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65-465: Pitsligo was a coastal parish in the historic county of Aberdeenshire , Scotland, containing the fishing villages of Rosehearty , Pittulie and Sandhaven , 3 miles (6 km) west of Fraserburgh and 12 miles (19 km) north of Mintlaw . The name is derived from the Gaelic Peit Shligeach , meaning "portion of land abounding in shells". The parish was established on 28 June 1633, from parts of

130-532: A county of a city . The boundaries of the counties of cities were periodically expanded as their urban areas grew. With the exception of the four counties of cities, the other burghs which had been excluded from county council control in 1890 were all placed under the authority of the county councils in 1930. Under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 , the county councils of the two least populous counties, Kinross-shire and Nairnshire, were each paired with

195-465: A lord-lieutenant . Following the union of Scotland and England under the Acts of Union 1707 , the term 'county' came to be used interchangeably with the older term 'shire'. From 1748 onwards sheriffs ceased to be automatically appointed to a single shire, with progressively larger sheriffdoms created instead, grouping multiple shires under a single sheriff. Elected county councils were created in 1890 under

260-457: A county basis after 1975 were very few, principally relating to land registration, in which capacity they are known as registration counties . Local government was reorganised again in 1996 under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 , with the regions and districts being replaced by 32 single-tier council areas . Some of the council areas have the same names as historic counties, but may cover significantly different areas. For example,

325-487: A hereditary legal expert charged with upholding the laws, appointed not by the king but locally from within the province. A province's brithem made and transmitted new law in accordance with local custom; settled cases, particularly land disputes, witnessed charters and witnessed and took part in the perambulation of boundaries. Minor legal disputes were settled at local cuthill courts , but major disputes were settled by summoning provincial assemblies that also included

390-559: A larger neighbour; Nairnshire with Moray, and Kinross-shire with Perthshire. The county councils of these four counties continued to be elected separately, but most functions were provided through them acting as the "joint county councils" of Perth & Kinross and Moray & Nairn. In 1963 the Government published a white paper which proposed a reduction in the number of counties from thirty-four to between ten and fifteen. A process of consultation between county councils and officials from

455-443: A ruling in abstract terms, as the answer depended on the context; they were one shire for the purposes of the administration of justice, lieutenancy , and parliamentary constituencies , but formed two shires for local government functions. The commissioners were gradually given other local government functions. The commissioners did not exercise powers over any royal burghs within their areas, which were self-governing. In 1707,

520-496: A single county called Ross and Cromarty , and resolved the ambiguity regarding Orkney and Shetland by declaring them to be two separate counties (using the then-prevalent spelling of 'Zetland' for Shetland), after which there were 33 counties. The act also triggered a review of parish and county boundaries to eliminate exclaves and cases where parishes straddled county boundaries. Most of the resulting boundary changes took effect in 1891. The amended boundaries were not just used for

585-401: A wide range of men from a province with the mormaer as only one of a number of influential local figures. The position of mormaer does not appear to have been hereditary before the late 12th century, instead being held by the most powerful head of kin within a province and sometimes alternating between different kin-groups. Provinces could also function without mormaers : King Edgar took

650-486: Is believed the split occurred after a minister "ranted in a sermon" about the "three Pits of Hell", namely Pittulie, Pittendrum and Pitsligo. This Aberdeenshire location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Shires of Scotland The Shires of Scotland ( Scottish Gaelic : Siorrachdan na h-Alba ; Scots : Scots coonties ), or Counties of Scotland , were historic subdivisions of Scotland . The shires were originally established in

715-562: The Aberdeenshire council area is much larger than the historic county of Aberdeenshire, also including most of the historic county of Kincardineshire and part of Banffshire , whereas the Renfrewshire council area is much smaller than historic Renfrewshire, only covering the central part of the historic county. Conversely, Fife retained the same boundaries at both the 1975 and 1996 reforms. The historic counties of Scotland are included in

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780-698: The Act of Union united Scotland with England . England also had shires , which had been mostly created in Anglo-Saxon times, and had gradually also come to be known as counties. The word 'county' means an area controlled by a noble called a count in Norman French , or earl in English. Following the Norman conquest , England's earldoms (which, like Scotland's provinces, had previously covered substantially different territories to

845-544: The Index of Place Names (IPN) published by the Office for National Statistics . Each "place" included in the IPN is related to the historic county it lies within, as well as to a set of administrative areas. None of the counties' legal names included the suffix 'shire'. Those counties named after towns therefore had the same name as the town, but were routinely referred to in legal contexts as

