The legend of the Saltire

Scotland’s national flag, the Saltire, is reputedly the oldest in Europe. According to legend, its origins can be traced back to the ninth century AD, to a battle fought by a combined army of Scots and Picts against the English of Northumbria. On the night before the battle, the Pictish king ‘Hungus’ vowed to make Andrew the patron saint of Scotland if the English were defeated. In response, the Apostle himself appeared in a vision, promising Hungus and his Dál Riatan allies a great victory. The next morning, as the opposing forces prepared to fight, a strange cloud-formation in the shape of a huge diagonal cross appeared in the blue sky. Flushed with hope, the Picts and Scots attacked their enemies ferociously, despite being heavily outnumbered. The English and their king ‘Athelstan’ were soundly beaten, and the Cross of Saint Andrew became the emblem of Scotland.

The Pictish king Hungus: stained glass window at Athelstaneford parish church, East Lothian.

It’s a good story, even if it isn’t based on real events. It may have been created in the thirteenth century, around the time when Saint Andrew’s Cross started being used as a national emblem. Before 1286, the diagonal cross traditionally associated with the Apostle’s crucifixion had been used in Scotland but only in religious contexts, as an emblem of St Andrews Cathedral. The fabled Pictish king ‘Hungus’ turns up as a key figure in the cathedral’s own origin-legends, so his appearance in the Saltire story is certainly appropriate.

Battle-scene on the Saltire memorial at Athelstaneford.

The battle in which the Saltire appeared in the sky supposedly took place in the year 832, near the present-day village of Athelstaneford in East Lothian. The village proudly proclaims its status as the birthplace of Scotland’s flag. In the graveyard of the parish church stands an impressive memorial commemorating the great victory. The main panel shows King Hungus and his army facing the defeated English, who have thrown down their weapons in token of surrender. Above is a smaller panel containing an inscription with these words:

‘Tradition says that near this place in times remote, Pictish and Scottish warriors about to defeat an army of Northumbrians saw against a blue sky a great white cross like Saint Andrew’s, and in its image made a banner which became the flag of Scotland’

Doocot (built 1583) now the Scottish Flag Heritage Centre.

Behind the church is a doocot (the Scots word for ‘dovecote’) constructed in the sixteenth century as a nesting-place for pigeons. Inside this tiny building is the Flag Heritage Centre where visitors can learn about the Saltire legend via an audiovisual presentation. A leaflet describing the battle, the memorial, the church and the doocot is also available. It gives additional information, telling us that the battle was said to have taken place at an ancient ford on the Peffer Burn. The village of Athelstaneford takes its name from this crossing-point.

Scottish Flag Heritage Centre: lightshow image of a warrior during the audiovisual presentation.

A few snippets of real history are embedded in the legend. We know, for instance, that the figure of King Hungus is based on one or more genuine Pictish kings who bore the name ‘Angus’ (Óengus in Gaelic; Onuist or Unust in Pictish). The most famous of these was the great warlord Óengus, son of Fergus, who conquered Dál Riata in the eighth century. A slightly later namesake – probably a member of the same family – ruled the Picts from 820 to 834 and is usually identified as the king in both the Saltire legend and the foundation-tale of St Andrews Cathedral. The Scots who fought alongside Hungus at Athelstaneford were commanded by Eochaid, grandfather of Cináed mac Ailpín. Little is known of Eochaid but he appears in the genealogical traditions attached to Cináed and may have been a historical figure. The defeated Northumbrian ruler ‘Athelstan’ is presumably based on the famous English king of this name, a West Saxon by birth, who lived a century after the Saltire battle. In 832, the traditional date of the legendary encounter, the Northumbrians were actually ruled by a king called Eanred.

Sign outside the parish church.

The true origin of the name Athelstaneford is unknown. It might commemorate the real King Athelstan – who campaigned in Scotland in the 930s – or perhaps a local namesake who happened to own land around the Peffer Burn. Whatever the truth of the matter, this quiet East Lothian village is forever linked to the most recognizable symbol of Scottish nationhood. If you like old folklore, Pictish legends and half-forgotten history, it’s well worth a visit.

