Scotland in the Early Middle Ages
Encyclopedia
Scotland in the early Middle Ages, between the end of Roman authority in southern and central Britain
from around 400 and the rise
of the kingdom of Alba
in 900, was divided into a series of petty kingdoms. Of these the four most important to emerge were the Picts
, the Scots of Dál Riata
, the Britons of Strathclyde
and the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia
. After the arrival of the Vikings in the late 8th century Scandinavian rulers and colonies were established along parts of the coasts and in the islands. In the 9th century the Scots and Picts were combined under the House of Alpin
to form a single kingdom which formed the basis of the kingdom of Scotland
.
Scotland has an extensive coastline and large areas of difficult terrain and poor agricultural land, with more probably becoming marginal due to climate change, leading to relatively light settlement, particularly in the interior and highlands
. North Britain lacked urban centres and settlements were based on farmsteads and around fortified positions such as brochs, with mixed-farming largely based on self-sufficiency. In this period changes in settlement and colonisation meant that the Pictish and Brythonic languages
began to be subsumed by Gaelic, English, and at the end of the period by Old Norse
. Life expectancy was relatively low, leading to a young population, with a ruling aristocracy, freemen and relatively large numbers of slaves. Kingship was multi-layered, with different kings surrounded by their war bands that made up the most important elements of armed forces, who engaged in both low level raiding and occasional longer range major campaigns.
One key event during the period is the expansion of Christianity
from the margins of Scotland to become the religion of many inhabitants. Initially influenced by the Celtic tradition originating from what is now Ireland, by the end of the era it had become integrated into the structures of Rome. This period produced some of the highly distinctive monumental and ornamental art, culminating in the development of the Insular art
style, common across Britain and Ireland. The period also saw the beginnings of Scottish literature
in British, Old English, Gaelic and Latin
languages.
plays an important part in studies. There are no significant contemporary internal sources for the Picts, although evidence has been gleaned from king lists and annals preserved in Wales and Ireland and from sources written down much later, which may draw on oral traditions or earlier sources. From the 7th century there is documentary evidence from Latin sources including the lives of Saints and Bede
's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Archaeological sources include settlements, art and surviving everyday objects. Other aids to understanding in this period include onomastics
(the study of names) - divided into toponymy
(place-names), showing the movement of languages, and the sequence in which different languages were spoken in an area, and anthroponymy
(personal names), which can offer clues to relationships and origins.
, who dominated most of Scotland and whose kingdoms stretched from the river Forth to Shetland. In the west were the Gaelic (Goidelic)-speaking people of Dál Riata with their royal fortress at Dunadd
in Argyll, with close links with the island of Ireland, from which they brought with them the name Scots. In the south was the British (Brythonic
) Kingdom of Strathclyde
, descendants of the peoples of the Roman influenced kingdoms of "The Old North". Finally, there were the English or "Angles", Germanic invaders who had overrun much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia
(later the northern part of Northumbria
), in the south-east, and who brought with them Old English.
and may have stretched up as far as Orkney. It probably developed out of the tribes of the Caledonii (whose name continued to be used for at least part of the confederation), perhaps as a response to the pressure exerted by the presence of the Romans to the south. They first appear in Roman records at the end of the 3rd century as the picti (the painted people: possibly a reference to their habit of tattooing their bodies) when Roman forces campaigned against them. The first identifiable king of the Picts, who seems to have exerted a superior and wide-ranging authority, was Bridei mac Maelchon
(r. c. 550-84). His power was based in the kingdom of Fidach and his base was at the fort of Craig Phadrig near modern Inverness
. After his death leadership seems to have shifted to the Fortriu
, whose lands were centred on Strathearn
and Menteith
and who raided along the eastern coast into modern England. Christian missionaries from Iona
appear to have begun the conversion of the Picts to Christianity from 563.
In the 7th century the Picts acquired Bridei map Beli
(671-693) as a king, perhaps imposed by the kingdom of Strathclyde, where his father Beli I
and then brother Eugein I
ruled. At this point the English kingdom of Bernicia was expanding northwards and the Picts were probably tributary to them until in 685 Bridei defeated them at the Battle of Dunnichen in Angus, killing their king Ecgfrith
. In the reign of Óengus mac Fergusa
(729–761) the Picts appear to have reached the heights of their influence, defeating the forces of Dál Riata, and probably making then a tributary, invading Strathclyde and Northumbria and making the first known peace treaties with the English. Succeeding Pictish kings may have been able to dominate Dál Riata, with Caustantín mac Fergusa
(793–820) perhaps placing his son Domnall on the throne from 811.
The Gaelic
overkingdom of Dál Riata was on the western coast of modern Scotland with some territory on the northern coasts of Ireland and probably ruled from the fortress of Dunadd
now near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute
. In the late 6th century and early 7th century it encompassed roughly what is now Argyll and Bute and Lochaber
in Scotland and also County Antrim
in Ireland
. Dál Riata is commonly viewed as having been an Irish Gaelic colony in Scotland, although some archaeologists have recently argued against this. The inhabitants of Dál Riata are often referred to as Scots, from Latin scotti
, a name used by Latin writers for the inhabitants of Ireland. Its original meaning is uncertain, but it later refers to Gaelic
-speakers, whether from Ireland or elsewhere.
In 563 a mission from Ireland under St. Columba founded the monastery of Iona
off the west coast of Scotland and probably began the conversion of the region to Christianity. The kingdom reached its height under Áedán mac Gabráin
(r. 574-608), but its expansion was checked at the Battle of Degsastan
in 603 by Æthelfrith of Northumbria
. Serious defeats in Ireland and Scotland in the time of Domnall Brecc
(d. 642) ended Dál Riata's Golden Age, and the kingdom became a client of Northumbria, then subject to the Picts
. There is disagreement over the fate of the kingdom from the late 8th century onwards. Some scholars have seen a revival of Dál Riata under Áed Find
(736-778), before the arrival of the Vikings.
Alt Clut, the Brythonic name for Dumbarton Rock, the medieval capital of the region, may have had its origins with the Damnonii
people of Ptolemy
's Geographia
. Two kings are known from near contemporary sources in this early period. The first is Coroticus or Ceretic
(Ceredig), known as the recipient of a letter from Saint Patrick
, and stated by a 7th century biographer to have been king of the Height of the Clyde, Dumbarton Rock, placing him in the second half of the 5th century. From Patrick's letter it is clear that Ceretic was a Christian
, and it is likely that the ruling class of the area were also Christians, at least in name. His descendant Rhydderch Hael
is named in Adomnán
's Life of Saint Columba.
After 600, information on the Britons of Alt Clut becomes more common in the sources. In 642, led by Eugein
son of Beli
, they defeated the men of Dál Riata and killed Domnall Brecc
, grandson of Áedán, at Strathcarron. The kingdom suffered a number of attacks from the Picts under Óengus and later their Northumbrian allies between 744 and 756. All of which were rebuffed, losing the region of Kyle in south-west modern Scotland to Northumbria, and the last of which may have forced the king Dumnagual III
to submit to his neighbours. After this, little is heard of Alt Clut or its kings until Alt Clut was burnt and probably destroyed in 780, although by whom and what in what circumstances is not known, and the Britons of Strathcylde burnt Dunblane
in 849.
The Anglo-Scottish border region formed part of Bernicia and eventually part of the English kingdom of Northumbria, is referred to by Welsh scholars as part of Yr Hen Ogledd
("The Old North"). It included the Bythronic kingdoms of Bryneich
, which may have had its capital at modern Bamburgh
in Northumberland, and Gododdin
, centred on Din Eidyn (perhaps what is now Edinburgh) and stretching across modern Lothian
. Some of the "Angles
" of Bernicia may have been employed as mercenaries
along Hadrian's Wall
during the late Roman
period. Others are thought to have migrated north (by sea) from Deira ( or Dere) in the early 6th century. The first English king in the historical record is Ida
, who is said to have obtained the throne and the kingdom about 547. Around 600 the Gododdin raised a force of about 300 men to assault the English stronghold of Catraeth, perhaps Catterick, North Yorkshire
. The battle, which ended disastrously for the Britons, was memorialised in the poem Y Gododdin
.
Ida’s grandson, Æthelfrith
, united Deira with his own kingdom, killing its king Æthelric to form Northumbria around the year 604. Ætherlric's son returned to rule both kingdoms after Æthelfrith had been defeated and killed by the East Anglians in 616, presumably bringing with him the Christianity to which he had converted while in exile. After his defeat and death at the hands of the Welsh and Mercians at the Battle of Hatfield Chase
on 12 October 633, Northumbria again was divided into two kingdoms under pagan kings. Oswald
(r. 634-42), (another son of Æthelfrith) defeated the Welsh and appears to have been recognised by both Bernicians and Deirans as king of a united Northumbria. He had converted to Christianity while in exile in Dál Riata and looked to Iona for missionaries, rather than to Canterbury. The Island monastery of Lindisfarne
was founded in 635 and became the seat of the Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is possible that in 638 Edinburgh fell to the English, and the Gododdin seem to have come under the rule of Bernicia around this time. After Oswald's death fighting the Mercians the two kingdoms were divided again, with Deira possibly having sub-kings under Bernician authority, but from this point the English kings were Christian and after the Synod of Whitby
in 664 the Northumbrian kings accepted the primacy of Canterbury and Rome. In the late 7th century the Northumbrians were extending their influence north of the Forth, until they were defeated by the Picts at the Battle of Dunnichen in 685.
This situation was transformed in AD 793 when ferocious Viking raids began on monasteries like Iona and Lindisfarne, creating fear and confusion across the kingdoms of North Britain. Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles eventually fell to the Norsemen. The king of Fortriu Eógan mac Óengusa
, the king of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta
were among the dead in a major defeat to the Vikings in 839. A mixture of Viking and Gaelic Irish settlement into south-west Scotland produced the Gall-Gaidel, the Norse Irish, from which the region gets the modern name Galloway
. Sometime in the 9th century the beleaguered kingdom of Dál Riata lost the Hebrides to the Vikings, when Ketil Flatnose
is said to have founded the Kingdom of the Isles
. These threats may have speeded a long term process of gaelicisation of the Pictish kingdoms, which adopted Gaelic language and customs. There was also a merger of the Gaelic and Pictish crowns, although historians debate whether it was a Pictish takeover of Dál Riata, or the other way around. This culminated in the rise of Cínaed mac Ailpín
(Kenneth MacAlpin) in the 840s, which brought to power the House of Alpin
who would be leaders of a combined Gaelic-Pictish kingdom. In AD 867 the Vikings seized Northumbria, forming the Kingdom of York; three years later they stormed the Britons’ fortress of Dumbarton and subsequently conquered much of England except for a reduced kingdom of Wessex, leaving the new combined Pictish and Gaelic kingdom almost encircled.
