When we first started researching the evidence relating to our name, we came across many anomalies surrounding it. Some, simply through weak research, some through what seems to be personal agenda to deliberately confuse and some for obvious commercial reasons. We are of course all aware that after the Grand Ball in 1922 attended by George IV in Edinburgh, there was an explosion for all things Scottish to include clans and families wishing to have their own named tartans. As tartans became synonymous with our country this has continued to this day as more and more surnames have chosen to have their own visual identity and have a named tartan registered on the Scottish Register of Tartans, a government agency, based in Edinburgh.
Of course, this whole thing was perpetrated by the great interest and passion for where kilts were first used Scotland and its heritage by Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert. This in turn opened many commercial opportunities and ‘Scottishness’ became very much in vogue. However, there was not the understanding of the regional/societal differences between the borders, lowlands and highlands, that exist today. However, much of the concepts of Scottish society, most certainly taken up by the diaspora, have been embraced as being part of Scottish culture as a whole e.g. family tartan, kilts, trews etc where we will see kilts worn throughout the land irrelevant of any links to highland Scots.
With this in mind, because Victorian clan writers often applied Highland terminology to all Scottish families, “sept” was/is frequently used today in the description of all Scottish clans and families, however “grayne” is the more historically authentic Border term and is important to recognise is that Grayne does not, nor can it be used, in a similar vein to Sept to describe the whole name i.e. Carruthers, Elliot, Scott etc.
NB Not all Scottish surnames would be recognised by the Lord Lyon as being able to have a chief, as such not all Scottish surnames are from a Clan/Family with that historical right.
Carruthers were, for many years wrongly recognised as a sept of the lowland family Bruce, in fact we are that popular that even the Douglas’s have tried to claim us as a sept. Both are wrong as Carruthers has always had its own Chiefly line as a Border riding surname and is neither a sept nor in fact a grayne of any other surname.
Scottish Surnames
However, we should always remember the term sept, as has been said many times before, is of highland construct and was never used by lowland or border families until commercial enterprise came to the fore. The bigger the membership of a clan the wider the paying audience for commercial goods of that name. We cannot discuss a subsection of a name until we discuss when the name was first used with commonality.
The terms sept and grayne are often considered one and the same but this is this totally accurate? What we do know is their beginnings came from two different language roots and two distinct societies from different parts of Scotland and their use may be older than the surnames themselves.
So, when did surnames become common place in the regions of the Highlands, Lowlands and Borders. Well according to the information I have, surnames did not appear everywhere in Scotland at the same time. There is a clear chronological gradient dependent on the influence of both the Norman landowners and the Crown itself. As such they were used first in the Lowlands then the Borders close behind and the Highlands much later. Even then, “appearance” and “universal hereditary use” are two different things and of course the use of surnames in Scotland was different in timescale from their English neighbours although dates are not absolute.
Scottish Lowlands
Surnames were adopted in the 11th – 12 century due to their proximity to the Scottish Court and Norman, Anglo-French, and feudal influence, hereditary surnames began appearing among nobles and landholders during the reigns of David I and his successors. Firstly amongst such families as Bruce, Stewart, Lindsay and Hay, all of which had French ancestry. This was followed by the use of other native Scottish landowners such as Carruthers, as such by the 1200s most noble and lairdly families possessed fixed surnames. By the 14th-15th centuries, Burgh records and tax rolls show hereditary surnames becoming increasingly common among merchants, craftsmen, and farmers. As such, by about 1450–1500 most Lowlanders had hereditary surnames.
Scottish Borders
The Borders followed a similar pattern but in some cases, often slightly earlier because of close contact with northern England, where surnames had already become common. However, we were close behind the Lowlands and by the 12th – 13th Centuries, the chiefly line of families such as Carruthers, Johnstone, Scott, Graham and Armstrong were already using them, accepting many Border names were territorial rather than patronymic. This trend was followed by the workers, tenants and dependents where as surname societies formed around the riding surnames, retainers and tenants increasingly adopted the dominant local name in and around the 14th to 16th centuries, taking into account the Reivers were active during the late 13th century to the late 17th century, with their most notorious period occurring during the Anglo-Scottish Border Wars, particularly from about 1296 to 1630. Thus, by the time of the riding families coming to the fore, the surname group had become more important than exact descent and not everyone bearing the surname necessarily shared a single male-line ancestor. By the 1500’shereditary surnames were nearly universal in the Borders.