910-576: The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 , taking most of the functions of the commissioners of supply. The county councils were abolished in 1975, when local government was reorganised. Following another reorganisation in 1996, Scotland is now divided into 32 council areas . Some of the council areas share names with the historic counties, but in most such cases they have notable differences in their boundaries. The historic counties are still used for certain limited functions, serving as registration counties . There are also lieutenancy areas which are based on

975-458: The Middle Ages for judicial purposes, being territories over which a sheriff had jurisdiction. They were distinct from the various older mormaerdoms , earldoms and other territories into which Scotland was also divided, which are collectively termed the provinces of Scotland by modern historians. The provinces gradually lost their functions, whereas the shires gradually gained functions. From

1040-562: The Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868 , generally being divided into smaller constituencies. The group of constituencies within each county was termed the 'parliamentary county'. Elected county councils were introduced in 1890 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 , taking most of the functions of the commissioners of supply, which were eventually abolished in 1930. The 1889 Act also merged Ross-shire and Cromartyshire into

1105-581: The Scottish Office was begun to effect the amalgamations. Following a change of government, it was announced in 1965 that a "more comprehensive and authoritative" review of local government areas would be undertaken. In 1966 a Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland, chaired by Lord Wheatley , was appointed. The commission's report in 1969 recommended the replacement of the counties with larger regions. In 1970 another change in government control

1170-754: The mormaer within Angus , possibly as a result of conflict between the Mormaers of Angus and the kings Kenneth II and Malcolm II , and the Mearns was taken entirely into royal hands by King Edgar in response to the killing of his father Duncan II by the Mormaer of Mearns in 1094. 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

1235-509: The mormaership of Mearns directly into his own hands in 1097, and the mormaership of Gowrie was in the hands of the crown by the reign of Alexander I , though as late as the reign of Malcolm IV charters were still distinguishing between manors within Gowrie held by the king in his capacity as king and those held by virtue of his control of the mormaerdom . Each province had at least one Brithem ( Latin : Iudex , Scots : Dempster )

1300-574: The "Shire" suffix a separate word, as for example "Berwick Shire", "Roxburgh Shire", "the Shire of Selkirk otherwise known as Etterick Forest", and in the north to "Murray" (Moray), "Inverness Shire", "Aberdeen Shire", "Banff Shire", "Ross Shire". The map of Boswell's and Johnson's A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1773) gives "Shire" to every one shown, including "Angus Shire" and "Fife Shire". The Ordnance Survey 's official maps produced from

1365-506: The 'shire of X' or 'county of X' in order to distinguish the county from the town. However, in general usage, many of the counties had 'shire' appended to their names, particularly those named after towns. The first detailed county maps of Scotland were produced in the late 17th century. John Adair's maps of c. 1682 included the names of Midlothian , East Lothian , Twaddall and Wast Lothian (the latter also as "Linlithgowshire" ). The county maps of Herman Moll (c. 1745) preferred to keep

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1430-410: The 1180s sheriffs had authority over defined geographical areas and were expected to hold regular courts, as well as having the right to attend the courts of all nobles, including earls, within their area. By the mid 13th century a uniform system of sherriffdoms covered the country, supervised by a Justiciar of Scotia , unlike the brithem explicitly an agent of the king. By the 1260s the sheriffdom

1495-603: The 14th century, but there were more pronounced changes to the shires of the Highlands and Islands into the 17th century, as the Scottish crown sought to consolidate its authority over the whole kingdom. From the 17th century the shires started to be used for local administration apart from judicial functions. In 1667 Commissioners of Supply were appointed in each shire to collect the land tax. There were 33 shires at that time, which were each given their own commissioners of supply, with

1560-464: The 16th century, the shires served as constituencies , electing shire commissioners to the Parliament of Scotland . From 1667 each shire had commissioners of supply responsible for collecting local taxes; the commissioners of supply were subsequently given various local government functions as well. From 1797, the shires also served as areas for organising the militia , which was the responsibility of

1625-416: The 19th century onwards adopted the practice of adding 'shire' to the end of the name of each shire named after a town, and also used the names Argyllshire, Buteshire, Ross-shire (prior to its merger with Cromartyshire in 1889) and Morayshire, despite those four not being named after towns. Some counties had alternative names by which they were sometimes known. In five cases the legal name was changed during