The immediate descendants of Cináed were styled either as King of the Picts
or King of Fortriu
. They were ousted in 878 when Áed mac Cináeda was killed by Giric mac Dúngail, but returned again on his death in 889. When Cínaed's eventual successor Domnall mac Causantín
died at Dunnottar in 900, he was the first man to be recorded as rí Alban (i.e. King of Alba). All his predecessors bore the style of either King of Dál Riata, King of the Picts
or King of Fortriu
. Such an apparent innovation in the Gaelic chronicles is occasionally taken to spell the birth of Scotland, but there is nothing extant about his reign that might confirm this. Known in Gaelic as "Alba
", in Latin as "Scotia
", and in English as "Scotland", his kingdom was the nucleus from which the Scottish kingdom would expand as the Viking influence waned, just as in the south the Kingdom of Wessex expanded to become the kingdom of England.
hill fort
s and promontory forts continuing to be occupied through the early medieval period. These often had defences of dry stone or timber laced walls, sometimes with a palisade
. The large numbers of these forts has been taken to suggest peripatetic monarchies and aristocracies, moving around their domains to control and administer them. In the Northern and Western Isles the sites of Iron Age Brochs and wheel houses continued to be occupied, but were gradually replaced with less imposing cellular houses. There are a handful of major timber halls in the south, comparable to those excavated in Anglo-Saxon England and dated to the 7th century. In the areas of Scandinavian settlement in the Islands and along the coast a lack of timber meant that native materials had to be adopted for house building, often combining layers of stone with turf.
Place-name evidence suggests that the heaviest areas of Pictish settlement were in modern Fife
, Perthshire
, Angus
, Aberdeen
and around the Moray Firth
, although later Gaelic migration may have erased some Pictish names from the record. Early Gaelic settlement appears to be in the regions of the western mainland of Scotland between Cowal
and Ardnamurchan
, and the adjacent islands, later extending up the West coast in the 8th century. There is place name and archaeological evidence of Anglian settlement in south-east Scotland reaching into West Lothian
, and to a lesser extent into south-western Scotland. Later Norse settlement was probably most extensive in Orkney and Shetland, with lighter settlement in the Western Islands, particularly the Hebrides
and on the mainland in Caithness, stretching along fertile river valleys through Sutherland
and into Ross
. There was also extensive settlement in Bernicia stretching into the modern borders and lowlands.
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This period saw dramatic changes in the geography of language. Modern linguists divide the Celtic languages into two major groups, the P-Celtic, from which Welsh
, Breton
and Cornish
derive and the Q-Celtic, from which comes Irish
, Manx
and Gaelic. The Pictish language remains enigmatic, since the Picts had no written script of their own and all that survives are place names and some isolated inscriptions in Irish ogham
script. Most modern linguists accept that, although the nature and unity of Pictish language is unclear, it belonged to the former group. Historical sources, as well as place name evidence, indicate the ways in which the Pictish language in the north and Cumbric languages in the south were overlayed and replaced by Gaelic, English
and later Norse in this period.
indicate a life expectancy of only 26-9. The known conditions have been taken to suggest it was a high fertility, high mortality society, similar to many developing countries in the modern world, with a relatively young demographic profile, and perhaps early childbearing, and large numbers of children for women. This would have meant that there were a relatively small proportion of available workers to the number of mouths to feed. This have made it difficult to produce a surplus that would allow demographic growth and more complex societies to develop.
Scattered evidence, including the records in Irish annals and the warriors like those depicted on the Pictish stone slabs at Aberlemno
, Forfarshire and Hilton of Cadboll
, in Easter Ross, suggest that in Northern Britain, as in Anglo-Saxon England, society was dominated by a military aristocracy, whose status was dependent in a large part on their ability and willingness to fight. Below the level of the aristocracy it is assumed that there were non-noble freemen, working their own small farms or holding them as free tenants. There are no surviving law codes from Scotland in this period, but such codes in Ireland and Wales indicate that freemen had the right to bear arms, represent themselves in law and to receive compensation for murdered kinsmen.
Indications are that society in North Britain contained relatively large numbers of slaves, often taken in war and raids, or bought, as St. Patrick indicated the Picts were doing from the Britons in Southern Scotland. Slavery probably reached relatively far down in society, with most rural households containing some slaves. Because they were taken relatively young and were usually racially indistinguishable from their masters, many slaves would have been more integrated into their societies of capture than their societies of origin, in terms of both culture and language. Living and working beside their owners they in practice may have become members of a household without the inconvenience of the partible inheritance rights that divided estates. Where we have better evidence from England and elsewhere it was common for such slaves who survived to middle age to gain their freedom, with such freedmen often remaining clients of the families of their former masters.
In the early medieval period British kingship was not inherited in a direct line from the previous king. Candidates for kingship usually needed to be a member of a particular dynasty and to claim descent from a particular ancestor. Kingship could be multi-layer and very fluid. The Pictish kings of Fortriu were probably acting as overlords of other Pictish kings for much of this period and occasionally were able to assert an overlordship over non-Pictish kings, but occasionally themselves had to acknowledge the overlordship of external rulers, both Anglian and British. Such relationships may have placed obligations to pay tribute or to supply armed forces. In victory they may have received rewards in return. Interaction and intermarriage into subject kingdoms may have open the way to absorption of such sub-kingdoms and, although there might be later overturnings of such annexation, it is likely that a complex process by which kingship was being gradually monopolised by a handful of the most powerful dynasties was taking place.
The primary role of the king was to act as a war leader, reflected in the very small number of minorities or female reigning monarchs in the period. Kings organised the defence of their people's lands, property and persons and negotiated with other kings to secure these things. If they failed to do so the settlements might be raided, destroyed or annexed and the populations killed or taken into slavery. Kings also engaged in the low level warfare of raiding and the more ambitious full scale warfare that led to conflicts of large armies and alliances and which could be undertaken over relatively large distances, like the expedition to Orkney by Dál Riata in 581 or the Northumbrian attack on Ireland in 684.
Kingship had its ritual aspects. The kings of Dál Riata were inaugurated by putting their foot in a footprint in stone, signifying that he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessors. The kingship of the unified kingdom of Alba had Scone and its sacred stone at the heart of its coronation ceremony, which historians presume was inherited from Pictish practice. However, it was Iona, the early centre of Scottish Christianity, that became the burial site of the kings of Scotland.
At the most basic level, a king's power rested on the existence of his bodyguard or war-band. In the British language, this was called the teulu, as in teulu Dewr (the "War-band of Deira"). In Latin the word is either comitatus or tutores, or even familia; tutores is the most common word in this period, and derives for the Latin verb tueor, meaning "defend, preserve from danger". The war-band functioned as an extension of the ruler's legal person, and was the core of the larger armies that were mobilised from time to time for campaigns of significant size. In peace-time, the war-band's activity was centred around the "Great Hall". Here, in both Germanic and Celtic cultures, the feasting, drinking and other forms of male bonding that kept up the war-band's integrity would take place. In the epic poem Beowulf
, the war-band was said to sleep in the Great Hall after the lord had retired to his adjacent bedchamber. It is not likely that any war-band in the period exceeded 120-150 men, as no hall structure having a capacity larger than this has been found by archaeologists in northern Britain.
Pictish stones, like that at Aberlemno
in Angus, show mounted and foot warriors with swords, spears, bows, helmets and shields. The large number of hill forts in Scotland may have made open battle less important than in Anglo-Saxon England and the relatively high proportion of kings who are recorded as dying in fires or drowning suggest that sieges were a more important part of warfare in Northern Britain. We also know that the Picts had relatively large numbers of ships, since the annals record that they lost 150 in a disaster in 729.
. The names of more than two hundred Celtic deities have been noted, some of which, like Lugh
, The Dagda
and The Morrigan, come from later Irish mythology, whilst others, like Teutatis, Taranis
and Cernunnos
, come from evidence from Gaul
. The Celtic pagans constructed temples and shrines to venerate these gods, something they did through votive offerings and performing sacrifices, possibly including human sacrifice
. According to Greek and Roman accounts, in Gaul, Britain and Ireland, there was a priestly caste of "magico-religious specialists" known as the druids, although very little is definitely known about them. Irish legends about the origin of the Picts and stories from the life of St. Ninian
, associate the Picts with druids. The Picts are also associated with "demon" worship and one story concerning St Columba has him exorcising a demon from a well in Pictland, suggesting that the worship of well spirits was a feature of Pictish paganism. Roman mentions of the worship of the Goddess Minerva
at wells and a Pictish stone associated with a well near Dunvegan Castle
on Skye have been taken to support this case.
The roots of Christianity in Scotland can probably be found among the soldiers and ordinary Roman citizens in the vicinity of Hadrian's Wall
. The archaeology of the Roman period indicates that the northern parts of the Roman province of Britannia
were among the most Christianised in the island. Chi-Rho inscriptions and Christian grave-slabs have been found on the wall from the 4th century, and from the same period the Mithraic shrines (known as Mithraea
) which existed along Hadrian's Wall were attacked and destroyed, presumably by Christians. After the departure of the Romans it is generally presumed that Christianity would have survived among the Bythonic enclaves such as Strathclyde, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced, with their gods Tiw
, Woden
, Thor
and Frig
, all of whom gave their names to days of the week, and Eostre
, whose name was appropriated for the spring festival of Easter. While British Christians continued to practice inhumation without grave goods, the pagan Anglo-Saxons
are visible in the archaeological record from their practice of cremation and burial in urns, accompanied by extensive grave goods, perhaps designed to accompany the dead to the afterlife. However, despite growing evidence of Anglian settlement in southern Scotland, only one such grave has been found, at Dalmeny
in East Lothian.