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The Flag Heritage Centre is maintained by the Scottish Flag Trust.

Information about the Cross of Saint Andrew can be found at the National Archives of Scotland.

Athelstaneford village has its own website.

Photographs in this blogpost are copyright © B Keeling.

In an earlier blogpost I wrote about the two Pictish kings named Óengus and their connection with St Andrews.

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The son of the king of the Cumbrians

Viking Age hogback tombstone at Govan (Photo © B Keeling)

A new post at my Govan blog deals with a series of events around the middle of the 11th century – a fairly mysterious period in Scottish history – and with a shadowy figure described as ‘the son of the king of the Cumbrians’. It also mentions various other people who were major players in the political events of the time: King Cnut (‘Canute’), King Edward (‘The Confessor’), Macbethad (‘Macbeth’) and Earl Siward of Northumbria. The main purpose of the blogpost is to seek an answer to a question: Did a man from Govan become king of Scotland in AD 1054?

Heart of the Kingdom: A Govanite on the Scottish throne

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Discussing Degsastan (again)

In an earlier post I set out my views on the location of the battle of Degsastan, an event described by Bede and dated by him to the year 603. The post attracted a large number of comments, which turned into a useful discussion of the various places that have been proposed as the site of the battlefield. In the end, with more than 70 comments attached to the post, I closed the thread because it had reached what I consider to be its allotted space at this blog.

However, due to continuing interest in the topic and several requests for the discussion to resume, I’m adding this post as an area for new comments. Please feel free to add your views and theories below.

For information, the old discussion can be found via this link.

Some questions we may want to consider:
* Where was Degsastan?
* Is Dawston in Liddesdale a plausible candidate?
* Did the Britons take part in the battle and, if so, on which side did they fight?
* What was the real political outcome of Aethelfrith’s victory?

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Lady Macbeth

Dame Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, 1889 (from a painting by J.S. Sargent)

Mael Coluim mac Cinaeda (‘Malcolm, son of Kenneth’) succeeded his cousin Cinaed, son of Dub, as king of Alba in 1005. The succession was apparently contested by the rulers of Moray in the person of Findlaech, son of Ruaidri, who lodged a rival claim for the kingship. Findlaech, the mormaer (‘great steward’) of Moray, was described in the Irish annals as ‘king of Alba’ when they reported his death in 1020. His nephew Mael Coluim, son of Mael Brigte, died nine years later and was likewise accorded the same royal title by the annalists. Both men must have claimed the throne of Alba when its legitimate incumbent was Mael Coluim mac Cinaeda, who reigned from 1005 to 1034. On two occasions, then, the authority of Cinaed’s son was challenged by the lords of Moray.

The kingdom of Alba

The Moravians themselves appear to have been riven by internal strife. Rivalry between Findlaech and his brother Mael Brigte led to the former’s death at the hands of the latter’s sons. The most likely context was a military struggle for the mormaership. After Findlaech’s slaying in 1020 his murderous nephews – Mael Coluim and Gilla Comgain – ruled Moray for a further twelve years. Mael Coluim was the above-mentioned claimant on the kingship of Alba, the man whose death in 1029 was reported in the Irish annals. After staking his royal claim, as a rival of his namesake Mael Coluim mac Cinaeda, he seems to have appointed his brother Gilla Comgain as mormaer of Moray. But Gilla Comgain was in turn challenged by Findlaech’s son Macbethad, an ambitious individual who was soon to emerge as a key player on the wider political stage. In later centuries Macbethad found greater fame on a different kind of stage, being borrowed by William Shakespeare as the inspiration for his devious character Macbeth. In the meantime, the historical Macbeth made his first appearance around the year 1030, as a challenger to Gilla Comgain’s authority in Moray. This may have prompted Gilla Comgain to strengthen his own position with a political marriage, for his bride was a lady of high royal blood. Her name was Gruoch, daughter of Boite, and she was a close kinswoman of King Mael Coluim mac Cinaeda, perhaps his niece or the daughter of one of his cousins.

Gilla Comgain continued to rule as mormaer of Moray until his death in 1031 or 1032. His grisly demise was noted in the Irish annals:

Gilla Comgain, son of Mael Brigte, mormaer of Moray, was burned together with fifty people.

