Tanistry

[tan-uh-stree, thaw-nuh-]

Tanistry was a system for passing on titles and lands. In this system the Tanist (Irish Tánaiste; Scottish Gaelic Tànaiste; Manx Tanishtagh) was the office of heir-apparent, or second-in-command, among the (royal) Gaelic patrilineal dynasties of Ireland, Scotland and Man, to succeed to the chieftainship or to the kingship.

Origins

The Tanist was chosen from among the heads of the roydammna or "righdamhna" (literally, those of kingly material) or alternatively among all males of the sept in question, and elected by them in full assembly. The eligibility was based on patrilineal relationship, which meant the electing body and the eligibles were agnates with each other; actually the composition and the governance of the clan were built upon male-line descent from a common ancestor. The office existed since the dawn of recorded history in Ireland, and probably greatly pre-dates it. For example, a story concerning Cormac mac Airt lists his eldest son as his Tanist. Following his death at the hands of a member of the Deisi (and the blemishing of Cormac during the same incident), another roydammna, Cairbre Lifechair, succeeded as king.

In Ireland, it remained fully in force among the main dynasties, as well as lesser lords and chieftains, until the mid sixteenth century, and lingered, albeit in much reduced form, until as late as the 1840s. When in 1943 the Irish Free State appointed it's first new Chief Herald tanistry was not reintroduced. Rather courtesy recognition was granted to Irish chiefs based on primogeniture from the last known chief.

The Gaels exported their customs, this included, to those parts of Scotland they came to control after 400AD. Contrary to some beliefs, apparently the Picts (the other foundational ethnicity of today's Scotland), did not share the succession principles of their distant Celtic relatives of Ireland and Scottish Gaels. There is basically no female succession or even allowing for through female links in the Irish and Gaelic succession model, i.e ideal form of this tanistry, whereas Pictish succession more than regularly used links through females (maternal grandson apparently was preferred heir to grandfather; and/or maternal nephew to uncle in Pictish custom). Tanist also is a foreign term to the Pictish. The royal succession in Celtic Scotland was limited strictly to the elective agnatic or male line of the Siol Alpein or House of Alpin until the accession of King Malcolm II in 1005. This monarch was the first to introduce the concept of hereditary monarchy in Scotland. He did so to try to eliminate the strife caused by the elective law which encouraged rival claimants to fight for the Throne. However, since Malcolm had only daughters, he also introduced the right of female line succession in Scotland, but not without great conflict and unrest for generations thereafter. The Irish monarchies never at any stage allowed for female line succession, a position which is maintained to the present day.

Candidates and functions

The Tanist held office for life and was required by custom to be of full age, in possession of all his faculties and without any remarkable blemish of mind or body. At the same time, and subject to the same conditions, a tanist or next heir to the Monarchy was elected, who if the king died or became disqualified, at once became king. Most usually a former king's son became tanist (sometimes the son of the king simultaneously elected, however perhaps more often a son of a rival branch of the dynasty), but not because the system of primogeniture was in any way recognized; indeed, the only principle adopted was that the dignity of chieftainship should descend to the eldest and most worthy of the same male-line blood of the clan.

The usual rules for qualification as a roydammna was that a candidate had to be a member of the "Derbfhine", a kindred all descended in the male line from a common ancestor (usually a great grandfather or great-great grandfather). This is recalled in the coats of arms of representatives of the many clans and septs descended from the Uí Néill royal dynasty, many of which feature the Red Hand. The joints in the fingers, the fingernails, and the hand itself, represented the four/five generations that qualified for inclusion within the Derbfhine. This meant that the group itself became highly exclusive, keeping the kingship within the dynasty and not the wider clan, many of whom were reduced to mere gentry or even peasant status (though they might too share the surname). (These features make tanistry as a clearly agnatic succession mode, and a succession by appointment, being obviously an elective monarchy. The basic requirement of the nature of hereditary monarchy, i.e the outcome of the succession being predictable up to the identity of successor and next heirs by genealogy, is not fulfilled in tanistry.)

The downside of this large and equal group of eligibles was that proliferation of roydammna in each generation might lead to internecine dynastic civil war. Such was the case among the descendants of King and High King Tairrdelbach mac Ruaidri Ua Conchobair (1088-1156). His dynasty, the Sil Muirdeag (who took the surname hUa Conchobhair/O'Connor), had successfully ruled as Kings of Connacht since at least the mid fifth century. Their increasing consolidation of their position - via the annexation of the Kingdoms of Mide and Dublin, plus suborning neighbouring states and lordships to vassalage - paved the way for Tairrdelbach to become the first of his dynasty to become High King.

