My English class is reading Macbeth. And Shakespeare called Scottish nobles thanes(or thegns). But I thought that thane was a word brought over from Germany and Scandinavia and was purely an Anglo Saxon word, similar to earl from Scandinavian jarl. And the scots are generally labelled as a Celtic culture, not Anglo Saxon or Scandinavian.
So would a Scottish lord call himself a thane during the time period the play Macbeth take solace in (9-11 century)?
There were three titles that I know: Mormaer, Toísech, and Comes. These respectively transitioned over time to Earl, Thane, and Count. I'm not sure exactly when the Scottish made the transition, but Robert the Bruce was sometimes referred to as Mormaer of Carrick, and that was in the 14th century.