Clan or Family?
Clan or Family?
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.
