The internet is an interesting place for debate. Usually part of our job is to correct inaccurate information on our family found upon it, but sometimes the conversations allow us to step back an take a good look at ourselves.
Here in Scotland, in the area of our ancestral homelands many see Carruthers as a noble family of reiver stock. While elsewhere the term clan is used by others to describe any name with a chief. Yet others offer a clear distinction that the term Clan is purely highland and the term family is lowland and border. In fact in our youth, many of us wore the tartan of ‘clan’ Bruce with pride, when we believed we were a sept. But, prior to setting out on the path to find the senior of our line to petition the Lyon to be chief, a conversation took place at Broomhall House in Fife with our Convenor. The conversation was with Charles Lord Bruce, son and heir of the Earl of Elgin, chief of that Bruce. The plan to locate a chief was put to Lord Bruce, as for around 100 years we had been linked as a sept to Bruce, albeit incorrectly and he kindly offered his enthusiastic and overwhelming support. However, during the conversation he made it very clear that Bruce itself was a lowland family and most certainly not a Clan.
Now is that the same for all lowland or border names in Scotland, well it seems not, as some see themselves as clans ie Agnew, Elliot, Scott, Cunningham, and Hamilton to name but a few, so are the terms a choice ie clan or family or simply interchangeable.
We also have to understand the history of Scotland and the divides that existed, partly due to language, partly due to ethnicity and culture but all unequivocally intertwined and many due to the politics of the day.
So where did this all come from?
According to our research the name family and clan were used interchangeably most certainly up to the 16th century and beyond. It wasn’t until the Victorian era during the time Scottishness came into vogue that a clear demarcation between Clan (highland) and Family (lowland and borders) was set in place. The highlanders had been previously painted as being uncivilised and uncouth, while the opposite view was held, mainly of themselves as lowlanders. They saw themselves as being part of the more civilised and structured society of the day. This view was perpetuated in a large part for political reasons as many highland names were a throrn in the side of the Scottish crown as of course were reivers. However, horrific events took place in all regions of Scotland to include the lowlands and the Edinburgh tollbooth and witch trials spring instantly to mind. Therefore the concept of civilisation was in some cases far less stable than was believed which is reflected in the squalour that many lived in and again Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital was a typical example. Outside the central lowland belt of Scotland, although family ties remained important, honour and family was seen as paramount through a more stable and structurailiy sound kinship group, which was necessary in part for survival.
Therefore, what about the Borders and more so the Middle and Western marches? Border kinship groups structurally and socially closely mirrored the highland ‘clan’ and as such as a family group their integration and support mechanism were as strong as those of the North.
As such these kinship groups, with their own hierarchal and social structure showed great similarities irrelivent of collective noun, with those of highland ‘clans’. It is felt that this was because of the environment of the day in which they both existed.
Allegiance to a name brought protection in those very violent times, where the importance of kith and kin took on a whole new meaning. As such family loyalty existed through out Scotland to varying degrees. In many cases, at least in the highlands, Islands and borders, family came before crown or country in dealing with disputes.
By the late 1500’s the country was roughly divided between the Gaelic speaking highlanders and the Scots speaking lowlanders and border regions. However, accepting that Reivers existed as a culture in the borders from the mid 1200’s through to the late 1600’s, the lowlands seemed to function as a totally separate entity to both the highlands and the borders.
As said, life for a highlander and the kinship structural group they belonged to was really not that different to the reiver riding names in the south.
The lowlanders lifestyle and economic strategies remained very much at variance with both groups, which in itself caused political and physical clashes between culture’s.
To further amplify the difference, the introduction of stable and static arable agriculture in the lowlands which competed where viable with the transhumance of the highland and border lifestyles of the borderers and highlanders. This was a paradigm shift, much resisted, and in fact in many cases not feasible due to some of the landscape in which folks live, more suitable to cattle and sheep than grains.(Transhumance is a a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures).
The differences that existed between all three cultures along with the jealousy and disdain they felt for each other, only really changed through the romanticisation of both highland and reiver lifestyles. This in turn has encompassed, mainly through commercialisation, all Scottish names to be considered as clans. The assumption by some it seems is that the term clan is more easily linked to Scotland and enhances the Scottishness of the name. At this juncture it is important to emphisise that not all Scottish surnames could or should be classed as recognised clans or families. Those that can be, will either have a line of historical chiefs which would allow them to have one in place or have one in situe. It is the Lord Lyon, through confirmation of the right to bear the chiefly arms by virtue of proofs, that names a Chief of the Name and Arms of a particular Scottish clan or family.
So what does the evidence say?
As Scots, there is great sympathy with the fact that Carruthers are an ancient and proud reiver ‘family’ of the Scottish West March and not a clan. This is supported in the entry of Carruthers, in the 3rd edition of the Scottish Clan and Family Encyclopedia by Way and Squire (2017, 1st pub 1994) and in the History of Dumfries by McDowell (1986) and Dumfriesshire ‘a Frontier Region’ by McCulloch (2018). However going back further, in the Historical Families of Dumfriesshire and the Border Wars by Johnstone, (1889) Carruthers is throughout listed as an Annandale family. As such in all these texts, the term family is used with regards our name, rather than clan.
However, outside of Scotland and in fact even to some Scots, Carruthers, along with many other border names would be seen as a clan in the generic sense of the word. One could argue that this is supported by the 1587 Act of the Scottish Parliament for the Suppression of Unruly Clans, which named 33 families from the Scottish Highlands and Islands and 17 from the Borders, of which Carruthers was one, however there is more to that act than meets the eye.
The concept of the interchangeable use of the collective terms clan and family is eloquently explained by Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw KC , a senior member of the Lyon Court in his piece on the subject covered here . And moving closer to home, in the family tome the ‘Records of the Carruthers Family’ by A. Stanley Carruthers and R. C. Reid (1934), the term ‘clan’ Carruthers is used to describe us within its text, as well as ‘family’. However many ‘commercial’ outlets in Scotland have a tendancy to use the term clan generically to cover all recognised Scottish names.
Interestingly and to add to the confusion, in ‘The Clans, Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands’ by Adam (1908, revised by Innis of Learney in 2004) the term tribe is also used, rather then clan or family to describe the concept of a Chief of a highland family group.
Clan, family or even tribe?
Fisrtly, we have never come across the term ‘tribe’ with regards a border family/clan. So one could therefore argue that to the Scots and most certainly for those in our ancestral home of Annandale and surrounding shires, we are a Border Riding Family, but many really don’t care. However the diaspora and in fact the Chief would recognise us as a clan as he feels it is all encompassing.
As a society, we therefore leave it up to the individual, although to add to the confusion some of us sympathise with the collective term of a ‘Border Family’ but we understand and fully accept the use of the term clan in todays world. As such the use of both collective terms seems more than appropriate if not totally historically or locally accurate.
Any the wiser, probably not, but either collective noun carries within it the same information of our origins, our history, our heritage and our culture and as such as we are sure you would have noticed that we now have chosen to use the heading on our blogs as Clan and Family of Carruthers for this very reason.
