy were confined to the immediate kin of the head of the
clan. "The limit of the immediate kindred", says Mr. E.W. Robertson,[11]
"extended to the third generation, all who were fourth in descent from a
Senior passing from amongst the joint-proprietary, and receiving,
apparently, a final allotment; which seems to have been separated
permanently from the remainder of the joint-property by certain
ceremonies usual on such occasions." To such holders of individual
property the charter offered by David I gave additional security of
tenure. We know from the documents entitled "Quoniam attachiamenta",
printed in the first volume of the _Acts of the Parliament of Scotland_,
that the tribal system included large numbers of bondmen, to whom the
change to feudalism meant little or nothing.
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