However competition between Tairrdelbach's many sons induced corrosive warfare between at least four competing main lines, in addition to allied lordships and kingdoms striving for the main chance. This, coupled with the incursions of the Normans from 1169 onwards (especially the machinations of the de Burgh lords of Clanricarde - fragmented O Conchobhar rule till by the early 1500s they were reduced to ruling a fraction of their former patrimony.

Another example of Derbfhine or Roydammna proliferation comes from the Annals of Connacht. It states that at the Second Battle of Athenry in August 1316, in addition to King Tadc O Cellaig of Hy-Many, "there fell with him ... twenty-eight men who were entitled to succeed to the kingship of Ui Maine."

Further points

This system often lead to rotation between most prominent branches of the clan or the reigning house, particularly in the Middle Ages when an average lifespan was usually shorter than required for one's children grow up into adults. Tanistry, though not intended basically to be such, was perceived to be synonymous with balance between branches of family. A quite usual pattern was that the chief (king, lord) was succeeded by his Tanist, elected earlier and from another branch than that which the incumbent chief belonged to, and perhaps simultaneously upon that succession, a Tanist was elected, to fill the position vacated by the one now risen to chieftainship, from another branch, quite often from that to which the deceased belonged to - perhaps, the deceased's son. And so on in the next vacancy. It came to be regarded a sort of outrage if a chieftain attempted to have his own son (or brother) chosen over a representative of another branch, the electors fearing centralization and subjugation to one branch.

A most publicized case was when the Bruce candidate to inherit the crown of Scotland in 1296 pleaded, among other grounds, the traditional tanistry in his favour. He was primogeniturally seen from a cadet branch of the old royal descent, and thus primogeniture would not have favoured him, but idea of rotation and balance (and his seniority in physical age and experience) made him a credible competitor. A presumably Pictish ingredient to the situation was that both Balliol and Bruce descended through female lines from the royal house, a relationship not dependable on any Irish principle of succession lines, and were allowed to present candidacy, Bruce also claiming tanistry through a female line. This may be an indication that in Scotland, Pictish and Irish succession rules were intermingled. (Although the judicial resolution of that quarrel, dictated by the feudally-leaning English king, went in favour of the Balliols on basis of primogeniture, the subsequent political events reverted that result to an incidentally more "clannish-tradition" direction, and Robert the Bruce, the grandson of the candidate who pleaded tanistry, ascended the throne despite of the fact of representing a rather junior cadet line of the original Royal House - all future monarchs of Scotland then were succeeding on basis of rights of the Bruce.)

Tanistry as the system of succession left the headship open to the ambitious, and was a frequent source of strife both in families and between the clans, but was conversely quasi-democratic. Tanistry was abolished by a legal decision in the reign of James VI of Scotland, who later became James I of England and Ireland, and the English land system substituted.

The rules of succession of the dynasty of Alpin of kings of Scotland, a dynasty legendarily of mixed Pictish and Gaelic origin and their successors, abided by tanistry rules until at least 1034, used them in certain successions in 1090s, and were pleaded as a part of succession litigation as late as in 1290s. A similar system operated in Wales, where under Welsh law any of the sons or brothers of the king could be chosen as the edling or heir to the kingdom.

Current political uses

The word is preserved in the government of the Republic of Ireland, where the prime minister is the Taoiseach while the deputy prime minister is the Tánaiste.

Uses in literature

The concept of the tanist or substitute for the sacred king was taken by Sir James Frazer and incorporated as a central element in his study of European mythologies, The Golden Bough. Through Frazer the figure of the tanist has appeared in modernist poetry, such as T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and has influenced Robert Graves' interpretation of The Greek Myths (1955) and The White Goddess.

In the "Proteus" episode of Joyce's Ulysses the term is used in an ironic context. Stephen Dedalus recalls his meeting in Paris with the exiled Fenian Kevin Egan, who had "prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls of Clerkenwell" as they planned an explosion to free an imprisoned Fenian.

Blood tanistry

Blood tanistry is the principle that “the most talented male member of the royal dynasty should inherit the throne, commonly by murder and war” (Fletcher, Joseph. 1979. “Turco-Mongolian Monarchic Traditions in the Ottoman Empire”. Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3: 236-251). It is used to describe the practical ramifications of the Turco-Mongol as well as other Central Asian steppe nomad principles of inheritance and succession, in which, because all male members of the royal clan are considered to have equally legitimate claims on power in theory, the ruler is the individual who is most able to eliminate competitors and re-subjugate the rest of the state formation, the structure of which is determined by bonds of personal loyalty to the ruler which are considered to be dissolved on the ruler's death.