Origins of the Kingdom of Alba

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The Stone of Scone in the Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey, 1855, was the ceremonial coronation stone of Scotland's Gaelic kings, similar to the Irish Lia Fáil.

The origins of the Kingdom of Alba pertain to the origins of the

Early Middle Ages
.

Origin paradigms

Medieval version

The origins of the Scots have been the subject of numerous speculations over the centuries, including some extravagant ones, like the one made by Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm Abbey, in his Scotichronicon, in which he argued that the Scots were descended from an Egyptian pharaoh via the legendary princess Scota, who arrived in Scotland after traveling to Iberia and Ireland.[1] The traditional origin legends in Scotland were influenced by the Historia Regum Britanniae, the Lebor Gabála Érenn and the Historia Brittonum. Ultimately, such conceptualizations can be derived from Virgil's Aeneid and the Bible.

In the

Dyfnwal of Strathclyde, and from there made his way to Viking England, and finally, the continent.[1]

Medieval Scottish

Fergus Mór mac Eirc, the legendary founder of Dál Riata. The Senchus fer n-Alban also contains the myth of Fergus. This is an older document, perhaps dating to the seventh century, that has been heavily interpolated with later material, probably including the mythological parts. Appended to the Míniugud Senchasa Fher nAlba in many manuscripts is the Genelaig Albanensium, a list of genealogies relating to Gaelic rulers of Scotland going up to at least Constantine III (995–7) (it goes later in some of the manuscripts). It is likely that this material was inserted into the Míniugud in the early eleventh century.[2]

In the Duan Albanach, this tradition is re-enforced. It is known to have been written in the reign of King Malcolm III (Máel Coluim mac Donnchada) (one line reads "Maelcoluim is now the king"). It recounts the earliest histories of the Picts, and then celebrates the conquest of the Picts by the Gaedhil. It calls the Scottish Gaels the children of Conaire and the traces the descent of the Scottish kings from Fergus mac Eirc. It does not trace their descent any further, because in the manuscript the Duan Albanach follows from a companion piece, the Duan Eireannach (i.e. Irish Poem), which had already recounted the history of the Gaels from Scythia via Egypt to Ireland.[3]

These mythical traditions are incorporated into the

James VI traced his origin to Fergus, saying, in his own words, that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race".[4]

Goth versus Gael

The

Union. Scots imported English prejudices about the Irish Gaels, and in turn adapted them for the Scottish Gaels.[5]

The Goth versus Gael debate centred on which part of Scotland's past is the more important, the Germanic or the Celtic.

Lowland Scotland in the reign of Malcolm III, owing to the influence of his wife, the Anglo-Hungarian Saint Margaret, when in fact no such thing happened for another few centuries.[6][dubious – discuss
]

Origins

Gaelic and Pictish kings

That Pictland had Gaelic kings is not in question. One of the earliest, if not the earliest, was

Northumbrians, at the Battle of Dun Nechtain on 20 May 685.[8]

In the early eighth century, the great King of the Picts was

P-Celtic
world, and largely out of place in the context of previous Pictish kings. Furthermore, an inscription relating to Causantín son of Fergus reads:

CV[…]NTIN/FILIUSFIRCU/S.
(Constantine son of Fergus).[10]

This inscription is from the Dupplin Cross, and was found in the heart of southern Pictland, near Forteviot. It dates from the late 8th or early ninth century. If the name in question really were the Pictish Urguist, then it is odd that a contemporary Pictish description gave the Gaelic form, form beginning with the unmistakably Goidelic F.[11] It is thus likely that several of the later Pictish Kings spoke Gaelic as their first language.

Fortriu to Moray

Sueno's Stone, located in Forres, in the old kingdom of Fortriu. This gigantic, probably post-Pictish monument, marks some kind of military triumph.

The

one in the north - and, moreover, every battle has to be fought outside the territory of one of the combatants. By contrast, a northern recension of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes it clear that Fortriu was north of the Mounth, in the area visited by Columba. The case has to be accepted, and there can be little doubt that the core of Fortriu lay to the north of the Grampian Mountains - in Moray, Ross and perhaps Mar and Buchan too.[12]

Relocating Fortriu north of the Mounth increases the importance of the Vikings. After all, the Viking impact on the north was greater than in the south, and in the north, the Vikings actually conquered and made permanent territorial gains.

Pictland to Alba

There remains the possibility that

Kenneth MacAlpin
(Cináed mac Ailpín). This is the traditional explanation, and the one repeated by many historians. The only thing which is certain is that before 900, the Cruithentuath (Gaelic for Pictland), and perhaps Fortriu, became Gaelic-speaking Alba.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "The pharaoh's daughter who was the mother of all Scots - The Scotsman". Archived from the original on 29 January 2016.