1690-481: The 20th century: Other alternative names sometimes used informally included 'The Mearns' for Kincardineshire, 'Tweeddale' for Peeblesshire, 'Ettrick Forest' for Selkirkshire, and 'Teviotdale' for Roxburghshire. Until the 1930s, the General Post Office advised against included county names in addresses, recommending they only be used in those cases where it was necessary to distinguish between post towns with

1755-475: The Post Office used the form Morayshire, and used Ross-shire for the mainland part of Ross and Cromarty. Otherwise, it omitted the 'shire' suffix. The Post Office also used the spelling 'Shetland' rather than the legal spelling of 'Zetland'. The county council of Dunbartonshire considered a motion to change that county's name to 'Lennox' in 1956. Supporters of the idea argued that as well as bringing back into use

1820-501: The army from their own territories. The provincial brithem , who had been prominent in legal documents in the 12th century, appears in a much more subordinate position by the end of the 13th century, eventually sinking to the point of virtual insignificance. A law enacted under David I required every brithem in a province to attend when the king entered that province and between the reigns of David I and William I kings sought to link brithem more closely to their authority. By

1885-410: The authority of the county councils. Following the example of Edinburgh, three of the burghs outside county council control were subsequently also made independent from their host county for other functions too, with the provost of such burghs acting as lieutenant, being Glasgow in 1893, Dundee in 1894, and Aberdeen in 1899. Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow were then each known as

1950-467: The basis for the authority of the earls and other nobles in their provinces. Those office holders who were displaced were compensated. The reforms of 1748 therefore saw the effective end of any meaningful function for the provinces, with the shires or counties thereafter being the main administrative divisions of Scotland. Also in 1748, under the Sheriffs (Scotland) Act 1747 , the office of sheriff principal

2015-478: The case of Atholl , which is recorded having a king in 739, but a mormaer in 965. The mormaer of a province raised and led the army of the province in battle, oversaw the exercise of justice within the province, and was supported by tribute raised from defined areas within the province. Although the mormaer was the ultimate head of a provincial community their power was only exercised in conjunction with other local potentates. Provincial assemblies would include

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2080-464: The counties and the parliamentary counties, which was resolved when constituencies were next reviewed in 1918 . Secondly, valuation rolls continued to have effect over the area for which they had been originally compiled. Thirdly, any ecclesiastical rights or jurisdictions were unaffected by the changes to boundaries (a provision more relevant to the parish changes than the county ones). Burghs were towns with certain rights of self-government. Prior to

2145-426: The county, with the exception of the burgh of Edinburgh , which from 1482 had appointed its own sheriff. Edinburgh was thereafter sometimes described as the "city and county of the city of Edinburgh" to distinguish it from the surrounding "county of Edinburgh" (Midlothian). When county councils were created in 1890, the 26 largest burghs were allowed to retain their independence, but smaller burghs were placed under

2210-457: The division of the country (as it then was) into shires by the conversion of existing thanedoms . The shires occasionally covered the same area as a province; for example, the shire of Forfar covered the same area as the province of Angus . More often though, the shires were groupings or subdivisions of the provinces. For example, the province of Lothian was covered by the three shires of Linlithgow , Edinburgh and Haddington . Conversely,

2275-494: The dominant basis of secular authority. The power of mormaers became increasingly focused on their earldom, the territory that they controlled directly, rather than their leadership of the broader provincial community, and large provincial lordships were established that often rivalled earldoms in size and were granted to loyal supporters of the king. Local justice and administration became increasingly dominated by sheriffdoms , which were more directly under royal control. Before

2340-581: The early 13th century " Scotland " ( Latin : Scotia , Old Irish : Alba ) was considered to extend only between the Firth of Forth and the River Spey . 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 . To the north of the Spey were territories also referred to as provinces, but whose status

2405-402: The end of the 12th century kings increasingly saw themselves rather than brithem as the main source of lawmaking. Sheriffs are recorded in the former Northumbrian areas south of the Forth from the 1120s, spreading north of the Forth over the following century. The role of the sheriff seems initially to have been limited to the collection of revenue from burghs and other royal lands, but by

2470-455: The exception of the sheriffdom of Orkney and Shetland, where separate bodies of commissioners were created for each group of islands. Orkney and Shetland having one sheriff but two sets of commissioners of supply led to ambiguity about their status. At a court case in 1829, the Court of Session was asked to rule on whether Shetland and Orkney formed one shire or two. The court declined to give such

