The kingdom[94] of which Malcolm Canmore became the ruler in 1058 was not inhabited by clans.  It had been, from of old, divided into seven provinces, each of which was inhabited by tribes.  The tribe or tuath was governed by its own chief or king (Ri or Toisech); each province or Mor Tuath was governed by Ri Mor Tuath or Mormaer,[95] and these seven Mormaers seem (in theory, at all events) to have elected the national king, and to have acted as his advisers.  The tribe was divided into freemen and slaves, and freemen and slaves alike were subdivided into various classes—­noble and simple; serfs attached to land, and personal bondmen.  The land was held, not by the tribe in general, but by the ciniod or near kin of the flath or senior of each family within the tribe.  On the death of a senior, the new senior was chosen (generally with strict regard to primogeniture) from among the nearest in blood, and all who were within three degrees of kin to him, shared in the joint-proprietary of the proceeds of the land.  The senior had special privileges and was the representative and surety of the ciniod, and the guardian of their common interests.  After the third generation, a man ceased to be reckoned among the ciniod, and probably received a small personal allotment.  Most of his descendants would thus be landless, or, if they held land, would do so by what soon amounted to servile tenure.  Thus the majority of the tribe had little or nothing to lose by the feudalization that was approaching.

The changes of Malcolm’s reign are concerned with the Church, not with land-tenure.  But the territorialization of the Church, and the abolition of the ecclesiastical system of the tribe, foreshadowed the innovations that Malcolm’s son was to introduce.  We have seen that an anti-English reaction followed the deaths of Malcolm and Margaret.  This is important because it involved an expulsion of the English from Scotland, which may be compared with the expulsion of the Normans from England after the return of Godwin.  Our knowledge of the circumstances is derived from the following statement of Symeon of Durham:—­

“Qua [Margerita] mortua, Dufenaldum regis Malcolmi fratrem Scotti sibi in regem elegerunt, et omnes Anglos qui de curia regis extiterunt, de Scotia expulerunt.  Quibus auditis, filius regis Malcolmi Dunechan regem Willelmum, cui tune militavit, ut ei regnum sui patris concederet, petiit, et impetravit, illique fidelitatem juravit.  Et sic ad Scotiam cum multitudine Anglorum et Normannorum properavit, et patruum suum Dufenaldum de regno expulit, et in loco ejus regnavit.  Deinde nonnulli Scottorum in unum congregati, homines illius pene omnes peremerunt.  Ipse vero vix cum paucis evasit.  Veruntamen post haec illum regnare permiserunt, ea ratione, ut amplius in Scotiam nec Anglos nec Normannos introduceret, sibique militare permitteret."-Rolls Series edn., vol. ii, p. 222.