The growth of Christianity in Scotland would be dependent on Irish-Scots "Celtic" missionaries and to a lesser extent those from Rome and England. Celtic Christianity
had its origins in the conversion of Ireland from late Roman Britain associated with St. Patrick in the 5th century. In the 6th century missionaries from Ireland were operating on the British mainland. St Ninian is the figure associated with a monastery founded at Whithorn
in what is now Galloway, although it is generally accepted that Ninian may be a later construct. St Columba left Ireland and founded the monastery at Iona off the West Coast of Scotland in 563 and from there carried out missions to the Scots of Dál Riata and the Picts. It seems likely that the both the Scots and Picts had already begun to covert to Christianity before this period. Saint Patrick referred in a letter to "apostate Picts", suggesting that they had previously been Christian, while the poem Y Gododdin
, set in the early 6th century does not remark on the Picts as pagans
. Conversion of the Pictish élite seems likely to have run over a considerable period, beginning in the 5th century and not complete until the 7th.
One of the key indicators of Christianisation are long-cist
cemeteries who generally indicate Christianity because in they lie on an East-West orientation. Many of them are in the vicinity of a church or possess an early Christian inscription. These burials are found between the end of the Roman era and the 12th century. They are concentrated strongly in eastern Scotland south of the Tay, in Angus
, the Mearns, Lothian
and the Borders. It is generally accepted among scholars that place-name element eccles-, from the Brythonic word for church, represents evidence of the British church of the Roman and immediate post-Roman period, most of which are located in the south-west, south and east. About a dozen inscribed stones of the 5th and 6th centuries, beginning with the so-called Latinus stone of Whithorn
, dating to c. 450, indicate Christianity through their dedications and are spread across southern Scotland.
Celtic Christianity differed in some in important respects from that based on Rome, most obviously on the issues of how Easter was calculated and the method of tonsure
, but there were also differences in the rites of ordination
, baptism
and in the liturgy
. Celtic Christianity was heavily based on monasticism and monasteries differed significantly from those on the continent, and were often an isolated collection of wooden huts surrounded by a wall. Because much of the Celtic world lacked the urban centres of the Roman world, bishoprics were often attached to abbeys, and this system of organisation may have been repeated in Scotland. In the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, Irish monks established monastic institutions in parts of modern day Scotland. Monks from Iona, under St. Aidan
, then founded the See of Lindisfarne in Anglian Northumbria. The part of southern Scotland dominated by the Anglians in this period had a Bishopric established at Abercorn
in West Lothian, and it is presumed that it would have adopted the leadership of Rome after the Synod of Whitby in 663, until the Battle of Dunnichen in 685, when the Bishop and his followers were ejected. By this time the Roman system of calculating Easter and other reforms had already been adopted in much of Ireland. The Picts accepted the reforms of Rome under Nechtan mac Der-Ilei around 710. The followers of the Celtic traditions retreated to Iona and then to Innishbofin and the Western isles remained an outpost of Celtic practice for some time. Celtic Christianity continued to influence religion in England and across Europe into the late middle ages as part of the Hiberno-Scottish mission
, spreading Christianity, monasteries, art and theological ideas across the continent.
From the 5th to the mid-9th centuries the art of the Picts
is primarily known through stone sculpture, and a smaller number of pieces of metalwork, often of very high quality. After the conversion of the Picts and the cultural assimilation of Pictish culture into that of the Scots and Angles, elements of Pictish art became incorporated into the style known as Insular art
, which was common over Britain and Ireland and became highly influential in continental Europe and cotnributed to the development of Romanesque
styles.
, everyday objects such as mirrors, combs and tuning forks and abstract symbols defined by names including V-rod, double disc and Z-rod. They are found between from the Firth of Forth to Shetland. The greatest concentrations are in Sutherland, around modern Inverness and Aberdeen. Good examples include the Dunrobin
(Sutherland) and Aberlemno
stones (Angus
). Class II stones are carefully shaped slabs dating after the arrival of Christianity in the 8th and 9th centuries, with a cross on one face and a wide range of symbols on the reverse. In smaller numbers than Class I stones, they predominate in southern Pictland, in Perth, Angus and Fife. Good examples include Glamis
2, which contains a finely executed Celtic cross
on the main face with two opposing male figures, a centaur, cauldron, deer head and a triple disc symbol and Cossans, Angus, which shows a high-prowed Pictish boat with oarsmen and a figure facing forward in the prow. Class III stones are thought to overlap chronologically with Class II stones. Most are elaborately shaped and incised cross-slabs, some with figurative scenes, but lacking idiomatic Pictish symbols. They are widely distributed but predominate in the southern Pictish areas.
found at Traprain Law
may have originated in either way. The largest hoard of early Pictish metalwork was found in 1819 at Norrie's Law in Fife, but unfortunately much was dispersed and melted down. Over ten heavy silver chains, some over 0.5m long, have been found from this period; the double-linked Whitecleuch Chain
is one of only two that have a penannular ring, with symbol decoration including enamel, which shows how these were probably used as "choker" necklaces. The St Ninian's Isle
Treasure contains perhaps the best collection of Pictish forms.
, found in Ayrshire, but with elements that suggest Irish origins. These and other finds, including a trumpet spiral decorated hanging bowl disc and a stamped animal decoration (or pressblech), perhaps from a bucket or drinking horn, indicate the ways in which Dál Riata was one of the locations where the Insular style was developed. In the 8th and 9th centuries the Pictish elite adopted true penannular brooch
es with lobed terminals from Ireland. Some older Irish pseudo-penannular brooches were adapted to the Pictish style, for example the Breadalbane Brooch (British Museum). The 8th century Monymusk Reliquary
has elements of Pictish and Irish style.
Insular art, or Hiberno-Saxon art, is the name given to the common style produced in Scotland, Britain and Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th century, with the combining of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon forms. Surviving examples of Insular art are found in metalwork, carving, but mainly in illuminated manuscript
s. Surfaces are highly decorated with intricate patterning, with no attempt to give an impression of depth, volume or recession. The best examples include the Book of Kells
, Lindisfarne Gospels
, Book of Durrow
. Carpet pages are a characteristic feature of Insular manuscripts, although historiated initial
s (an Insular invention), canon tables and figurative miniatures, especially Evangelist portrait
s, are also common. The finest era of the style was brought to an end by the disruption to monastic centres and aristocratic life of the Viking raids in the late 8th century. The influence of Insular art affected all subsequent European medieval art, especially in the decorative elements of Romanesque and Gothic
manuscripts.
, considered the earliest surviving verse from Scotland, which is attributed to the bard
Aneirin
, said to have been resident in Gododdin in the 6th century, and the Battle of Gwen Ystrad attributed to Taliesin
, traditionally thought to be a bard at the court of Rheged in roughly the same period. There are also religious works in Gaelic including the Elegy for St Columba by Dallan Forgaill, c. 597 and "In Praise of St Columba" by Beccan mac Luigdech of Rum, c. 677. In Latin they include a "Prayer for Protection" (attributed to St Mugint), c. mid-6th century and Altus Prosator ("The High Creator", attributed to St Columba), c. 597. In Old English there is The Dream of the Rood
, from which lines are found on the Ruthwell Cross
, making it the only surviving fragment of Northumbrian
Old English from early Medieval Scotland.
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
from around 400 and the rise
Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
The Origins of the Kingdom of Alba pertains to the origins of the Kingdom of Alba, or the Gaelic Kingdom of Scotland, either as a mythological event or a historical process, during the Early Middle Ages.-Medieval version:...
of the kingdom of Alba
Kingdom of Alba
The name Kingdom of Alba pertains to the Kingdom of Scotland between the deaths of Donald II in 900, and of Alexander III in 1286 which then led indirectly to the Scottish Wars of Independence...
in 900, was divided into a series of petty kingdoms. Of these the four most important to emerge were the Picts
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
, the Scots of Dál Riata
Dál Riata
Dál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...
, the Britons of Strathclyde
Kingdom of Strathclyde
Strathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
and the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....
. After the arrival of the Vikings in the late 8th century Scandinavian rulers and colonies were established along parts of the coasts and in the islands. In the 9th century the Scots and Picts were combined under the House of Alpin
House of Alpin
The House of Alpin is the name given to the kin-group which ruled in Pictland and then the kingdom of Alba from the advent of Cináed mac Ailpín in the 840s until the death of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda in 1034....
to form a single kingdom which formed the basis of the kingdom of Scotland
Kingdom of Scotland
The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...
.
Scotland has an extensive coastline and large areas of difficult terrain and poor agricultural land, with more probably becoming marginal due to climate change, leading to relatively light settlement, particularly in the interior and highlands
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
. North Britain lacked urban centres and settlements were based on farmsteads and around fortified positions such as brochs, with mixed-farming largely based on self-sufficiency. In this period changes in settlement and colonisation meant that the Pictish and Brythonic languages
Brythonic languages
The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...
began to be subsumed by Gaelic, English, and at the end of the period by Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
. Life expectancy was relatively low, leading to a young population, with a ruling aristocracy, freemen and relatively large numbers of slaves. Kingship was multi-layered, with different kings surrounded by their war bands that made up the most important elements of armed forces, who engaged in both low level raiding and occasional longer range major campaigns.
One key event during the period is the expansion of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
from the margins of Scotland to become the religion of many inhabitants. Initially influenced by the Celtic tradition originating from what is now Ireland, by the end of the era it had become integrated into the structures of Rome. This period produced some of the highly distinctive monumental and ornamental art, culminating in the development of the Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...
style, common across Britain and Ireland. The period also saw the beginnings of Scottish literature
Scottish literature
Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers. It includes literature written in English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Brythonic, French, Latin and any other language in which a piece of literature was ever written within the boundaries of modern Scotland.The earliest...
in British, Old English, Gaelic and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
languages.
Sources
As the first half of the period is largely prehistoric, archaeologyArchaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
plays an important part in studies. There are no significant contemporary internal sources for the Picts, although evidence has been gleaned from king lists and annals preserved in Wales and Ireland and from sources written down much later, which may draw on oral traditions or earlier sources. From the 7th century there is documentary evidence from Latin sources including the lives of Saints and Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Archaeological sources include settlements, art and surviving everyday objects. Other aids to understanding in this period include onomastics
Onomastics
Onomastics or onomatology is the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names. The words are from the Greek: "ὀνομαστικός" , "of or belonging to naming" and "ὀνοματολογία" , from "ὄνομα" "name". Toponymy or toponomastics, the study of place names, is one of the principal branches of...