2535-527: The existing parishes of Aberdour, Fraserburgh and Tyrie. Pitsligo Castle dates from the 15th century. Old Pitsligo Church, known locally as the Rathill or Peathill Kirk, dates to 1632. Its loft, described by Charles McKean as "magnificent", was added two years later. It was later moved and installed in the Hill Church of Rosehearty. The church was constructed after Pitsligo seceded from the parish of Aberdour. It

2600-507: The government of Scotland. The document listed the twenty-three shires then existing and either appointed new sheriffs or continued heritable sheriffs in office. The remaining shires were formed either by the territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Scotland , or by the subdivision of existing sheriffdoms. There were occasional changes to the shires; those of the Lowlands were relatively stable from

2665-485: The grouped shires were nevertheless still considered separate shires, retaining separate commissioners of supply. In 1794 Lord-Lieutenants were appointed to each county, and in 1797 county militia regiments were raised, bringing Scotland into line with England, Wales and Ireland. In 1858 police forces were established in each shire under the Police (Scotland) Act 1857 . The counties lost their role as constituencies under

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2730-428: The historic counties, but with some notable differences. The early Kingdom of Alba was subdivided into smaller territories under the control of various ranks of noble, including mormaers , earls , and thanes . As Alba expanded and evolved into the Kingdom of Scotland , it took in various other territories as it grew. There was no single collective term for these territories at the time, but modern historians now use

2795-407: The introduction of county councils in 1890, there were two main types: royal burghs and police burghs . Some burghs were additionally classed as parliamentary burghs , excluding them from the constituency of the wider county. Royal burghs were independent from the county's commissioners of supply, but police burghs were not. Both types of burgh were subject to the authority of the sheriff court of

2860-413: The king. By the early 13th century the earl's power had become increasingly focused on this territorial earldom rather than on their leadership of the wider province, and the earldom became a position that was directly inherited in the male line, as landholding replaced kinship as the dominant basis for secular power. Royal thanages , landholdings held by a thane directly of the king and independently of

2925-461: The late 12th century and were always explicitly feudal landholdings. 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 . The degree of continuity between provinces and these earlier territories is uncertain. Some names of earlier units such as Cait , Fife and Atholl survived as

2990-471: The local government functions of the county councils, but were also applied for all other administrative functions, including justice, militia, school boards and other functions, with just three exceptions. Firstly, the boundary changes did not affect any parliamentary constituencies, which remained as they were when last reviewed under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 . This led to some divergence between

3055-441: The name of the old province which had covered the area, it would eliminate the long-standing confusion caused by the county using the spelling 'Dunbarton' and the town the spelling 'Dumbarton'. The change was not pursued. Not shown: 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

3120-455: The names of later provinces, and it is possible that some of the other provinces had existed before 900 as subdivisions of wider territories, but increased in prominence as the importance of these wider territories declined. By the late 10th century the Mormaer ( Latin : Comes , Scots : Earl ) was established as the leading figure in each province. This transition is most clearly seen in

3185-505: The pleasure of the monarch. Following the unsuccessful Jacobite Rising of 1745 the government took the opportunity of overhauling county government. In 1748, under the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746 , hereditary sheriffs were abolished, with the right to appoint all sheriffs returning to the crown. The same act also abolished other hereditary jurisdictions including regality, justiciary and others; these had formed

3250-546: The provincial army. 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. At this stage the provinces of Alba retained many "national" characteristics, with their own networks of clientage and kinship, their own assemblies and their own ecclesiastical hierarchies. Although kings of Alba maintained extensive royal territory within provinces, control of provinces by kings

3315-473: The provincial community, appear within provinces from the early 13th century, and royal control within provinces was further strengthened by the alienation of royal land to a king's supporters, including large provincial lordships such as Garioch that rivalled earldoms in size. By 1221 earls were forbidden from entering the land of any other lord and had lost control over raising the provincial army, with individual landowners having responsibility for raising

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3380-600: The reign of Malcolm III , remaining an area of fluctuating royal control until 1215. Caithness remained under the control of the Norse earls of Orkney , who were subject to the king of Norway , until 1231. 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

3445-424: The role of the mormaer , increasingly called an earl as Scots replaced Gaelic as the dominant vernacular language. During the late 12th century an explicit distinction began to made between the provincia or province, the broad territory and community from which an earl took their name, and the comitatus or earldom, the smaller landholdings within the province that the earl directly controlled and held from

