Aoidh (Ethelred) Heth (MacEth), EARL OF MORAY - Could Ethelred have been the husband of Lulach's daughter?

We've already covered that. Aethelred was Aethelred because he had an English mother. What we call Scots is just an old, backwoods dialect of English. Completely different from Scots Gaelic.

I hope I've been clear about this, but maybe not. The idea that Aed is a translation or shortening of Aethelred has never been on the table. In Scots (not Scots Gaelic) Aethelred can certainly be elided to Aelred, but that's irrelevant.

I'm talking about having different names in different cultures. One example I gave earlier was Hrolf and Rollo. The ancestor of the dukes of Normany was named Hrolf. The French renamed him Rollo. There is absolutely no etymological connection between the two names. Another example is the Gaelic name Saorbreathach. A good, traditional Gaelic name common among the McCarthys in Ireland. In English they substitute the name Justin. No etymological or phonetic connection. We could multiple the examples endlessly but the main point is that cross-cultural names do not always have an exact correspondence.

Cross posted. I see you get the point i was making so strenuously. There is no connection between the names Aed and Hugh except that it originated as a convention some time in the distant past.

And IMHO "Ethelred = Aed" is even more arbitrary, and a piece of totally circular reasoning to justify an identification that may have no validity.

Just to add to the linguistic confusion, Roger of Hoveden (fl. 1174–1201) , when writing about the king known as "Unraedig" (Margaret's great-grandfather") spelled it in such a way that it could be transliterated "Egelred". (He does so with other "Ethel-" names as well.) Was he using "yogh" instead of either "edh" or "thorn"? http://mentalfloss.com/article/31904/12-letters-didnt-make-alphabet

> totally circular reasoning

Except that it's not "reasoning" per se. It's an identification handed to us by a tradition we haven't been to trace. Very different research implications.

Since we *can* trace the "Macduff of Fife" tradition from John of Fordun to Andrew of Wyntoun to Holinshed to Willie S., what are *those* implications?

Having found a "Domhnall mac Meic-Dubbacín" in the annotations to the Book of Deer circa 11th century, I'm inclined to think that Fordun wasn't totally making stuff up - that there *was* somebody of that ilk in the mid-11th century, although who he was and what he did may have been very heavily embroidered. (I'm pretty sure Fordun made up the siege and slaughter at "MacDuff's Castle", though.)

I would like to see us use this type of analysis to pursue the problem here. What did Fordun actually say What did Wyntoun actually say? What other chroniclers and historians have weighed in, and can their accounts be traced entirely to Fordun and Wyntoun? Any remaining parts of the tradition would then presumably be traceable to other sources that would need to be identified.

THE ANCIENT EARLS OF FIFE

Fife (with Fothreve, the modern Kinross) was one of the seven provinces into which ancient Scotland was divided, and which were governed each by its _regulus_ or _mormaer_ in subjection to the Ard-Ri, the King of Scotland.

Douglas in his _Peerage_ begins the line of Earls of Fife with Macdduf, whom he styles Thane of Fife, but John of Fordun, who flourished in the latter half of the fourteenth century, was thefirst to create Macduff Thane and Earl of Fife, and his story has been embellished and handed on by Wyntoun, Boece, and Buchanan. The whole narrative, however, has been discredited by later historians, first by George Chalmers,(1-1) and more recently by Dr. Skene, while the writer of the article 'Macduff' in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ calls him 'a half or wholly mythical personage.' The early English chronicles, too, will be searched in vain for the name of Macduff in connection with the defeat of Macbeth and the placing of Malcolm Canmore on his throne. They are unanimous in giving the credit of that act to Siward, the great Earl of Northumberland, and uncle of Malcolm, at the instigation of King Edward the Confessor. And with this statement agrees the _Chronicle of Melrose_, under date 1054, which is the date given by all the English chronicles.(1-2)

Of the existence, then, of Macduff, Thane or Earl of Fife, there is not a particle of proof. In the Cartulary of the Priory of St. Andrews, where one might have expected to find him named, he nowhere appears. If it be objected that charters of Macduff's date could hardly be found in Scotland, there will be found in that Cartulary memoranda of grants of land by persons not only contemporary with, but of an earlier date than, that of the supposed Macduff.(2-2)

Scots Peerage, IV:
https://archive.org/stream/scotspeeragefoun04pauluoft#page/viii/mod...

I don't know how much time we want to spend on MacDuff, Thane of Fife. In the form known to Fordun down to Shakespeare, he's known to be bogus. Even the idea of a Thane of Fife is based on a misunderstanding.