(the study of names) - divided into toponymy
Toponymy
Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...
(place-names), showing the movement of languages, and the sequence in which different languages were spoken in an area, and anthroponymy
Anthroponymy
Anthroponomastics , a branch of onomastics, is the study of anthroponyms Anthroponomastics (or anthroponymy), a branch of onomastics, is the study of anthroponyms Anthroponomastics (or anthroponymy), a branch of onomastics, is the study of anthroponyms (Anthroponomastics (or anthroponymy), a branch...
(personal names), which can offer clues to relationships and origins.
History
By the time of Bede and Adomnan four major circles of influence had emerged. In the east were the PictsPicts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
, who dominated most of Scotland and whose kingdoms stretched from the river Forth to Shetland. In the west were the Gaelic (Goidelic)-speaking people of Dál Riata with their royal fortress at Dunadd
Dunadd
Dunadd, , is an Iron Age and later hillfort near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute, Scotland and believed to be the capital of the ancient kingdom of Dál Riata.-Description:...
in Argyll, with close links with the island of Ireland, from which they brought with them the name Scots. In the south was the British (Brythonic
Britons (historical)
The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...
) Kingdom of Strathclyde
Kingdom of Strathclyde
Strathclyde , originally Brythonic Ystrad Clud, was one of the early medieval kingdoms of the celtic people called the Britons in the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking parts of what is now southern Scotland and northern England. The kingdom developed during the post-Roman period...
, descendants of the peoples of the Roman influenced kingdoms of "The Old North". Finally, there were the English or "Angles", Germanic invaders who had overrun much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....
(later the northern part of Northumbria
Northumbria
Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...
), in the south-east, and who brought with them Old English.
The Picts
The confederation of Pictish tribes that developed north of the Firth of ForthFirth of Forth
The Firth of Forth is the estuary or firth of Scotland's River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea, between Fife to the north, and West Lothian, the City of Edinburgh and East Lothian to the south...
and may have stretched up as far as Orkney. It probably developed out of the tribes of the Caledonii (whose name continued to be used for at least part of the confederation), perhaps as a response to the pressure exerted by the presence of the Romans to the south. They first appear in Roman records at the end of the 3rd century as the picti (the painted people: possibly a reference to their habit of tattooing their bodies) when Roman forces campaigned against them. The first identifiable king of the Picts, who seems to have exerted a superior and wide-ranging authority, was Bridei mac Maelchon
Bridei I of the Picts
Bridei son of Maelchon, was king of the Picts until his death around 584 to 586.Bridei is first mentioned in Irish annals for 558–560, when the Annals of Ulster report "the migration before Máelchú's son i.e. king Bruide". The Ulster annalist does not say who fled, but the later Annals of...
(r. c. 550-84). His power was based in the kingdom of Fidach and his base was at the fort of Craig Phadrig near modern Inverness
Inverness
Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands of Scotland...
. After his death leadership seems to have shifted to the Fortriu
Fortriu
Fortriu or the Kingdom of Fortriu is the name given by historians for an ancient Pictish kingdom, and often used synonymously with Pictland in general...
, whose lands were centred on Strathearn
Strathearn
Strathearn or Strath Earn is the strath of the River Earn, in Scotland. It extends from Loch Earn in Perth and Kinross to the River Tay....
and Menteith
Menteith
Menteith or Monteith , a district of south Perthshire, Scotland, roughly comprises the territory between the Teith and the Forth. The region is named for the river Teith, but the exact sense is unclear, early forms including Meneted, Maneteth and Meneteth.First recorded as the Mormaerdom of...
and who raided along the eastern coast into modern England. Christian missionaries from Iona
Iona
Iona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
appear to have begun the conversion of the Picts to Christianity from 563.
In the 7th century the Picts acquired Bridei map Beli
Bridei III of the Picts
King Bridei III was king of Fortriu and overking of the Picts between 671 and his death in 693....
(671-693) as a king, perhaps imposed by the kingdom of Strathclyde, where his father Beli I
Beli I of Alt Clut
Beli I was a ruler of Alt Clut , the Brythonic kingdom later known as Strathclyde, some time in the 7th century. Very little is known of him, but his family appears to have been very well connected in northern Britain....
and then brother Eugein I
Eugein I of Alt Clut
Eugein I was a ruler of Alt Clut , the kingdom later known as Strathclyde, sometime in the mid-7th century. According to the Harleian genealogies, he was the son of Beli I, presumably his predecessor as king, and the father of Elfin, who ruled sometime later...
ruled. At this point the English kingdom of Bernicia was expanding northwards and the Picts were probably tributary to them until in 685 Bridei defeated them at the Battle of Dunnichen in Angus, killing their king Ecgfrith
Ecgfrith of Northumbria
King Ecgfrith was the King of Northumbria from 670 until his death. He ruled over Northumbria when it was at the height of its power, but his reign ended with a disastrous defeat in which he lost his life.-Early life:...
. In the reign of Óengus mac Fergusa
Óengus I of the Picts
Óengus son of Fergus , was king of the Picts from 732 until his death in 761. His reign can be reconstructed in some detail from a variety of sources.Óengus became the chief king in Pictland following a period of civil war in the late 720s...
(729–761) the Picts appear to have reached the heights of their influence, defeating the forces of Dál Riata, and probably making then a tributary, invading Strathclyde and Northumbria and making the first known peace treaties with the English. Succeeding Pictish kings may have been able to dominate Dál Riata, with Caustantín mac Fergusa
Caustantín of the Picts
Causantín or Constantín mac Fergusa was king of the Picts , in modern Scotland, from 789 until 820. He was until the Victorian era sometimes counted as Constantine I of Scotland; the title is now generally given to Causantín mac Cináeda...
(793–820) perhaps placing his son Domnall on the throne from 811.
Dál Riata
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
overkingdom of Dál Riata was on the western coast of modern Scotland with some territory on the northern coasts of Ireland and probably ruled from the fortress of Dunadd
Dunadd
Dunadd, , is an Iron Age and later hillfort near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute, Scotland and believed to be the capital of the ancient kingdom of Dál Riata.-Description:...
now near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute
Argyll and Bute
Argyll and Bute is both one of 32 unitary council areas; and a Lieutenancy area in Scotland. The administrative centre for the council area is located in Lochgilphead.Argyll and Bute covers the second largest administrative area of any Scottish council...
. In the late 6th century and early 7th century it encompassed roughly what is now Argyll and Bute and Lochaber
Lochaber
District of Lochaber 1975 to 1996Highland council area shown as one of the council areas of ScotlandLochaber is one of the 16 ward management areas of the Highland Council of Scotland and one of eight former local government districts of the two-tier Highland region...
in Scotland and also County Antrim
County Antrim
County Antrim is one of six counties that form Northern Ireland, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,844 km², with a population of approximately 616,000...
in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. Dál Riata is commonly viewed as having been an Irish Gaelic colony in Scotland, although some archaeologists have recently argued against this. The inhabitants of Dál Riata are often referred to as Scots, from Latin scotti
Scoti
Scoti or Scotti was the generic name used by the Romans to describe those who sailed from Ireland to conduct raids on Roman Britain. It was thus synonymous with the modern term Gaels...
, a name used by Latin writers for the inhabitants of Ireland. Its original meaning is uncertain, but it later refers to Gaelic
Middle Irish language
Middle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...
-speakers, whether from Ireland or elsewhere.
In 563 a mission from Ireland under St. Columba founded the monastery of Iona
Iona
Iona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
off the west coast of Scotland and probably began the conversion of the region to Christianity. The kingdom reached its height under Áedán mac Gabráin
Áedán mac Gabráin
Áedán mac Gabráin was a king of Dál Riata from circa 574 until his death, perhaps on 17 April 609. The kingdom of Dál Riata was situated in modern Argyll and Bute, Scotland, and parts of County Antrim, Ireland...
(r. 574-608), but its expansion was checked at the Battle of Degsastan
Battle of Degsastan
The Battle of Degsastan was fought c. 603 between king Æthelfrith of Bernicia and the Gaels under Áedán mac Gabráin, king of Dál Riada. Æthelfrith carried the day, winning a decisive victory, although his brother Theodbald was killed. We know almost nothing else about the battle, not even where...
in 603 by Æthelfrith of Northumbria
Æthelfrith of Northumbria
Æthelfrith was King of Bernicia from c. 593 until c. 616; he was also, beginning c. 604, the first Bernician king to also rule Deira, to the south of Bernicia. Since Deira and Bernicia were the two basic components of what would later be defined as Northumbria, Æthelfrith can be considered, in...
. Serious defeats in Ireland and Scotland in the time of Domnall Brecc
Domnall Brecc
Domnall Brecc was king of Dál Riata, in modern Scotland, from about 629 until 642...
(d. 642) ended Dál Riata's Golden Age, and the kingdom became a client of Northumbria, then subject to the Picts
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
. There is disagreement over the fate of the kingdom from the late 8th century onwards. Some scholars have seen a revival of Dál Riata under Áed Find
Áed Find
Áed Find or Áed mac Echdach was king of Dál Riata . Áed was the son of Eochaid mac Echdach, a descendant of Domnall Brecc in the main line of Cenél nGabráin kings....
(736-778), before the arrival of the Vikings.
Alt Clut
Damnonii
The Damnonii were a people of the late 2nd century who lived in what is now southern Scotland. They are mentioned briefly in Ptolemy's Geography, where he uses both of the terms "Damnonii" and "Damnii" to describe them, and there is no other historical record of them. Their cultural and...
people of Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
's Geographia
Geographia (Ptolemy)
The Geography is Ptolemy's main work besides the Almagest...
. Two kings are known from near contemporary sources in this early period. The first is Coroticus or Ceretic
Ceretic of Alt Clut
Ceretic Guletic of Alt Clut was a king of Alt Clut in the 5th century. He has been identified with Coroticus, a Britonnic warrior addressed in a letter by Saint Patrick. Of Patrick's two surviving letters, one is addressed to the warband of this Coroticus...
(Ceredig), known as the recipient of a letter from Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland, although Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints....
