Provincial lordships is a modern term used by historians to describe large feudal landholdings created in Scotland during the 12th and 13th centuries.[1] These landholdings were granted by kings to their supporters to secure royal control of territories outside the core of the Kingdom of Alba, which during this period was considered to extend only between the River Forth and the River Spey to the east of the Highlands, but which controlled territory well beyond this.[2]
As the term "provincial lordship" is a modern description rather than a formal contemporary status there are no strict criteria for assigning landholdings to the category,[1] and lists of them differ.[3]
- ^ a b Stringer 1996, p. 183.
- ^ Taylor 2016, pp. 6–7.
- ^ Grant 2008, p. 164.