Mormaer of Atholl
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The Mormaer of Mormaerdom of Atholl refers to a medieval comital Gaelic lordship straddling the highland and lowland district of Atholl, later in northern Perthshire.
Atholl is a special Mormaerdom, because a King of Atholl is reported from the Pictish period. The only other two Pictish kingdoms to be known from contemporary sources are Fortriu and Circinn. Indeed, the early thirteenth century document known to modern scholars as the de Situ Albanie repeats the claim that Atholl was an ancient Pictish kingdom. Atholl in fact may have been the kingdom of the Southern Picts, if Fortriu really was in the north. In the eleventh century, the famous Crínán of Dunkeld was certainly a Mormaer. Royal connections continued with Máel Muire, who was the son of King Donnchad I, and the younger brother of Máel Coluim III Cenn Mór. Matad was perhaps the most famous of the Mormaers, fathering Harald Maddadsson, a notorious rebel of the Scottish King and perhaps the first Gael to rule Orkney as Earl of Orkney. The line of Máel Muire and Crínán came to an end when Forbhlaith, the daughter of Mormaer Henry married David de Hastings. The latter marriage produced a daughter, Ada, who married into the Strathbogie family, a semi-Normanized Gaelic family with Fife origins. The Strathbogies ruled until the Wars of Independence, when the Campells took over. It finally passed to the Stewarts.
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[edit] Bibliography
- Anderson, Alan Orr, Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500-1286, 2 Vols, (Edinburgh, 1922
- Roberts, John L., Lost Kingdoms: Celtic Scotland in the Middle Ages, (Edinburgh, 1997)
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