, and stated by a 7th century biographer to have been king of the Height of the Clyde, Dumbarton Rock, placing him in the second half of the 5th century. From Patrick's letter it is clear that Ceretic was a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, and it is likely that the ruling class of the area were also Christians, at least in name. His descendant Rhydderch Hael
Riderch I of Alt Clut
Riderch I , commonly known as Riderch or Rhydderch Hael , was a ruler of Alt Clut and the greater region later known as Strathclyde, a Brittonic kingdom that existed on the valley of the River Clyde in Scotland during the British Sub-Roman period...
is named in Adomnán
Adomnán of Iona
Saint Adomnán of Iona was abbot of Iona , hagiographer, statesman and clerical lawyer; he was the author of the most important Vita of Saint Columba and promulgator of the "Law of Innocents", lex innocentium, also called Cáin Adomnáin, "Law of Adomnán"...
's Life of Saint Columba.
After 600, information on the Britons of Alt Clut becomes more common in the sources. In 642, led by Eugein
Eugein I of Alt Clut
Eugein I was a ruler of Alt Clut , the kingdom later known as Strathclyde, sometime in the mid-7th century. According to the Harleian genealogies, he was the son of Beli I, presumably his predecessor as king, and the father of Elfin, who ruled sometime later...
son of Beli
Beli I of Alt Clut
Beli I was a ruler of Alt Clut , the Brythonic kingdom later known as Strathclyde, some time in the 7th century. Very little is known of him, but his family appears to have been very well connected in northern Britain....
, they defeated the men of Dál Riata and killed Domnall Brecc
Domnall Brecc
Domnall Brecc was king of Dál Riata, in modern Scotland, from about 629 until 642...
, grandson of Áedán, at Strathcarron. The kingdom suffered a number of attacks from the Picts under Óengus and later their Northumbrian allies between 744 and 756. All of which were rebuffed, losing the region of Kyle in south-west modern Scotland to Northumbria, and the last of which may have forced the king Dumnagual III
Dumnagual III of Alt Clut
Dumnagual III was the ruler of Alt Clut, later known as Strathclyde , for some time in the mid-eighth century . According to the Harleian genealogies, he was the son of Teudebur, one of his predecessors as king...
to submit to his neighbours. After this, little is heard of Alt Clut or its kings until Alt Clut was burnt and probably destroyed in 780, although by whom and what in what circumstances is not known, and the Britons of Strathcylde burnt Dunblane
Dunblane
Dunblane is a small cathedral city and former burgh north of Stirling in the Stirling council area of Scotland. The town is situated off the A9 road, on the way north to Perth. Its main landmark is Dunblane Cathedral and the Allan Water runs through the town centre, with the Cathedral and the High...
in 849.
Bernicia
Hen Ogledd
Yr Hen Ogledd is a Welsh term used by scholars to refer to those parts of what is now northern England and southern Scotland in the years between 500 and the Viking invasions of c. 800, with particular interest in the Brythonic-speaking peoples who lived there.The term is derived from heroic...
("The Old North"). It included the Bythronic kingdoms of Bryneich
Bernicia
Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....
, which may have had its capital at modern Bamburgh
Bamburgh
Bamburgh is a large village and civil parish on the coast of Northumberland, England. It has a population of 454.It is notable for two reasons: the imposing Bamburgh Castle, overlooking the beach, seat of the former Kings of Northumbria, and at present owned by the Armstrong family ; and its...
in Northumberland, and Gododdin
Gododdin
The Gododdin were a Brittonic people of north-eastern Britain in the sub-Roman period, the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North...
, centred on Din Eidyn (perhaps what is now Edinburgh) and stretching across modern Lothian
Lothian
Lothian forms a traditional region of Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills....
. Some of the "Angles
Angles
The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...
" of Bernicia may have been employed as mercenaries
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
along Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
during the late Roman
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
period. Others are thought to have migrated north (by sea) from Deira ( or Dere) in the early 6th century. The first English king in the historical record is Ida
Ida of Bernicia
Ida is the first known king of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, which he ruled from around 547 until his death in 559. Little is known of his life or reign, but he was regarded as the founder of a line from which later Anglo-Saxon kings in this part of northern England and southern Scotland...
, who is said to have obtained the throne and the kingdom about 547. Around 600 the Gododdin raised a force of about 300 men to assault the English stronghold of Catraeth, perhaps Catterick, North Yorkshire
Catterick, North Yorkshire
Catterick , sometimes Catterick Village, to distinguish it from the nearby Catterick Garrison, is a village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England...
. The battle, which ended disastrously for the Britons, was memorialised in the poem Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Britonnic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth...
.
Ida’s grandson, Æthelfrith
Æthelfrith of Northumbria
Æthelfrith was King of Bernicia from c. 593 until c. 616; he was also, beginning c. 604, the first Bernician king to also rule Deira, to the south of Bernicia. Since Deira and Bernicia were the two basic components of what would later be defined as Northumbria, Æthelfrith can be considered, in...
, united Deira with his own kingdom, killing its king Æthelric to form Northumbria around the year 604. Ætherlric's son returned to rule both kingdoms after Æthelfrith had been defeated and killed by the East Anglians in 616, presumably bringing with him the Christianity to which he had converted while in exile. After his defeat and death at the hands of the Welsh and Mercians at the Battle of Hatfield Chase
Battle of Hatfield Chase
The Battle of Hatfield Chase was fought on October 12, 633 at Hatfield Chase near Doncaster, Yorkshire, in Anglo-Saxon England between the Northumbrians under Edwin and an alliance of the Welsh of Gwynedd under Cadwallon ap Cadfan and the Mercians under Penda. The site was a marshy area about 8...
on 12 October 633, Northumbria again was divided into two kingdoms under pagan kings. Oswald
Oswald of Northumbria
Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is now venerated as a Christian saint.Oswald was the son of Æthelfrith of Bernicia and came to rule after spending a period in exile; after defeating the British ruler Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Oswald brought the two Northumbrian kingdoms of...
(r. 634-42), (another son of Æthelfrith) defeated the Welsh and appears to have been recognised by both Bernicians and Deirans as king of a united Northumbria. He had converted to Christianity while in exile in Dál Riata and looked to Iona for missionaries, rather than to Canterbury. The Island monastery of Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne is a tidal island off the north-east coast of England. It is also known as Holy Island and constitutes a civil parish in Northumberland...
was founded in 635 and became the seat of the Bishop of Lindisfarne. It is possible that in 638 Edinburgh fell to the English, and the Gododdin seem to have come under the rule of Bernicia around this time. After Oswald's death fighting the Mercians the two kingdoms were divided again, with Deira possibly having sub-kings under Bernician authority, but from this point the English kings were Christian and after the Synod of Whitby
Synod of Whitby
The Synod of Whitby was a seventh century Northumbriansynod where King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome, rather than the customs practised by Iona and its satellite institutions...
in 664 the Northumbrian kings accepted the primacy of Canterbury and Rome. In the late 7th century the Northumbrians were extending their influence north of the Forth, until they were defeated by the Picts at the Battle of Dunnichen in 685.
The Vikings and the Kingdom of Alba
Uen of the Picts
Uuen [Wen] or Eogán in Gaelic was king of the Picts, or of Fortriu , in what is now Scotland....
, the king of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta
Áed mac Boanta
Áed mac Boanta is believed to have been a king of Dál Riata.The only reference to Áed in the Irish annals is found in the Annals of Ulster, where it is recorded that "Eóganán mac Óengusa, Bran mac Óengusa, Áed mac Boanta, and others almost innumerable" in a battle fought by the men of Fortriu...
were among the dead in a major defeat to the Vikings in 839. A mixture of Viking and Gaelic Irish settlement into south-west Scotland produced the Gall-Gaidel, the Norse Irish, from which the region gets the modern name Galloway
Galloway
Galloway is an area in southwestern Scotland. It usually refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire...
. Sometime in the 9th century the beleaguered kingdom of Dál Riata lost the Hebrides to the Vikings, when Ketil Flatnose
Ketil Flatnose
Ketill Bjǫrnsson, nicknamed Flatnose , was a Norwegian hersir of the 9th century.-Biography:Ketill Bjǫrnsson was the son of Bjorn Grimmson. He was from Romsdal , a valley in the county of Møre og Romsdal, between Nordmøre and Sunnmøre...
is said to have founded the Kingdom of the Isles
Kingdom of the Isles
The Kingdom of the Isles comprised the Hebrides, the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Man from the 9th to the 13th centuries AD. The islands were known to the Norse as the Suðreyjar, or "Southern Isles" as distinct from the Norðreyjar or Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland...
. These threats may have speeded a long term process of gaelicisation of the Pictish kingdoms, which adopted Gaelic language and customs. There was also a merger of the Gaelic and Pictish crowns, although historians debate whether it was a Pictish takeover of Dál Riata, or the other way around. This culminated in the rise of Cínaed mac Ailpín
Kenneth I of Scotland
Cináed mac Ailpín , commonly Anglicised as Kenneth MacAlpin and known in most modern regnal lists as Kenneth I was king of the Picts and, according to national myth, first king of Scots, earning him the posthumous nickname of An Ferbasach, "The Conqueror"...
(Kenneth MacAlpin) in the 840s, which brought to power the House of Alpin
House of Alpin
The House of Alpin is the name given to the kin-group which ruled in Pictland and then the kingdom of Alba from the advent of Cináed mac Ailpín in the 840s until the death of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda in 1034....
who would be leaders of a combined Gaelic-Pictish kingdom. In AD 867 the Vikings seized Northumbria, forming the Kingdom of York; three years later they stormed the Britons’ fortress of Dumbarton and subsequently conquered much of England except for a reduced kingdom of Wessex, leaving the new combined Pictish and Gaelic kingdom almost encircled.
The immediate descendants of Cináed were styled either as King of the Picts
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
or King of Fortriu
Fortriu
Fortriu or the Kingdom of Fortriu is the name given by historians for an ancient Pictish kingdom, and often used synonymously with Pictland in general...
. They were ousted in 878 when Áed mac Cináeda was killed by Giric mac Dúngail, but returned again on his death in 889. When Cínaed's eventual successor Domnall mac Causantín
Donald II of Scotland
Domnall mac Causantín , anglicised as Donald II was King of the Picts or King of Scotland in the late 9th century. He was the son of Constantine I...
died at Dunnottar in 900, he was the first man to be recorded as rí Alban (i.e. King of Alba). All his predecessors bore the style of either King of Dál Riata, King of the Picts
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
or King of Fortriu
Fortriu
Fortriu or the Kingdom of Fortriu is the name given by historians for an ancient Pictish kingdom, and often used synonymously with Pictland in general...