This was probably the final act in a bitter kin-strife that had started in the previous generation. Although the annalists do not say who was responsible for the burning it was surely the work of Macbethad, who thus became the new mormaer. In a politically astute move he quickly married Gruoch, Gilla Comgain’s widow, thereby linking himself to the royal dynasty of Alba. The marriage also made him stepfather and protector of Gruoch’s son Lulach, Gilla Comgain’s heir, who was probably a small child at the time. Whether Gruoch entered this union willingly or grudgingly is unknown, for the sources give no further information. If, as seems likely, Macbethad was the instigator of her first husband’s death, she might have been his reluctant bride. Alternatively, she might have regarded Macbethad as a useful match for her own ambitions. Did she perhaps play some part in Gilla Comgain’s downfall? Such speculation, although interesting, could all too easily tempt us across the line between fact and fiction, for Gruoch is the historical figure behind the ruthless Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare’s play.

Mormaers of Moray in the 11th Century

Macbethad’s career was as dramatic as any playwright’s narrative. Within months of his seizure of power in Moray he joined Mael Coluim mac Cinaeda, the king of Alba, in a pledge of fealty to King Cnut of England. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which placed this event under the year 1031, Macbethad is described as a king. The label need not be taken at face value, for it is unlikely that he had launched a bid for the throne of Alba at so early a date. Indeed, he may have continued to rule Moray not as a potential rival to Mael Coluim but as a loyal subordinate or vassal guarding an important territory on the king’s northern frontier.

Gruoch’s kinship with the royal dynasty would have proved useful to Macbethad. It brought him closer to the centres of power and would have enabled him to forge useful alliances at the king’s court. His wife’s connections with the ruling elite undoubtedly helped him gather support for the coup d’etat which would one day elevate him to the throne. But he nurtured his ambitions slowly and carefully, biding his time until the right moment. Thus, after Mael Coluim’s death in 1034 brought his grandson Donnchad (‘Duncan’) to power, Macbethad gave his allegiance to the new king and played the role of loyal henchman. He eventually made his move in the summer of 1040, not long after Donnchad suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the English. The Irish chronicler Marianus Scotus, writing forty years later, gave a near-contemporary account of Donnchad’s fall:

Donnchad, king of Scots, was killed in the autumn, on 14 August, by his dux Macbethad son of Findlaech, who succeeded to the kingdom for seventeen years.

In this context, the Latin term dux (‘duke’) might be an attempt by Marianus to translate Gaelic mormaer. In a more general sense it indicates that Donnchad was slain during the revolt of a subordinate lord. It was this deed of treachery that prompted later Scottish writers, and eventually Shakespeare himself, to cast Macbethad in the role of villain. In an 11th-century context, however, the toppling of a king by an ambitious rival was a normal method of regime-change.

Her husband’s victory made Gruoch the most powerful woman in Alba. She was now the Queen of Scots, a position she may have coveted from afar during her years of marriage to two successive lords of Moray. As queen, she would have played an important part in the smooth running of royal business. She would have had her own entourage of courtiers and retainers, as well as her own network of clients and friends. At times she would have accompanied the king on his periodic tours of the realm, and we have documentary evidence of this in a charter to which she bore witness alongside her husband. The document in question recorded a gift of land to the monastery of Loch Leven in Fife. Its scribe began by naming the royal benefactors: Machbet filius Finlach …. et Gruoch filia Bodhe, Rex et Regina Scottorum (‘Macbethad, son of Findlaech …. and Gruoch, daughter of Boite, King and Queen of Scots’).

In late 1049 or early 1050, Macbethad embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome. This was not an unusual task for a king from the British Isles to undertake. Others had made the same journey before him, seeking forgiveness for past sins by visiting the Eternal City. Most royal pilgrims were in their later years, or had already offloaded the reins of power to designated heirs. Macbethad was certainly a man of middle age when he began his pilgrimage. From a rough chronology of his career we can deduce that he was around fifty years old. It is likely that Gruoch did not accompany him, and that she stayed at home to maintain a royal presence at court. How much authority might then have been delegated to her in Macbethad’s absence is hard to say but he must have trusted her to support his kingship while he was away. This is actually a key point, because potential royal claimants were surely lurking in the wings. The probability that Macbethad left his wife behind suggests that he had no doubts about her political loyalty. It might also suggest that he perceived little or no threat from Lulach, Gruoch’s son by Gilla Comgain, whose own claim on the throne she might otherwise have promoted.

