Tanistry
Origins
Tanistry was a system of succession which began in Ireland and migrated to Scotland and
the Isle of Mann. It was a strictly patrilineal system. There was no female succession nor
male succession through female lines. In contrast, the Picts allowed succession via
female lines.
When the Picts and Gaels merged under a single King, tanistry was the system that
survived.
Tanist
A tanist was a deputy chieftain or chieftain-in-waiting. When a chieftain died, the tanist
automatically succeeded to the position. There was then a gathering of all those eligible to
vote, typically the heads of the families of the clan, to elect a new tanist from those eligible
to be chief. Generally the new tanist would be someone deemed wise and able to protect
the clan.
This process operated at the national level too, with regional chiefs, or mormaers,
agreeing on a “high king”. The seven
mormaers of Alba met to elect a new tanist
when the king died and the previous tanist
succeeded to the throne. The new tanist may
be one of the mormaers or one of their clan
who was of the royal line.
Though not necessarily designed to be so, one
of the perceived benefits of the system was
that no single family dominated the country as
a whole.
Whilst, in modern thinking, tanistry can be seen as a semi-democratic form of deciding on
a leader, it did have the downside of there frequently being so many candidates that it
could, and did, lead to strife which in turn led to violence - the power of the ballot box had
not yet been established!
Later Tanistry
Ironically, around 200 years after feudalism was established by the Canmore kings,
potential candidates to the monarchy from the Bruce and Balliol families, both of Norman
descent, used Pictish and Gaelic principles of tanistry to argue their claims to the throne!
Echoes of tanistry still exist in Ireland where the prime minister is the Taoiseach (chief)
and the deputy prime minister is the Tánaiste (heir or deputy).
© Walter Jardine 2016
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