Mormaer

In early medieval Scotland, a mormaer was the Gaelic name for a regional or provincial ruler, theoretically second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a Toísech (chieftain). Mormaers were equivalent to English earls or Continental counts, and the term is often translated into English as 'earl'. Name Mormaer (pl. mormaír) and earl were respectively the Gaelic and Scots words used for the position also referred to in Latin as comes (pl. comites), which originally meant "companion". That the words mormaer and comes were equivalent can be seen in the case of Ruadrí, Earl of Mar, who is described as mormaer when listed as a witness in a document recorded in the Gaelic language in 1130 or 1131, and as comes in a charter recorded in Latin between 1127 and 1131. The word earl was increasingly used in place of mormaer as Scots replaced Gaelic as the dominant vernacular language between the late 12th and late 13th centuries, and the word Earl was exclusively used within Scotland to translate comes in the later Middle Ages as Scots became the language of record. This gradual change in language use from Gaelic to Scots did not mean that earl was a new title, however, and it was unrelated to changes in the role of the comes that took place over the same time-period. The word mormaer may represent a survival of a Pictish compound form, as despite being a Gaelic form it was used only to refer to nobles of the former Pictish areas of the Kingdom of Alba, and was never used to refer to Ireland. As late as the 15th century Irish sources were using the word mormaer for Scottish earls, instead of the word iarla they used for Irish or English earls. The second element of mormaer comes from the Gaelic or Pictish maer meaning "steward", but the first element could be either "great" (Gaelic mór or Pictish már), or a genitive form of the word for "sea" (Gaelic moro or Pictish mor). Mormaer could therefore mean either "great steward" or "sea steward".