The Scottish Highlands
The Highlands are much more complicated, where they had known Chiefs and leading families from approximately the 13th – 15th centuries as such Clan chiefs possessed hereditary anglicised surnames relatively early. Examples of these being, MacDonald, Campbell, Mackenzie and MacLeod, however these names were often used alongside Gaelic patronymics which had been used for many years before then. But what of the common people, until well into the 17th and even 18th centuries many Highlanders identified themselves by patronymics (“Donald son of John son of Angus”), townships in which they lived or worked or even nicknames e.g. A man might be known locally as Alasdair mac Iain mhic Dhòmhnaill while official record keepers might record him simply as “Alexander MacDonald.”
It wasn’t until the 18th – 19th centuries and after the Statutes of Iona (see below) in 1609, increased government administrative pressure, that parish and military records, especially post Culloden, showed a standardisation of Highland surnames, although some retained quite fluid naming practices into the early 1900’s.
Statutes of Iona: The Statutes of Iona, enacted in 1609, were laws aimed at controlling the Highland clans of Scotland by requiring clan chiefs to send their heirs to Lowland schools for English education and establishing Protestant ministers in Highland parishes. These statutes marked a significant effort to suppress Gaelic culture and impose Lowland values on the Highlands
By the sixteenth century Border surname societies had already existed for generations, whereas in parts of the Highlands some ordinary people still primarily thought in terms of patronymic chains rather than surnames. Ironically, therefore, the Border surname system was in some respects more rigid and more “modern” than the Highland system.
For Carruthers, the surname was already established by at least the thirteenth century. By the sixteenth century, however, the “Name of Carruthers” almost certainly included descendants, tenants, followers, and dependents who had adopted the surname over time. This is one reason why defining a Border grayne as a purely blood-derived entity becomes increasingly problematic. It may have begun that way, but centuries of social expansion inevitably blurred the genealogical boundaries. As such Carruthers cannot and should not be nor be allowed to be seen as a two-tier ancestral system.
Sept and Grayne
To separate the terms and offer a description highlighting the differences, if any we offer this information, which we hope either offers some insight, or in fact proves the similarities in social groups. But as always further research is required. The clan system and most certainly the societal reiver family system were actually not that dissimilar in structure, so is it the names of those subgroups that are different or is there more to it.
Firstly, Highland and Island clan names were on the norm patronymic i.e. off one male source, while most Border riding surnames, but not all, were topographical in nature i.e off a place. The use of surnames n Scotland was influenced by the Norman knights who invited to come to Scotland and given land by David 1st (1113 to 1124) and through them the feudal system was introduced. But let’s see if other than root language we can define the difference between a border grayne and a Highland sept. So, what is the accepted definition of both.
- Grayne: a branch, offshoot, or rather part of a whole, which reflects its function as a cadet line or associated family group.
The term Grayne is primarily and an accurate Border Reiver term used in the Anglo-Scottish Borders and is taken from the Middle English/Scots language. It meant a branch or subdivision i.e. of a riding surname, descended from a common ancestor and generally occupied a particular district and might even have its own headsman. However, membership of the family was originally based on a blood relationship within the wider surname group: i.e. Carruthers – Carruthers of Holmains, of Isle, of Dormont etc, Scott – Scotts of Syndon, of Harden, etc, Johnston- Johnstones of Elphinstone, of Caskieben etc.
Therefore, in the context of the Border Reivers, a grayne (also spelled grane, greyn, or grayne) was a subdivision or branch of a larger riding surname (family/clan). Rather than referring to the entire clan, it described a smaller kin group within it. Each grayne usually had its own heidsman (headsman) and occupied a particular district usually linked within the main group. These groups acted, in some respect like the septs of Highland clans, although Border affiliations could sometimes be far more flexible depending on the politics of the day.
The statement that a grayne was purely a bloodline subdivision is somewhat idealised. In practice, the Borders were more complicated as the concept of a single bloodline, progressively became inaccurate as time went on as surnames taken by the chiefly family were being used more commonly by the workers and tenants on the lands they worked on.
- Sept: an affiliated family or branch within a Highland or Irish clan system, not always sharing the same bloodline.