3510-492: The same name. The Post Office changed its policy in the 1930s, requiring the name of the county in which the post town lay to be included in most cases, with the exception of certain post towns which were large and well-known places, or which gave their names to their counties. Like the Ordnance Survey, the Post Office appended 'shire' to the legal name for all counties named after towns. For counties not named after towns,

3575-469: The sheriffs. Despite the shires of Scotland not being controlled by a count or earl as their English counterparts had once been, following the union of 1707, the term 'county' also came to be used for Scottish shires. The office of sheriff or steward had become hereditary in certain families in the majority of sheriffdoms. At the accession of George II in 1727, twenty-two sheriffs were hereditary, three were appointed for life and only eight held office at

3640-411: The shire of Ayr covered the three provinces of Carrick , Cunninghame and Kyle . Shires were sometimes created which did not endure. For example, there was a Sheriff of Dingwall in the mid-13th century, and in 1293 shires of Lorn and Kintyre were created, which were later merged into the shire of Argyll . In 1305 Edward I of England , who had deposed John Balliol , issued an ordinance for

3705-557: The shires) were reorganised to generally correspond to individual shires, which therefore also became known as counties. Unlike in England, Scotland's shires remained quite distinct territories from its earldoms and other provinces in 1707. Whereas English earls by that time had little or no role in local administration, Scottish earls and other nobles continued to exercise significant authority in their provinces, having powers of regality to hold courts which operated in parallel with those of

3770-580: The term provinces , or provincial lordships for the smaller ones. Malcolm III (reigned 1058 to 1093) appears to have introduced sheriffs as part of a policy of imitating the administrative structures then being used in England by its Norman rulers. The provinces formed part of the feudal hierarchy of land ownership, but justice was administered by sheriffs, appointed to separately defined shires. More shires were created by Edgar (reigned 1097 to 1107), Alexander I (reigned 1107 to 1124), and in particular David I (reigned 1124 to 1153). David completed

3835-410: Was administered by larger sheriffdoms and counties no longer served as constituencies. As part of the 1975 reforms, lord-lieutenants ceased to be appointed to counties, instead being appointed to new lieutenancy areas based on groups of the new districts. The lieutenancy areas loosely corresponded to the pre-1975 counties, but with some notable differences. The administrative functions left operating on

3900-471: Was already beginning to fragment by this date. From the 1160s onwards aristocratic power and jurisdiction moved away from being seen as having a provincial and social basis, instead coming to be seen within a framework of individual territorial landholdings, while centralised royal power over territory increased and came to be exercised through formal institutions of local government known as sheriffdoms . The 12th and early 13th centuries saw major changes to

3965-443: Was followed by the publication of a white paper in 1971 implementing the commission's reforms in a modified form. The abolition of counties "for local government purposes" was enacted by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 , with counties playing no part in local government after 16 May 1975, being replaced by regions and districts. The counties had already lost almost all their non-local government functions by this time; justice

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4030-498: Was more uncertain. Moray may at times during the 11th century have operated as a separate kingdom or as a base for competing claimants for the throne of Alba, and control by the kings of Alba remained variable until 1230. 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

4095-630: Was on the basis of reciprocal relationships and accommodations with local power-groups. Provinces could form the basis for powerful regional hegemonies, often varying in their support for different royal lines. This system of competing royal lineages with different provincial powerbases led to a pattern of violent royal succession, with twelve of the twenty kings ruling between 858 and 1093 being killed in internal violence by their own subjects. In turn kings defeating mormaer -led provincial rebellions could respond by taking more provincial territory into their own direct control. The crown held far more land than

4160-421: Was reduced to a largely ceremonial one, with a sheriff depute or sheriff substitute appointed to each 'county, shire or stewartry'. Twelve of the smallest counties were paired to form sheriffdoms, a process of amalgamation that was to continue until the twentieth century, and thus led to the sheriffdoms and the shires having different boundaries. Where multiple shires were grouped into a single sheriffdom after 1748,

4225-445: Was the cornerstone of Scottish government, collecting the revenue that funded central royal government and extending the reach of royal power into aristocratic jurisdictions, while over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries the role of the earl became increasingly honorific, with many having even fewer direct associations with the provinces after which they were named. The provinces did not become obsolete, however, retaining at least

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