Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Kingdom of Mann
drawn on the map 1177–1271
The Isle of Man was the southern anchor of the Kingdom of the Isles and at times a kingdom in its own right. Its distinctive institution is Tynwald, the island's parliament, of Norse origin, described by its own authorities as "the oldest continuous parliament in the world," over a thousand years old.
- Shown on the map
- 1177–1271
- Peak area
- 6k km²
- Region
- Europe
Names and Tynwald
The Isle of Man was the southern anchor of the Kingdom of the Isles and at times a kingdom in its own right. Its distinctive institution is Tynwald, the island's parliament, of Norse origin, described by its own authorities as "the oldest continuous parliament in the world," over a thousand years old. The traditional foundation date of 979 is, however, explicitly arbitrary: there is no evidence of an assembly in that year, the place-name is first recorded in the 13th–14th-century Chronicles of Mann, and the first description of an on-site assembly dates to the early 15th century. Tynwald is bicameral, comprising the House of Keys (24 members) and the Legislative Council.
Crovan rule and the Stanleys
Under the Crovan dynasty Man was the core of the sea-kingdom. After 1266 it passed under Scottish, then contested English-Scottish, control (the Manx revolt of 1275 was crushed by Alexander III). From 1405 it came under the Stanley family (later Earls of Derby), who ruled as Lords of Mann for over 300 years — a lordship examined in the following section and enduring until the Revestment Act of 1765.
Common questions
- What was the Kingdom of Mann?
- The Isle of Man was the southern anchor of the Kingdom of the Isles and at times a kingdom in its own right. Its distinctive institution is Tynwald, the island's parliament, of Norse origin, described by its own authorities as "the oldest continuous parliament in the world," over a thousand years old.
- When is the Kingdom of Mann shown on the map?
- The border data draws the Kingdom of Mann 1177–1271. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
- How large was the Kingdom of Mann?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Kingdom of Mann covered about 6,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each kingdom as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, national heritage bodies (Historic Environment Wales and Scotland, the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust), museum sources and the Dictionary of Irish Biography, read against the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bede and the Irish annals with their own biases. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Kingdom of the Isles en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_the_Isles
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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