Provinces of Scotland

Provinces declined in importance during the late 12th and early 13th centuries as expanding royal power saw feudal landholding rather than local kinship established as the dominant basis of secular authority.

[1] Within this area the provinces directly subject to the kings of Alba by the 12th century were Fife, Strathearn, Atholl, Gowrie, Angus, the Mearns, Mar, and Buchan.

[4] Ross occupied an ambiguous and shifting status between the Gaelic-speakers to the south and the Norse inhabitants to the north until it was established as an earldom in the reign of Malcolm III,[5] remaining an area of fluctuating royal control until 1215.

[7] To the south of the Forth, in formerly Northumbrian or British areas controlled by the kings of Alba but still administered as separate territories, the Earldoms of Dunbar, The Lennox and Carrick were also sometimes referred to as provinces, but were much later creations of the late 12th century and were always explicitly feudal landholdings.

[8] The names of provinces begin to appear in contemporary records of events in the Kingdom of Alba from about 900; before this date sources instead refer to earlier Pictish territories such as Fortriu, Circin and Cé.

[24] Each province also had a specific location where stolen property and warrantors could be taken for hearings, and at least one toiseachdeor, whose job was to be the custodian of holy objects for the swearing of oaths.

[31] De Situ Albanie, a document written between 1202 and 1214, envisaged Scotland north of the Forth being made up entirely of provinces, mentioning no other contemporary land units, but in reality this structure was already beginning to fragment by this date.

[34] The 12th and early 13th centuries saw major changes to the role of the mormaer, increasingly called an earl as Scots replaced Gaelic as the dominant vernacular language.

[47] By the mid 13th century a uniform system of sherriffdoms covered the country,[48] supervised by a Justiciar of Scotia, unlike the brithem explicitly an agent of the king.