A sept is primarily a Highland term with the word taken from the Goidelic / Gaelic language – seipt. Although patronymic, in this instance the word could mean a branch of a clan or in fact a separate family that had attached itself to a larger clan for protection or allegiance. It may or may not have had separate leadership; however, allegiance to the chief of the parent clan was the key feature. Therefore, unlike a Grayne, membership could be based on kinship, adoption of another name group, tenancy, or political association, i.e. the MacPhees as a sept of Clan Cameron, or families associated with Clan Donald. Accepting the absorption of other families, most affiliates ie septs retained their original names with a common fealty shown directly to the clan Chief
To summarise
- Grayne is a Border term (Middle English/Scots – branch).
- Sept is a Gaelic term (from Irish seipt, ultimately from Latin septum or influenced by “sect”).
They arose in different societies, but both describe subdivisions within a larger kin group. theoretically, some of the older historians would distinguish each individually as:
| Grayne – Middle English/Scots | Sept – Irish/Scots Gaelic |
|---|---|
| Branch of a Border surname | Branch or allied family of a Highland clan |
| Supposedly blood-based | May or may not share blood |
| Border society | Highland/Gaelic society |
However, by the 1500s–1600s, neither system was purely genealogical as they incorporated tenants, dependents, cadet branches, illegitimate descendants, and occasionally unrelated followers. As such, in both cases, membership depended as much on acceptance, allegiance, and residence as on ancestry. Consequently, the social function of a Grayne and a Sept, other than language root, became remarkably similar.
The distinction is therefore contextual rather than structural with the Border system simplistically being:
- Riding Surname e.g. Carruthers → Graynes: Carruthers of Mouswald, Carruthers of Holmains, Carruthers of Dormont etc
This compares to the Highland system of Septs, although claimed by Campbell, Clan Arthur/MacArthur has its own chief as sees itself as a distinct and separtate clan:
- Clan e.g. Campbell → Septs: the individual surnames claimed include Arthur, MacArtair, MacArthus, MacCarter and many more
Therefore, simplistically if we strip away geography, language, and terminology, both are subordinate kin groups attached to a larger surname or clan identity. So why the confusion, accepting ‘Scottishness’ commercially used Highland terms in the early 1800’s and to this day, there was still a definite trend to maintain and romanticise the Reiver traditions in their own right, mainly led by Sir Walter Scott. This is further supported by Border records, which clearly use the terms: house, branch and grayne to describe a subgroup of Border riding surnames.
In conclusion, accepting Border and Highland social structures were in some ways not dissimilar, and over time any serious specifics have faded away, a Grayne is essentially the Border equivalent of a Sept. The differences are primarily linguistic and regional, not functional, with considerably more overlap than difference, but for accuracy they should be used as collectives within their particular regions i.e. Grayne – Border, Sept – Highland.
With regards Carruthers, indeed for a territorial/topographical surname where not every bearer necessarily descended through one unbroken male line, insisting that Graynes were exclusively blood-based becomes difficult to sustain historically and as with Highland clans, social reality will blur strict genealogy. What is interesting and what has come out of the Reiver social structure is that the concept of “name and allegiance” was far more important to the family than on modern genetic purity. A man who “bares the name” and was accepted by the group might effectively belong to that grayne regardless of whether every link in his ancestry was biological.
This was recorded by Sir Walter Scott who observed that among the Borders, men often acted collectively “under one surname,” regardless of precise descent. The surname functioned as a political and military association as much as a genealogical one as such membership could include individuals and families whose connection was social, territorial, or dependent, rather than strictly patronymic.
For Carruthers specifically, the original Carruthers family of Annandale formed the nucleus, but not every later Carruthers necessarily shared the same uninterrupted male-line ancestry. In that respect, Border surname groups were somewhat closer to Highland clans than older writers sometimes acknowledged.
We are of course all of the name, and only a Chief, in a similar fashion to Highland clans, could in the past decide who was and who wasn’t. Our current Chief and in modern times, is far more receptive and welcoming to all of our name and derivatives of the same as, and this carries to the soul of his Council, it is the heart and loyalty of the man/women to the name that remains at the very centre of our ethos and therefore in this modern mixed up world, defines what being a Carruthers means.
Promptus et Fidelis - Ready and Faithful
Non Sto Solus - I do not walk alone
