Menteith

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Menteith or Monteith (Gaelic: Tèadhaich) is a district of southern Perthshire which roughly comprises the lands between the Rivers Teith and the Forth. The district is named for the river Teith, but the exact etymological root is unclear. The name has been written in past ages in variant forms including Meneted, Maneteth and Meneteth.

The Lake of Menteith (24 miles south of Loch Vennachar) is a ribbon loch 14 miles long by a mile broad, and contains three islands. On Inchmahome (Gaelic for “the Isle of Rest" or “Island of St Colmaig”) are found the ruins of an Augustinian priory founded in 1238 by Walter Comyn, Earl of Mentheith in the Early English style. On the island lived Mary Queen of Scots, when a child of five, for a few months before her departure to Dumbarton Castle, and on to France in 1548. On Inch Talla stands the ruined tower of the Earls of Menteith, dating from 1428. The village of Port of Menteith stands on the north shore of the lake.

Formerly Menteith was a stewartry and the land of a mormaer gave the title to an earldom. The first known mormaer was Gilchrist, a chief ennobled by King Malcolm IV. The title of Earl of Menteith passed to Walter Comyn (who died around 1258) through his wife, and later to a branch of the Stewarts, and finally to the Grahams. It became extinct in the Grahams in 1694.

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Menteith is "a noblemen of Scotland," appearing in Act V, allied with Malcolm to oppose Macbeth's usurpation.

References

  • Watson, William J, The Celtic Place-names of Scotland. Revised with introduction by Simon Taylor. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2004. ISBN 1-84158-323-5

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