Good morning, Justin. :-) Just getting up to speed. unless the existence of Shakespeare's Macduff is connected to a profile on the Geni tree, that might be a discussion we can choose to leave alone :-)

Maven and I have been busy. I'm off to bed in a few minutes. Wake me up when you're done reading ;)

:-)

Well, Sharon, it ties in HARD to the Ethelred question, because if it can be shown that there were persons by the name of MacDuff (or something similar) earlier than Gille Micheil (and preferably circa the reign of Malcolm III), then there is even more reason to doubt the "Ethelred = Fife" association.

And yes there are a couple of "MacDuff" profiles on Geni.

The Book of Deer cites a "Domnall mac Meic-Dub(b/h)acin" roughly contemporary with our little buddy Mael-Snechte, and in association with a "Cainnech mac Meic-Dobarcon" and a "Cathal" who shares donations with both of them (a third brother? churchman?) - so yes there *were* people around who could have been called "MacDuff".

Okay - yes, I should have said MacDuff, Mormaer of Fife.

The discrediting of the Ethelred =Fife association by pointing to a previously extant Macduff Mormaer of Fife, already assumes that the Ethelred=Fife argument is a partisan attempt to extend the Macduff line into the royals. This is not proof of anything then.

I think we're going to have to accept that while there are Geni managers who feel the Ethelred = Earl of Fife option is possible, and is bolstered by that doc; then we must accept that there is insufficient hard data to disprove the possibility, and they have a right to keep it that way.
Ergo - on Geni he must remain Earl of Fife.

I will post this to the end of that Discussion.

Back to the Lulach's daughter's husband relationship....

[PS - the existence or not of Shakespeare's MacDuff really interests me - so I'd happily participate in a separate discussion. Proving or disproving his existence doesn't really forward this discussion though, imo. Proving the partisan interests of the MacDuff clan histories doesn't dis/prove the relationship links. I'm taking for granted that the MacDuff histories are pervaded by vested interests as sources. That, in itself, doesn't make them automatically wrong.

PPS I think it's ludicrous to posit the non- existence of a Macbeth - like dark matter, removing him leaves a black hole in historical events that would require explanation by inserting something/one else. :-)]

> Sharon Doubell: The Moray men / the scribes didn't need to change Aethelred to Aed.

Justin Durand: No, they certainly didn't. But there is no assertion here that they did. The idea is that in a bi-lingual world it might have been very usual to have a different name in different languages. Aed when speaking Gaelic, Aethelred when speaking Scots -- for example.

>> Sharon Doubell: We need to check who was writing the docs Aed is mentioned in.
Are any of the other brothers' names ever transliterated in these docs?

> Just because the beginning of the one sounds like the beginning of the other is not proof that the men were the same person.

Justin Durand: Not proof that they were the same, but also not proof they weren't.

>>Sharon DoubellBut it's being used as proof.

> Sharon Doubell: the only documentation we seem to have - Roger of Hoveden & John of Fordun

Justin Durand: I would amend this to be "the earliest documentation easily available on the Internet." As I've said before, there are hundreds of little clan histories that were written or copied later but seem to draw on earlier sources. It's not a simple problem of dating. The tradition that makes Aed = Aethelred invariably has him as the disinherited eldest son and heir. That in itself should call for search for manuscript sources beyond Fordun and Hoveden.

>>Sharon Doubell: Let's use all documentation that there is, but I'm betting that if Cawley hasn't cited earlier docs, we're not going to find them. (I would be ecstatic if we did - It's likely to solve the problem.)

> Sharon Doubell:They're different men.

Justin Durand: Plausible if you're talking about a specific Aed in a Latin charter drawn at court. Speculative if you're talking about whether Aethelred himself was also called Aed.

>>Sharon Doubell: But definitive if the only reason for assuming Ethelred is called Aed or is married to Lulach's daughter is because of this Aed in a Latin charter.

> Private User:totally circular reasoning

Justin Durand: Except that it's not "reasoning" per se. It's an identification handed to us by a tradition we haven't been to trace. Very different research implications.

>>Sharon Doubell: No, once the reasoning of 'facts' put forward by legend can be shown to be circular, there is good reason to start to question their veracity.

If you ask me (not that you did), the remarkable unimportance of Ethelred of Dunkeld *does* suggest that he probably died young and without heirs

We also have the three(?) mac Meic-Dubhacan brothers (late 11th or early 12th century) to figure out. The "mac Meic" construction doesn't mean "son of" - it means "descendant of". So who was the ancestor they are named for?