. Such an apparent innovation in the Gaelic chronicles is occasionally taken to spell the birth of Scotland, but there is nothing extant about his reign that might confirm this. Known in Gaelic as "Alba
Alba
Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...
", in Latin as "Scotia
Scotia
Scotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba...
", and in English as "Scotland", his kingdom was the nucleus from which the Scottish kingdom would expand as the Viking influence waned, just as in the south the Kingdom of Wessex expanded to become the kingdom of England.
Physical geography
Modern Scotland is half the size England and Wales in area, but with its many inlets, islands and inland lochs, it has roughly the same amount of coastline at 4,000 miles. Only a fifth of Scotland is under 60 metres above sea level. Its east Atlantic position means that it has very heavy rainfall: today about 700 cm per year in the east and over 1,000 cm in the west. This encouraged the spread of blanket peat bog, the acidity of which, combined with high level of wind and salt spray, made most of the islands treeless. The existence of hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made internal communication and conquest extremely difficult and may have contributed to the fragmented nature of political power. The early middle ages was a period of climate deterioration, with a drop in temperature and an increase in rainfall, resulting in more land becoming unproductive.Settlement
Roman influence beyond Hadrian's wall does not appear to have had a major impact on settlement patterns, with iron ageIron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
hill fort
Hill fort
A hill fort is a type of earthworks used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Some were used in the post-Roman period...
s and promontory forts continuing to be occupied through the early medieval period. These often had defences of dry stone or timber laced walls, sometimes with a palisade
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
. The large numbers of these forts has been taken to suggest peripatetic monarchies and aristocracies, moving around their domains to control and administer them. In the Northern and Western Isles the sites of Iron Age Brochs and wheel houses continued to be occupied, but were gradually replaced with less imposing cellular houses. There are a handful of major timber halls in the south, comparable to those excavated in Anglo-Saxon England and dated to the 7th century. In the areas of Scandinavian settlement in the Islands and along the coast a lack of timber meant that native materials had to be adopted for house building, often combining layers of stone with turf.
Place-name evidence suggests that the heaviest areas of Pictish settlement were in modern Fife
Fife
Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
, Perthshire
Perthshire
Perthshire, officially the County of Perth , is a registration county in central Scotland. It extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south...
, Angus
Angus
Angus is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross and Dundee City...
, Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
and around the Moray Firth
Moray Firth
The Moray Firth is a roughly triangular inlet of the North Sea, north and east of Inverness, which is in the Highland council area of north of Scotland...
, although later Gaelic migration may have erased some Pictish names from the record. Early Gaelic settlement appears to be in the regions of the western mainland of Scotland between Cowal
Cowal
thumb|Cowal shown within ArgyllCowal is a peninsula in Argyll and Bute in the Scottish Highlands.-Description:The northern part of Cowal is mostly the mountainous Argyll Forest Park. Cowal is separated from the Kintyre peninsula to the west by Loch Fyne, and from Inverclyde and North Ayrshire to...
and Ardnamurchan
Ardnamurchan
Ardnamurchan is a peninsula in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, noted for being very unspoilt and undisturbed. Its remoteness is accentuated by the main access route being a single track road for much of its length.-Geography:...
, and the adjacent islands, later extending up the West coast in the 8th century. There is place name and archaeological evidence of Anglian settlement in south-east Scotland reaching into West Lothian
West Lothian
West Lothian is one of the 32 unitary council areas in Scotland, and a Lieutenancy area. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Falkirk, North Lanarkshire, the Scottish Borders and South Lanarkshire....
, and to a lesser extent into south-western Scotland. Later Norse settlement was probably most extensive in Orkney and Shetland, with lighter settlement in the Western Islands, particularly the Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
and on the mainland in Caithness, stretching along fertile river valleys through Sutherland
Sutherland
Sutherland is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic administrative county of Scotland. It is now within the Highland local government area. In Gaelic the area is referred to according to its traditional areas: Dùthaich 'IcAoidh , Asainte , and Cataibh...
and into Ross
Ross
Ross is a region of Scotland and a former mormaerdom, earldom, sheriffdom and county. The name Ross allegedly derives from a Gaelic word meaning a headland - perhaps a reference to the Black Isle. The Norse word for Orkney - Hrossay meaning horse island - is another possible origin. The area...
. There was also extensive settlement in Bernicia stretching into the modern borders and lowlands.
Language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
and Cornish
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...
derive and the Q-Celtic, from which comes Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
, Manx
Manx language
Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, and as the Manks language, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, historically spoken by the Manx people. Only a small minority of the Island's population is fluent in the language, but a larger minority has some knowledge of it...
and Gaelic. The Pictish language remains enigmatic, since the Picts had no written script of their own and all that survives are place names and some isolated inscriptions in Irish ogham
Ogham
Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language. Ogham is sometimes called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing names of trees to the individual letters.There are roughly...
script. Most modern linguists accept that, although the nature and unity of Pictish language is unclear, it belonged to the former group. Historical sources, as well as place name evidence, indicate the ways in which the Pictish language in the north and Cumbric languages in the south were overlayed and replaced by Gaelic, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and later Norse in this period.
Economy
Lacking the urban centres created under the Romans in the rest of Britain, the economy of Scotland in the early middle ages was overwhelmingly agricultural. With a lack of significant transport links and wider, markets most farms had to produce a self-sufficient diet of meat, dairy products and cereals, supplemented by hunter-gathering. Limited archaeological evidence indicates that throughout Northern Britain farming was based around a single homestead or a small cluster of three or four homes, each probably containing a nuclear family, with relationships likely to be common among neighbouring houses and settlements, reflecting the partition of land through inheritance. Farming became based around a system that distinguished between the infield around the settlement, where crops were grown every year and the outfield, further away and where crops were grown and then left fallow in different years, in a system that would continue until the 18th century. The evidence of bones indicates that cattle were by far the most important domesticated animal, followed by pigs, sheep and goats, while domesticated fowl were very rare. Imported goods found in archaeological sites of the period include ceramics and glass, while many sites indicate iron and precious metal working.Demography
There are almost no written sources from which to re-construct the demography of early medieval Scotland. Estimates have been made of a population of 10,000 inhabitants in Dál Riata and 80-100,000 for Pictland. It is likely that the 5th and 6th centuries saw higher mortality rates due to the appearance of bubonic plague, which may have reduced net population. The examination of burial sites like that at Hallowhill, St AndrewsSt Andrews
St Andrews is a university town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle.St Andrews has a population of 16,680, making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....
indicate a life expectancy of only 26-9. The known conditions have been taken to suggest it was a high fertility, high mortality society, similar to many developing countries in the modern world, with a relatively young demographic profile, and perhaps early childbearing, and large numbers of children for women. This would have meant that there were a relatively small proportion of available workers to the number of mouths to feed. This have made it difficult to produce a surplus that would allow demographic growth and more complex societies to develop.
Society
The primary unit of social organisation in Germanic and Celtic Europe was the kin group. The mention of descent through the female line in the ruling families of the Picts in later sources and the recurrence of leaders clearly from outside of Pictish society, has led to the conclusion that their system of descent was matrilineal. However, this has been challenged by a number of historians who argue that the clear evidence of awareness of descent through the male line suggests that this more likely to indicate a bilateral system of descent.Scattered evidence, including the records in Irish annals and the warriors like those depicted on the Pictish stone slabs at Aberlemno
Aberlemno
Aberlemno is a parish and small village in the Scottish council area of Angus. It is noted for three large carved Pictish stones dating from the 7th and 8th centuries AD ; the stones can be viewed at any time in spring-autumn, but are covered by wooden boxes in the winter to prevent frost damage...
, Forfarshire and Hilton of Cadboll
Hilton of Cadboll
Hilton of Cadboll, or simply Hilton, is a village about southeast of Tain in Easter Ross, is in the Scottish council area of Highland It is famous for the Hilton of Cadboll Stone....
, in Easter Ross, suggest that in Northern Britain, as in Anglo-Saxon England, society was dominated by a military aristocracy, whose status was dependent in a large part on their ability and willingness to fight. Below the level of the aristocracy it is assumed that there were non-noble freemen, working their own small farms or holding them as free tenants. There are no surviving law codes from Scotland in this period, but such codes in Ireland and Wales indicate that freemen had the right to bear arms, represent themselves in law and to receive compensation for murdered kinsmen.
Indications are that society in North Britain contained relatively large numbers of slaves, often taken in war and raids, or bought, as St. Patrick indicated the Picts were doing from the Britons in Southern Scotland. Slavery probably reached relatively far down in society, with most rural households containing some slaves. Because they were taken relatively young and were usually racially indistinguishable from their masters, many slaves would have been more integrated into their societies of capture than their societies of origin, in terms of both culture and language. Living and working beside their owners they in practice may have become members of a household without the inconvenience of the partible inheritance rights that divided estates. Where we have better evidence from England and elsewhere it was common for such slaves who survived to middle age to gain their freedom, with such freedmen often remaining clients of the families of their former masters.
Kingship
The primary role of the king was to act as a war leader, reflected in the very small number of minorities or female reigning monarchs in the period. Kings organised the defence of their people's lands, property and persons and negotiated with other kings to secure these things. If they failed to do so the settlements might be raided, destroyed or annexed and the populations killed or taken into slavery. Kings also engaged in the low level warfare of raiding and the more ambitious full scale warfare that led to conflicts of large armies and alliances and which could be undertaken over relatively large distances, like the expedition to Orkney by Dál Riata in 581 or the Northumbrian attack on Ireland in 684.
Kingship had its ritual aspects. The kings of Dál Riata were inaugurated by putting their foot in a footprint in stone, signifying that he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessors. The kingship of the unified kingdom of Alba had Scone and its sacred stone at the heart of its coronation ceremony, which historians presume was inherited from Pictish practice. However, it was Iona, the early centre of Scottish Christianity, that became the burial site of the kings of Scotland.
Warfare
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, the war-band was said to sleep in the Great Hall after the lord had retired to his adjacent bedchamber. It is not likely that any war-band in the period exceeded 120-150 men, as no hall structure having a capacity larger than this has been found by archaeologists in northern Britain.