Macbethad thus returned from Rome to find his kingship still intact. He resumed his reign and faced no serious challenge to his position for a number of years. His subjects clearly respected him, as did folk living beyond the borders of Alba. Ambitious warriors from other lands were attracted to his court, perhaps because he gave rich rewards for military service. One group of Norman adventurers, having been made unwelcome in England, travelled north to place their swords at his disposal. These men died in battle in 1054, fighting to defend Macbethad from an English invasion which succeeded in casting him from the throne. The architect of his defeat was Earl Siward of Northumbria, a powerful henchman of the English king Edward the Confessor. What happened to Macbethad in the aftermath is not recorded but he may have sought refuge among his kinsmen in Moray, unless he found a safer haven elsewhere. Wherever he went, we can be fairly sure that Gruoch and her son accompanied him. Siward, meanwhile, appointed a man called Mael Coluim as the new king of Alba. Despite his Gaelic name, this Mael Coluim was a prince of the Strathclyde Britons. His eligibility for kingship of the Scots must nevertheless have derived from ancestry, and his name seems to hint at mixed Gaelic-British parentage. His father was the king of Strathclyde; perhaps his mother was a royal princess of Alba?

Mael Coluim’s reign did not last long. His position would have weakened considerably after Siward’s death in 1055. With the menace of the Northumbrian earl removed, Macbethad was able to expel Mael Coluim and take back the throne. He ruled for a few more years until his own death at the battle of Lumphanan in 1058. His nemesis was Mael Coluim mac Donnchadha, a figure otherwise known as ‘Malcolm Canmore’ (Gaelic ceann mor, ‘big head’). Mael Coluim’s victory thus avenged the slaying of his father, King Donnchad, whom Macbethad had destroyed eighteen years earlier.

We do not know what happened to Gruoch in the wake of her husband’s death. Her son Lulach seems to have held the kingship of Alba for a few months until he, too, was defeated and slain by Mael Coluim. Widowed and alone, Gruoch may have found herself at the mercy of the new king. Her fate would then have depended on her usefulness as a dowager queen, a royal lady of wealth and influence – if indeed she could be persuaded to pledge allegiance to Mael Coluim. The fact that she was his kinswoman, a female elder of the royal dynasty, would not have guaranteed her survival. Against whatever political value she still retained was the threat she undoubtedly posed to the stability of the realm. She might, for instance, become a figurehead for disgruntled supporters of Macbethad, especially in Moray where Mael Coluim’s authority was unlikely to have been strong. So what were her options, if indeed she was not murdered, or chased out of the kingdom, or imprisoned in some dark dungeon? If she somehow managed to survive the upheavals of 1058 she may have been allowed to enter monastic retirement, becoming the abbess of a religious house to which she had been a benefactor in former times. Alternatively, she may have simply retired to one of her estates, in semi-exile from the royal court, quietly living out her remaining years as a relic of past troubles.

Probable ancestry of Gruoch, daughter of Boite.

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References

Archibald Duncan, The Kingship of the Scots, 842-1292 (Edinburgh, 2002), p.32.

Benjamin Hudson, Kings of Celtic Scotland (Westport, 1994), pp.136-8.

William Kapelle, The Norman Conquest of the North (London,1979), pp.41-2.

Archibald Lawrie (ed.), Early Scottish Charters prior to 1153 (Glasgow, 1905), pp.5-6.

Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070 (Edinburgh, 2007), pp.247 & 255-65.

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Alwin not Ailín

Earl of Lennox

Peter Kincaid who runs the Kyncades website has recently written an interesting article on the first known earls of Lennox, both of whom were called Alwin. Peter has noticed a tendency in some quarters to convert this name to Ailín, a Gaelicised form that he argues has no warrant in the oldest historical sources. His article is well-researched and sets out a convincing case for retaining the forms Alwin and Alwyn as shown in documents of the 12th and 13th centuries.