> it's being used as proof.

I must have missed that. Used by whom?

> once the reasoning of 'facts' put forward by legend can be shown to be circular,

I think this misses the nature of the argument. If something is stated somewhere as a fact there is no reasoning involved. It's only when someone analyzing different statements and evidences draws a conclusion that there can be reasoning, whether circular or not.

As far as I know we aren't looking at a case where someone in the modern world went back, found a couple of charters, and said "Oh look, I'll bet Ethelred was also this other guy Aed."

We're looking at two categories of information. On one side there is a body of tradition that says one thing. On the other hand a body of evidence drawn from the usual kinds of historical sources.

The particular problem here is that there is almost no overlap. It's possible to sketch out a life of Ethelred from surviving sources but they don't include information about his (supposed) descendants.

> if it can be shown that there were persons by the name of MacDuff (or something similar) earlier than Gille Micheil (and preferably circa the reign of Malcolm III), then there is even more reason to doubt the "Ethelred = Fife" association.

I see the problem very differently. There were certainly people before Gillemichael who belonged to the MacDuff clan. There is some trickiness involved here because mac Dubh and mac meic Dubh would not have been surnames as we know them. The given name Dubh is common enough that there could be quite a few red herrings.

Nevertheless, I don't see any doubt that there was a "MacDuff" clan group before this time, probably headed by a line of men who used "Mac Meic Dubh" as something like a title meaning "Descendant of Dubh", this particular Dubh being the one who had been king of Albany. If this seems to be a difficult concept think of the chiefs of modern clans, many of whom have a Gaelic title in the same form. The chief of Clan Campbell, for example, is called Mac Cailean Mor (Son of the Great Colin). The sense here is that he is THE descendant (representative). In fact, modern practice in many clans preserves the use of the word "The" in the formal title of the chief -- "The Mackintosh", for example.

So, MacDuffs before Malcolm III and MacDuffs after Malcolm III. The essential problem is how Gillemichael is descended from the earlier family, because there is no doubt that he is. The problem here is that the earlier MacDuffs funnel into the royal family at this point, then emerge a few generations later with an oral tradition that they're descended from Ethelred.

IMHO the "Ethelred=Aed" equation is recent (19th century at the very earliest). It is *not* found in the "Book of MacKay" (1906), which doesn't concern itself with Aed of Moray past noting that he was (presumably) the husband of Lulach's daughter (and does not name her, nor Lulach's wife).

It's the "Book of McKee" (1959) that gives all the flourishes about names and associations. Claims that the information derives from Skene's "Celtic Scotland" are *false* - that work is concerned almost exclusively with the Celtic Scottish *church*, never mentions Aed or Lulach at all, and concerns itself with Ethelred only as lay Abbot of Dunkeld (the "also Earl of Fife" reference from the charter is glanced at, but no more than that).

Ethelred is named - and only that - in Skene's compilation of "Chronicles of the Picts and Scots; the first reference notes that he died without heirs.

Same in Skene's "Highlanders".

I think somebody was making s*** up.

PS: the "Book of McKee" was/is privately/self-published, which is *not* a positive indicator.

> IMHO the "Ethelred=Aed" equation is recent

Finally! I feel like I'm being heard. I didn't think it was ever going to happen.

It could be recent. There was a huge Romantic surge in the time of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). It reached a fever pitch with the visit of George IV to the Highlands in 1822.

Many things that are now codified as "tradition" were created in that period, but many are earlier, apparently authentic traditions. Any analysis should focus on separating the two.

The basic problem here, as I keep saying, is first to figure out the earliest evidence of this particular tradition, then to analyze it in terms of how it might have emerged (whether invention or authentic tradition).

Dug up a copy of the "Book of McKee", and while it does go into considerable detail about Aed and Malcolm macEth and their possible ancestors:

1) it does *not* name Lulach's wife or his daughter;
2) it does *not* suggest that Ethelred of Dunkeld had anything to do with Aed.

So where *does* this stuff come from, then?

This is probably as good as we're going to get for very early sources (outside of charters and such): https://archive.org/stream/earlysourcesofsc02ande#page/n11/mode/2up

Volume I https://archive.org/stream/cu31924028144313#page/n117/mode/2up deals with the years c. 500-1058.

> So where *does* this stuff come from, then?

The answer should be obvious. It comes from one or more unpublished manuscript histories of an unknown date.