References

  1. ^ Dumville, "St Cathróe of Metz", pp. 172–6; text translated on A.O. Anderson, Early Sources, vol. i, pp. 431–443
  2. ^ for text and commentary, see Bannerman, Studies (1974) & Dumville "Ireland and North Britain", (2002).
  3. ^ M. Anderson, Kings and Kingship (1973), p. 79, n. 11; for text, "Irish" Nennius at CELT.
  4. ^ Pittock, Celtic Identity, (1999), p. 18.
  5. ^ Accounts of the "Goth versus Gael debate" and this early modern invention of Lowland Saxon identity can be found in Ferguson, Identity (1998), pp. 250–73, and in Pittock, Celtic Identity, pp. 54–60.
  6. ^ ibid.
  7. ^ examples of this approach are becoming legion; e.g. Lynch, Scotland: A New History, (1992), p. 53
  8. ^ See Clancy, "Philosopher-King: Nechtan mac Der-Ilei".
  9. ^ Clancyen (ed.), The Triumph Tree, p. 115; ibid. pp. 15–6 for suggestion as contemporary praise poetry.
  10. ^ Jackson, "The Pictish language", followed by others, such as Forsyth, Language in Pictland, (1997).
  11. ^ Foster, Sally, Picts, Gaels and Scots (1996).
  12. ^ Watson, Celtic Place-Names (1926/2004), pp. 68–9.
  13. ^ Woolf, "Geography of the Picts", (forthcoming).
  14. ^ AU, s.a. 900; A.O. Anderson, Early Sources, vol. i, p. 395
  15. ^ Chronicle of the Kings of Alba; A.O. Anderson, Early Sources, vol. i, p. 445.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Anderson, Alan Orr, Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500-1286, 2 Vols, (Edinburgh, 1922)
  • Skene, William F. (ed.), Chronicles of the Picts and Scots: And Other Memorials of Scottish History, (Edinburgh, 1867)

Secondary sources

  • Anderson, Marjorie O., Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland, (Edinburgh, 1973)
  • Bannerman, John, Studies in the History of Dalriada, (Edinburgh, 1974)
  • Broun, Dauvit "Defining Scotland and the Scots Before the Wars of Independence," in Image and Identity: the Making and Remaking of Scotland through the Ages, in. D. Broun, R. Finlay & M. Lynch (eds.), (Edinburgh 1998), pp. 4–17
  • Broun, Dauvit, "Dunkeld and the origin of Scottish identity", in Innes Review 48 (1997), pp. 112–24, reprinted in Spes Scotorum: Hope of Scots, eds. Broun and Clancy (1999), pp. 95–111
  • Broun, Dauvit & Clancy, Thomas Owen (eds.),Spes Scottorum: Hope of the Scots, (Edinburgh, 1999)
  • Clancy, Thomas Owen, "Philosopher-King: Nechtan mac Der-Ilei", in the Scottish Historical Review, 83, 2004, pp. 125–49.
  • Clancy, Thomas Owen, "The real St Ninian", in The Innes Review, 52 (2001).
  • Clancy, Thomas Owen, "Scotland, the 'Nennian' recension of the Historia Brittonum, and the Lebor Bretnach", in Simon Taylor (ed.) Kings, Clerics and Chronicles in Scotland, 500-1297, (Dublin/Portland, 2000), pp. 87–107.
  • Clancy, Thomas Owen (ed.), The Triumph Tree: Scotland's Earliest Poetry, 550-1350, (Edinburgh, 1998)
  • Driscoll, Steven, Alba: The Gaelic Kingdom of Scotland AD 800-1124, (Edinburgh, 1996)
  • Dumville, David N., "Ireland and North Britain in the Earlier Middle Ages: Contexts for the Míniugud Senchasa Fher nAlban", in Colm Ó Baoill & Nancy R. McGuire (eds.) Rannsachadh Na Gáidhlig, (Aberdeen, 2002)
  • Dumville, David N., "St Cathróe of Metz and the Hagiography of Exoticism," in Irish Hagiography: Saints and Scholars, ed. John Carey et al. (Dublin, 2001), pp. 172–6
  • Ferguson, William, The Identity of the Scottish Nation: An Historic Enquiry, (Edinburgh, 1998)
  • Foster, Sally, Picts, Gaels and Scots: Early Historic Scotland, (London, 1996)
  • Forsyth, Katherine, Language in Pictland, (Utrecht 1997)
  • Jackson, Kenneth H. (ed), The Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer (The Osborn Bergin Memorial Lecture 1970), (Cambridge (1972)
  • Jackson, Kenneth H. "The Pictish language", in F.T. Wainwright (ed.), The Problem of the Picts, (Edinburgh, 1955), pp. 129–66
  • Hudson, Benjamin T., Kings of Celtic Scotland, (Westport, 1994)
  • Pittock, Murray G.H., Celtic Identity and the British Image, (Manchester, 1999)
  • Watson, W.J., The Celtic Place-Names of Scotland, (Edinburgh, 1926) reprinted, with an Introduction, full Watson bibliography and corrigenda by Simon Taylor (Edinburgh, 2004)
  • Woolf, Alex, "Dun Nechtain, Fortriu and the Geography of the Picts", (forthcoming)

External links

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