The word “Clan” or “Clanna” simply means children, the “descendants of the actual or mythical ancestor from whom the community claims descent.”
Clannish ties of relationship run through every rank of society, uniting people in a homely, heartwarming way, and this warmth of relationship has remained with us over the years to the present day.
The CLAN is a well-recognised entity and in HERALDIC TERMS the clan and chief are subjects, necessarily cognizable in LYON COURT, and evolving rights under the branch of “Nobiliary Law” denominated “THE LAW OF ARMS”, which is excluded from the ordinary courts of law, and cognizable only in courts of chivalry. In Scotland, the authority for all grants of arms is LORD LYON, KING OF ARMS.
Arms are hereditary marks of honour, regularly composed of certain tinctures, and figures, granted or authorised by Lyon Court, for distinguishing persons, families, and communities, and their first use is a distinction of NOBILITY. The law of arms includes the whole clan and name, and all those who claim support from the house (SEPTS or AFFILIATED FAMILES).
A Clan can be defined as a “Social Group,” consisting of an aggregate of distinct erected families, and actually descended, or accepting themselves as descendants of a common ancestor, and which group has been received by the sovereign, through his/her supreme officer of honour, the LORD LYON, as an honourable community, with its FAMILY SEAL OF ARMS, held by its chief or representative, whereof all members on establishing a right to, or receiving fresh grants of personal hereditary nobility, will be awarded arms as determinate cadets, of the chief of the clan.
Heraldry is a science for distinguishing persons, families, communities. From its infancy, it was a definite sign of Hereditary Nobility, a practical form of identification in war, and it formed a means of decoration. Heraldry was a practical subject in an illiterate age and had to be strictly controlled since mistakes could lead to defeat in war, or fraud in business. Heraldry was primarily the machinery of family administration, and ocular evidence of chiefly authority, THE RALLYING POINT OF THE CLAN.
If the word “CLAN,” meaning “CHILDREN,” and connoting a biological and hereditary group clustered around an hereditary stem could be described as “THE PERFECT GROUP” then a chiefless clan, like an orphan family could be described as an “IMPERFECT GROUP.” Continuity under the bond of kin embodied in the perpetuation of the parental tie is the whole basis of the clan concept. The “CLAN” is a community based upon the assumptions of heredity, and “PARENT and CHILD” nexus, and received as an honourable community under its representer.
The following paragraph was written by Claude Buchanan, Herald-at-Large, before Lord Lyon granted the Chief of the Name and Arms of Buchanan to Michael Buchanan of Arnprior in 2018.
“Since the early part of the 20th century, the Buchanan Clan has been without a chief. Clan groups throughout the world, meet, drink, and eat together, enjoying the clanship which is their right. All in the name of romanticism. Very fine, very romantically laudable, but what of the future? Will the generations to come still cling to the old stories, still cling to their clan origins without a focal point upon which to hang their bonnets? I think not, unless those adult clan members, now living, and cognizant of their long term responsibility to their family, and the greater clan, put their minds, energies, and funds into finding the person who should rightfully, under the “LAW OF THE CLAN” be recognised as chief. With this focal point established, it is my belief that the CLAN could become not just a collection of people of common origins holding onto some romantic ideal, but a vibrant, and powerful force, held together by something more than the rather tenuous bonds of democracy.”
Claude Askel Buchanan. FSA Scot
Herald at Arms Emeritus