The Lord of Abernethy was from the 12th century to the 14th century the hereditary holder of the church and lands of the Scottish monasteryatAbernethy. It gradually evolved alongside the title Abbot of Abernethy, displacing that term in extant sources by the end of the 13th century. It was held by the descendants of Gille Míchéil, Earl of Fife.
Through them this honour was regarded as passing to the Douglas Earls of Angus, notably at the coronation of James III in 1460 when George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus proclaimed "There! Now that I have set it upon your Grace's head, let me see who will be so bold as to move it."[1]
The abbots of Abernethy were descendants of Gille Míchéil, Earl of Fife. The abbacy may have been held by Áed (called HugoorEggu and other Latinised forms), son of Gille Míchéil,[2] but the abbacy is first attested when Áed's son Orm is confirmed in possession of it by King William of Scotland in the 1170s, in condition for making concessions favorable to the King's new monastic establishment at Arbroath Abbey.[3] The title of Abbot disappears in the sources during the abbacy of Laurence, with the title of dominus predominating:
Following the death of Alexander Abernethy, the title passed to his daughter Margaret who married John Stewart of Bonkyll, who assumed the title, as well as being granted the forfeited Earldom of Angus.
Bannerman, John, "MacDuff of Fife", in A. Grant & K. Stringer (eds.) Medieval Scotland: Crown, Lordship and Community, Essays Presented to G.W.S. Barrow, (Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 20–38
Barrow, G. W. S., "The Reign of William the Lion", in Scotland and its Neighbours in the Middle Ages", (London, 1992), pp. 67–89
McGladdery, C. A., "Abernethy family (per. c.1260–c.1465)", in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , accessed 11 August 2007