Pictish stones, like that at Aberlemno
Aberlemno
Aberlemno is a parish and small village in the Scottish council area of Angus. It is noted for three large carved Pictish stones dating from the 7th and 8th centuries AD ; the stones can be viewed at any time in spring-autumn, but are covered by wooden boxes in the winter to prevent frost damage...
in Angus, show mounted and foot warriors with swords, spears, bows, helmets and shields. The large number of hill forts in Scotland may have made open battle less important than in Anglo-Saxon England and the relatively high proportion of kings who are recorded as dying in fires or drowning suggest that sieges were a more important part of warfare in Northern Britain. We also know that the Picts had relatively large numbers of ships, since the annals record that they lost 150 in a disaster in 729.
Pre-Christian religion
Very little is known about religion in Scotland before the arrival of Christianity. The lack of native written sources among the Picts means that it can only be judged from parallels elsewhere, occasional surviving archaeological evidence and hostile accounts of later Christian writers. It is generally presumed to have resembled Celtic polytheismCeltic polytheism
Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era, and in the case of the Insular Celts...
. The names of more than two hundred Celtic deities have been noted, some of which, like Lugh
Lugh
Lug or Lugh is an Irish deity represented in mythological texts as a hero and High King of the distant past. He is known by the epithets Lámhfhada , for his skill with a spear or sling, Ildánach , Samhildánach , Lonnbeimnech and Macnia , and by the...
, The Dagda
The Dagda
The Dagda is an important god of Irish mythology. The Dagda is a father-figure and a protector of the tribe. In some texts his father is Elatha, in others his mother is Ethniu. Other texts say that his mother is Danu; while others yet place him as the father of Danu, perhaps due to her...
and The Morrigan, come from later Irish mythology, whilst others, like Teutatis, Taranis
Taranis
In Celtic mythology Taranis was the god of thunder worshipped essentially in Gaul, the British Isles, but also in the Rhineland and Danube regions amongst others, and mentioned, along with Esus and Toutatis as part of a sacred triad, by the Roman poet Lucan in his epic poem Pharsalia as a Celtic...
and Cernunnos
Cernunnos
Cernunnos is the conventional name given in Celtic studies to depictions of the horned god of Celtic polytheism. The name itself is only attested once, on the 1st-century Pillar of the Boatmen, but depictions of a horned or antlered figure, often seated in a "lotus position" and often associated...
, come from evidence from Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
. The Celtic pagans constructed temples and shrines to venerate these gods, something they did through votive offerings and performing sacrifices, possibly including human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
. According to Greek and Roman accounts, in Gaul, Britain and Ireland, there was a priestly caste of "magico-religious specialists" known as the druids, although very little is definitely known about them. Irish legends about the origin of the Picts and stories from the life of St. Ninian
Saint Ninian
Saint Ninian is a Christian saint first mentioned in the 8th century as being an early missionary among the Pictish peoples of what is now Scotland...
, associate the Picts with druids. The Picts are also associated with "demon" worship and one story concerning St Columba has him exorcising a demon from a well in Pictland, suggesting that the worship of well spirits was a feature of Pictish paganism. Roman mentions of the worship of the Goddess Minerva
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...
at wells and a Pictish stone associated with a well near Dunvegan Castle
Dunvegan Castle
Dunvegan Castle is a castle a mile and a half to the North of Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye, situated off the west coast of Scotland. It is the seat of the MacLeod of MacLeod, chief of the Clan MacLeod. Dunvegan Castle is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the...
on Skye have been taken to support this case.
Early Christianisation
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
. The archaeology of the Roman period indicates that the northern parts of the Roman province of Britannia
Britannia
Britannia is an ancient term for Great Britain, and also a female personification of the island. The name is Latin, and derives from the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Great Britain. However, by the...
were among the most Christianised in the island. Chi-Rho inscriptions and Christian grave-slabs have been found on the wall from the 4th century, and from the same period the Mithraic shrines (known as Mithraea
Mithraeum
A Mithraeum is a place of worship for the followers of the mystery religion of Mithraism.The Mithraeum was either an adapted natural cave or cavern or an artificial building imitating a cavern. Mithraea were dark and windowless, even if they were not actually in a subterranean space or in a natural...
) which existed along Hadrian's Wall were attacked and destroyed, presumably by Christians. After the departure of the Romans it is generally presumed that Christianity would have survived among the Bythonic enclaves such as Strathclyde, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced, with their gods Tiw
Tiw
Tiw, in Uru mythology is a protector of mines, lakes, and rivers. It is closely related to the Aymara deity of Anchanchu, a terrible demon which haunts caves, rivers, and other isolated places....
, Woden
Woden
Woden or Wodan is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz....
, Thor
Thor
In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...
and Frig
Frig
Frig may refer to:Pronunciation * Frig , an expression possibly based on a profanity that has been altered to reduce the objectionable characteristics. Another possible origin is that it is based on an appeal to Frigg, a Nordic fertility goddess...
, all of whom gave their names to days of the week, and Eostre
Eostre
Old English Ēostre and Old High German Ôstarâ are the names of a Germanic goddess whose Anglo-Saxon month, Ēostur-monath , has given its name to the festival of Easter...
, whose name was appropriated for the spring festival of Easter. While British Christians continued to practice inhumation without grave goods, the pagan Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
are visible in the archaeological record from their practice of cremation and burial in urns, accompanied by extensive grave goods, perhaps designed to accompany the dead to the afterlife. However, despite growing evidence of Anglian settlement in southern Scotland, only one such grave has been found, at Dalmeny
Dalmeny
Dalmeny is a suburban village and civil parish in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located on the south side of the Firth of Forth, east-southeast of South Queensferry and west-northwest of central Edinburgh; it falls under the local governance of the City of Edinburgh Council.The name Dalmeny is...
in East Lothian.
The growth of Christianity in Scotland would be dependent on Irish-Scots "Celtic" missionaries and to a lesser extent those from Rome and England. Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...
had its origins in the conversion of Ireland from late Roman Britain associated with St. Patrick in the 5th century. In the 6th century missionaries from Ireland were operating on the British mainland. St Ninian is the figure associated with a monastery founded at Whithorn
Whithorn
Whithorn is a former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, about ten miles south of Wigtown. The town was the location of the first recorded Christian church in Scotland, Candida Casa : the 'White [or 'Shining'] House', built by Saint Ninian about 397.-Eighth and twelfth centuries:A...
in what is now Galloway, although it is generally accepted that Ninian may be a later construct. St Columba left Ireland and founded the monastery at Iona off the West Coast of Scotland in 563 and from there carried out missions to the Scots of Dál Riata and the Picts. It seems likely that the both the Scots and Picts had already begun to covert to Christianity before this period. Saint Patrick referred in a letter to "apostate Picts", suggesting that they had previously been Christian, while the poem Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Britonnic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth...
, set in the early 6th century does not remark on the Picts as pagans
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
. Conversion of the Pictish élite seems likely to have run over a considerable period, beginning in the 5th century and not complete until the 7th.
One of the key indicators of Christianisation are long-cist
Cist
A cist from ) is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle East....
cemeteries who generally indicate Christianity because in they lie on an East-West orientation. Many of them are in the vicinity of a church or possess an early Christian inscription. These burials are found between the end of the Roman era and the 12th century. They are concentrated strongly in eastern Scotland south of the Tay, in Angus
Angus
Angus is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross and Dundee City...
, the Mearns, Lothian
Lothian
Lothian forms a traditional region of Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills....
and the Borders. It is generally accepted among scholars that place-name element eccles-, from the Brythonic word for church, represents evidence of the British church of the Roman and immediate post-Roman period, most of which are located in the south-west, south and east. About a dozen inscribed stones of the 5th and 6th centuries, beginning with the so-called Latinus stone of Whithorn
Whithorn
Whithorn is a former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, about ten miles south of Wigtown. The town was the location of the first recorded Christian church in Scotland, Candida Casa : the 'White [or 'Shining'] House', built by Saint Ninian about 397.-Eighth and twelfth centuries:A...
, dating to c. 450, indicate Christianity through their dedications and are spread across southern Scotland.
Celtic Christianity
Tonsure
Tonsure is the traditional practice of Christian churches of cutting or shaving the hair from the scalp of clerics, monastics, and, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, all baptized members...
, but there were also differences in the rites of ordination
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
, baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
and in the liturgy
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
. Celtic Christianity was heavily based on monasticism and monasteries differed significantly from those on the continent, and were often an isolated collection of wooden huts surrounded by a wall. Because much of the Celtic world lacked the urban centres of the Roman world, bishoprics were often attached to abbeys, and this system of organisation may have been repeated in Scotland. In the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, Irish monks established monastic institutions in parts of modern day Scotland. Monks from Iona, under St. Aidan
Aidan of Lindisfarne
Known as Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Aidan the Apostle of Northumbria , was the founder and first bishop of the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in England. A Christian missionary, he is credited with restoring Christianity to Northumbria. Aidan is the Anglicised form of the original Old...
, then founded the See of Lindisfarne in Anglian Northumbria. The part of southern Scotland dominated by the Anglians in this period had a Bishopric established at Abercorn
Abercorn
Abercorn is a village and parish in West Lothian, Scotland. Close to the south coast of the Firth of Forth, the village is around west of South Queensferry.-History:...
in West Lothian, and it is presumed that it would have adopted the leadership of Rome after the Synod of Whitby in 663, until the Battle of Dunnichen in 685, when the Bishop and his followers were ejected. By this time the Roman system of calculating Easter and other reforms had already been adopted in much of Ireland. The Picts accepted the reforms of Rome under Nechtan mac Der-Ilei around 710. The followers of the Celtic traditions retreated to Iona and then to Innishbofin and the Western isles remained an outpost of Celtic practice for some time. Celtic Christianity continued to influence religion in England and across Europe into the late middle ages as part of the Hiberno-Scottish mission
Hiberno-Scottish mission
The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a mission led by Irish and Scottish monks which spread Christianity and established monasteries in Great Britain and continental Europe during the Middle Ages...
, spreading Christianity, monasteries, art and theological ideas across the continent.
