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Thane (/ ˈ θ eɪ n /; Scottish Gaelic: taidhn) [1] was the title given to a local royal official in medieval eastern Scotland, equivalent in rank to the son of an earl, [2] who was at the head of an administrative and socio-economic unit known as a thanedom or thanage.
Ivory seal of Godwin, an unknown thegn – first half of eleventh century, British Museum In later Anglo-Saxon England, a thegn (pronounced / θ eɪ n /; Old English: þeġn) or thane [1] (or thayn in Shakespearean English) was an aristocrat who owned substantial land in one or more counties.
The national literature of Scotland created in the late medieval period employed legend and history in the service of the crown and nationalism, helping to foster a sense of national identity, at least within its elite audience. The epic poetic history of the Brus and Wallace helped outline a narrative of united struggle against the English enemy.
Scotland in the High Middle Ages is a relatively well-studied topic and Scottish medievalists have produced a wide variety of publications. Some, such as David Dumville, Thomas Owen Clancy and Dauvit Broun, are primarily interested in the native cultures of the country, and often have linguistic training in the Celtic languages.
Crínán of Dunkeld, also called Crinan the Thane (c. 975–1045), was the hereditary abbot of the monastery of Dunkeld, and perhaps the Mormaer of Atholl. Crínán was progenitor of the House of Dunkeld, the dynasty which would rule the Kingdom of Scotland until the later 13th century. He was the son-in-law of one king, and the father of another.
Modern Scotland is half the size of England and Wales in area, but with its many inlets, islands and inland lochs, it has roughly the same amount of coastline at 4,000 miles. Only a fifth of Scotland is less than 60 metres above sea level. Its east Atlantic position means that it experiences heavy rainfall, especially in the west.
The bulk of written history dates from the seventh century onwards. The Irish annalists and contemporary scholars like Bede use "Picts" to describe the peoples under the Verturian hegemony. This encompassed most of Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus and to the exclusion of territory occupied by Dál Riata in the west.
Scattered evidence, including the records in Irish annals and the visual images like the warriors depicted on the Pictish stone slabs at Aberlemno, Forfarshire and Hilton of Cadboll, in Easter Ross, suggest that in Northern Britain, as in Anglo-Saxon England, the upper ranks of society formed a military aristocracy, whose status was largely dependent on their ability and willingness to fight. [1]