failure of heirs of the body.[328] Between the rivers Dee and Don, which formed the old earldom of Mar, were five thanages. The old town of Aberdeen, on the south bank of the Don, near its junction with the sea, appears as a thanage in the reign of Alexander the Third. It is included as such in the Rental of the crown lands with the annual value of fifty merks, and in the Chamberlain Rolls for 1264 the sheriff accounts for twelve pounds received from the thane of Aberdeen; while in 1358 one-half of the thanage of Aberdeen appears in the Crown, and the other half in the hands of John Herys by concession of the king.[329] One of the missing charters of the reign of Robert the First is one to the burgh of Aberdeen of the forest of Stocket, which was no doubt the forest of the thanage. It merges after this time in the town and town lands of Aberdeen. One of the most important and instructive thanages between Don and Dee was that of Kyntor, now Kintore. It appears in the Rental of the crown lands in the reign of Alexander the Third, with the annual value of 101 merks, and in the Chamberlain Rolls of 1264 the sheriff receives £17 : 13 : 4 from the thane of Kintor. This thanage was of considerable extent, and, with the exception of a small part on the north side of the Don, extends along that river on its south side for about ten miles, and approaches on the south-east to within a mile of the river Dee. In that part of the thanage which is separated from the rest by the river Don is the church of Kinkell, a name which signifies the chief _Cill_ or church. This church had several chapels dependent upon it. Five of these were the chapels of Kintore, Kemnay, Kinnellar, Skene, and Dyce, all now erected into separate parishes, and this gives us the extent of the ancient thanage. Part of the old parish of Kinkell lay on the south side of the river Don, and this part formed the lands of Thaneston, or the Thane’s town. South of it lay the forest of Kintore, with the ancient keep of Hallforest. The name of the thanage, Kintore, contains the same prefix of _Kin_ or _Ceann_, signifying chief, and the latter part of the word is probably _Torr_, a mound or castle. These two names of Kinkell and Kintore—the one the name of the principal church, the other that of the thanage, or tribe territory which surrounded it—illustrate a passage in the Book of Deer, where we find mention of the burdens that fall ‘on the chief tribe residences of Scotland generally and on the chief churches’ (_Ardmandaidib_, _Ardchellaib_). The charters which follow the war of independence show very clearly the different classes by whom the thanage was occupied. In 1324 Robert the First confirms to Robert de Keith all the lands and tenements he held of the Crown _in capite_, and these include the forest of Kintore;[330] but in the following reign it appears to have been in the Crown, as David II. dates several of his charters from his manor of the forest of Kyntor;[331] but in 1407