Viking paganism
The Viking occupation of the Islands and coastal regions of modern Scotland brought a return to pagan worship in those areas. Norse paganism had some of the same gods as had been worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons before their conversion and is thought to have been focused around a series of cults, involving gods, ancestors and spirits, with calendric and life cycle rituals often involving forms of sacrifice. The paganism of the ruling Norse elite can be seen in grave goods found in 10th century graves in Shetland, Orkney and Caithness. Historians have traditionally pointed to a process of conversion to Christianity among Viking colonies in Britain dated to the late 10th century, when Viking earls are said to have accepted Christianity. However, later documentary evidence suggests that there was a Bishop operating in Orkney in the mid-9th century and more recently uncovered archaeological evidence, including monumental sculpture, indicates that Christian practice may have survived in parts of Orkney and Shetland and that the process of conversion may have begun before Christianity was officially accepted by Viking leaders. The continuity of Scottish Christianity may also explain the relatively rapid way in which Norse settlers were later assimilated into the religion.Art
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
is primarily known through stone sculpture, and a smaller number of pieces of metalwork, often of very high quality. After the conversion of the Picts and the cultural assimilation of Pictish culture into that of the Scots and Angles, elements of Pictish art became incorporated into the style known as Insular art
Insular art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...
, which was common over Britain and Ireland and became highly influential in continental Europe and cotnributed to the development of Romanesque
Romanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
styles.
Pictish stones
About 250 Pictish stones survive and have been assigned by scholars to three classes. Class I stones are those thought to date to the period up to the 7th century and are the most numerous group. The stones are largely unshaped and include incised symbols of animals including fish and the Pictish beastPictish Beast
The Pictish Beast is an artistic representation of an animal, and is depicted on Pictish symbol stones. It is not easily identifiable with any real animal, but resembles a seahorse, especially when depicted upright...
, everyday objects such as mirrors, combs and tuning forks and abstract symbols defined by names including V-rod, double disc and Z-rod. They are found between from the Firth of Forth to Shetland. The greatest concentrations are in Sutherland, around modern Inverness and Aberdeen. Good examples include the Dunrobin
Dunrobin Castle
Dunrobin Castle is a stately home in Sutherland, in the Highland area of Scotland. It is the seat of the Countess of Sutherland and the Clan Sutherland. It is located north of Golspie, and approximately south of Brora, on the Dornoch Firth close to the A9 road. Nearby Dunrobin Castle railway...
(Sutherland) and Aberlemno
Aberlemno
Aberlemno is a parish and small village in the Scottish council area of Angus. It is noted for three large carved Pictish stones dating from the 7th and 8th centuries AD ; the stones can be viewed at any time in spring-autumn, but are covered by wooden boxes in the winter to prevent frost damage...
stones (Angus
Angus
Angus is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross and Dundee City...
). Class II stones are carefully shaped slabs dating after the arrival of Christianity in the 8th and 9th centuries, with a cross on one face and a wide range of symbols on the reverse. In smaller numbers than Class I stones, they predominate in southern Pictland, in Perth, Angus and Fife. Good examples include Glamis
Glamis
Glamis is a small village in Angus, Scotland, located four miles south of Kirriemuir and five miles southwest of Forfar. It is the location of Glamis Castle, the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.-History:...
2, which contains a finely executed Celtic cross
Celtic cross
A Celtic cross is a symbol that combines a cross with a ring surrounding the intersection. In the Celtic Christian world it was combined with the Christian cross and this design was often used for high crosses – a free-standing cross made of stone and often richly decorated...
on the main face with two opposing male figures, a centaur, cauldron, deer head and a triple disc symbol and Cossans, Angus, which shows a high-prowed Pictish boat with oarsmen and a figure facing forward in the prow. Class III stones are thought to overlap chronologically with Class II stones. Most are elaborately shaped and incised cross-slabs, some with figurative scenes, but lacking idiomatic Pictish symbols. They are widely distributed but predominate in the southern Pictish areas.
Pictish metalwork
Metalwork has found throughout Pictland; the Picts appear to have had a considerable amount of silver available, probably from raiding further south, or the payment of subsidies to keep them from doing so. The very large hoard of late Roman hacksilverHacksilver
thumb|300px|right|Hacksilver from the medieval period, Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte, Hamburg, Germany.Hacksilver, or Hack-silver, is fragments of cut and bent silver items treated as bullion, either for ease of carrying before melting down for re-use, or simply used as currency by weight...
found at Traprain Law
Traprain Law
Traprain Law is a hill about 221m in elevation, located east of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. It is the site of an oppidum or hill fort, which covered at its maximum extent about 16 ha and must have been a veritable town...
may have originated in either way. The largest hoard of early Pictish metalwork was found in 1819 at Norrie's Law in Fife, but unfortunately much was dispersed and melted down. Over ten heavy silver chains, some over 0.5m long, have been found from this period; the double-linked Whitecleuch Chain
Whitecleuch Chain
The Whitecleuch Chain is a large Pictish silver chain found in Whitecleuch, Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1869. A high status piece, it is likely to have been worn as a choker neck ornament for ceremonial purposes. It dates from 400 to 800 AD.-Location:...
is one of only two that have a penannular ring, with symbol decoration including enamel, which shows how these were probably used as "choker" necklaces. The St Ninian's Isle
St Ninian's Isle
St Ninian's Isle is a small island connected by the largest active tombolo in the UK to the south-western coast of the Mainland, Shetland, in Scotland. The tombolo, known locally as an ayre, from the Old Norse for 'gravel bank', is 500 metres long. Except at extremely high tides, the sand is above...
Treasure contains perhaps the best collection of Pictish forms.
Irish-Scots art
The kingdom of Dál Riata has been seen as a cross-roads between the artistic styles of the Picts and those of Ireland, with which the Scots settlers in what is now Argyll kept close contacts. This can be seen in representations found in excavations of the fortress of Dunadd, which combine Pictish and Irish elements. This included extensive evidence for the production of high status jewellery and moulds from the 7th century that indicate the production of pieces similar to the Hunterston broochHunterston Brooch
The Hunterston Brooch is a highly important Celtic brooch of "pseudo-penannular" type found near Hunterston, North Ayrshire, Scotland, in either, according to one account, 1826 by two men from West Kilbride, who were digging drains at the foot of Goldenberry Hill, or in 1830. It is now in the Royal...
, found in Ayrshire, but with elements that suggest Irish origins. These and other finds, including a trumpet spiral decorated hanging bowl disc and a stamped animal decoration (or pressblech), perhaps from a bucket or drinking horn, indicate the ways in which Dál Riata was one of the locations where the Insular style was developed. In the 8th and 9th centuries the Pictish elite adopted true penannular brooch
Brooch
A brooch ; also known in ancient times as a fibula; is a decorative jewelry item designed to be attached to garments. It is usually made of metal, often silver or gold but sometimes bronze or some other material...
es with lobed terminals from Ireland. Some older Irish pseudo-penannular brooches were adapted to the Pictish style, for example the Breadalbane Brooch (British Museum). The 8th century Monymusk Reliquary
Monymusk Reliquary
The Monymusk Reliquary is an eighth century Scottish reliquary made of wood and metal characterised by an Insular fusion of Gaelic and Pictish design and Anglo-Saxon metalworking, probably by Ionan monks. It has been said to be the Brecbennoch of St...
has elements of Pictish and Irish style.
Insular art
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s. Surfaces are highly decorated with intricate patterning, with no attempt to give an impression of depth, volume or recession. The best examples include the Book of Kells
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...
, Lindisfarne Gospels
Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the British Library...
, Book of Durrow
Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is a 7th-century illuminated manuscript gospel book in the Insular style. It was probably created between 650 and 700, in Northumbria in Northern England, where Lindisfarne or Durham would be the likely candidates, or on the island of Iona in the Scottish Inner Hebrides...
. Carpet pages are a characteristic feature of Insular manuscripts, although historiated initial
Historiated initial
A historiated initial is an enlarged letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text, which contains a picture. Strictly speaking, an inhabited initial contains figures that are decorative only, without forming a subject, whereas in a historiated initial there is an identifiable...
s (an Insular invention), canon tables and figurative miniatures, especially Evangelist portrait
Evangelist portrait
Evangelist portraits are a specific type of miniature included in ancient and mediæval illuminated manuscript Gospel Books, and later in Bibles and other books, as well as other media. Each Gospel of the Four Evangelists, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, may be prefaced by a portrait of...
s, are also common. The finest era of the style was brought to an end by the disruption to monastic centres and aristocratic life of the Viking raids in the late 8th century. The influence of Insular art affected all subsequent European medieval art, especially in the decorative elements of Romanesque and Gothic
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
manuscripts.
Literature
Much of the earliest Welsh literature was actually composed in or near the country we now call Scotland, although only written down in Wales much later. These include The GododdinY Gododdin
Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Britonnic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth...
, considered the earliest surviving verse from Scotland, which is attributed to the bard
Bard
In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland...
Aneirin
Aneirin
Aneirin or Neirin was a Dark Age Brythonic poet. He is believed to have been a bard or 'court poet' in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Old North or Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland...
, said to have been resident in Gododdin in the 6th century, and the Battle of Gwen Ystrad attributed to Taliesin
Taliesin
Taliesin was an early British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin...
, traditionally thought to be a bard at the court of Rheged in roughly the same period. There are also religious works in Gaelic including the Elegy for St Columba by Dallan Forgaill, c. 597 and "In Praise of St Columba" by Beccan mac Luigdech of Rum, c. 677. In Latin they include a "Prayer for Protection" (attributed to St Mugint), c. mid-6th century and Altus Prosator ("The High Creator", attributed to St Columba), c. 597. In Old English there is The Dream of the Rood
Dream of the Rood
The Dream of the Rood is one of the earliest Christian poems in the corpus of Old English literature and an example of the genre of dream poetry. Like most Old English poetry, it is written in alliterative verse. Rood is from the Old English rod "pole", specifically "crucifix"...
, from which lines are found on the Ruthwell Cross
Ruthwell Cross
The Ruthwell Cross is a stone Anglo-Saxon cross probably dating from the 8th century, when Ruthwell was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria; it is now in Scotland. Anglo-Saxon crosses are closely related to the contemporary Irish high crosses, and both are part of the Insular art tradition...
, making it the only surviving fragment of Northumbrian
Northumbrian (Anglo-Saxon)
Northumbrian was a dialect of the Old English language spoken in the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Together with Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon, it forms one of the sub-categories of Old English devised and employed by modern scholars....
Old English from early Medieval Scotland.