I’m mentioning this because I have a particular interest in the history of the Lennox, an area once ruled by the kings of Strathclyde. Peter’s ancestors originated in the lands of Kyncaith which were part of the Lennox earldom. A brief discussion of these lands and their early history took place between Peter and myself in comments attached to my third blogpost on Clan Galbraith.

Read Peter’s article as a PDF on his website

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The place name ‘Paisley’

Paisley Abbey (photograph © B Keeling)

Paisley is a large town on the southern fringe of the Greater Glasgow urban area. It lies on the White Cart Water, a tributary of the River Clyde, and is the largest settlement in Renfrewshire. Paisley’s best-known landmark is the impressive abbey which developed from a priory founded in the 12th century by Walter FitzAlan, High Steward of Scotland and forefather of the Stewart dynasty. The abbey has connections with the Stewarts and Bruces, and with the great Scottish hero William Wallace. Among its treasures is a sculptured tomb said to be that of Princess Marjorie, daughter of Robert the Bruce of Bannockburn fame. Marjorie married into the House of the Stewards in 1314 and was the mother of Robert II, the first Stewart king. A more recent addition to the abbey’s monuments is the Barochan Cross, carved c.900, a fine example of sculpture from the old kingdom of Strathclyde. It formerly stood in an exposed position at Barochan five miles to the northwest before being brought to Paisley Abbey for protection.

The abbey reputedly stands on the site of a church founded by Saint Mirin in c.600. Mirin, also known as Mirren or Murrin, was an Irish monk who came to Scotland as a missionary. Little is known about him but he presumably preached among the Britons of Renfrewshire. Today he is commemorated in Paisley by a modern statue and the name of the local football team ‘St Mirren’. Inside the abbey his carved image can be seen in wood and stone.

Paisley Abbey: wooden carving of St Mirin (photograph © B Keeling)

Older forms of the place name Paisley include Passaleth (1157), Paisleth (1158), Passelet (1163) and Passelek (1296). Although the suffix -ley is reminiscent of Old English leah, ‘a clearing’, the medieval forms belong to a period when Celtic languages were spoken in the area. The dominant speech around c.1100 was Gaelic but its arrival in this part of Scotland was fairly recent at that time and most people in Renfrewshire had previously spoken Cumbric, the language of the North Britons. The shift from Cumbric to Gaelic began in the second half of the 11th century after the Scottish king Mael Coluim III conquered Strathclyde and deposed its native rulers. Mael Coluim and his fellow-Scots spoke Gaelic but the place name Paisley did not originate in their language. Its early recorded forms show it to have been formed in Brittonic, the language group to which Cumbric belonged.

Three major churches of Renfrewshire, c.950 (Note: Govan was partly in Lanarkshire)

The consensus of opinion sees Paisley deriving ultimately from Greek basilikos, ‘royal’, a word borrowed into Latin as basilica which in Christian times came to mean ‘church’. From Latin the term basilica passed into the Brittonic languages where it evolved into forms such as Old Welsh bassalec. The latter is still preserved in Wales as the village-name Bassaleg, written as Basselek in medieval documents. Paisley, too, is generally assumed to mean ‘basilica’. The change from initial B to P may have been due to local dialect and is not unknown in Celtic borrowings from Latin, e.g. Irish peist, ‘monster’, from Latin bestia. In Paisley’s case, the 12th-century forms Passaleth and Passelet probably arose from mistranscription of -ec by medieval Scottish scribes, perhaps under the influence of Irish baslec which also meant ‘basilica’. Passelek, recorded in the 13th century, might be a fairly close rendering of how the original Cumbric name was pronounced.

Basilica is actually very rare in place names in the British Isles. It occurs in Ireland only twice, at Baslick in County Roscommon and Baslickane in County Kerry. The former was originally Gaelic Baisleac-mor, ‘Great Basilica’; the latter derives from Baisleacan, ‘Little Basilica’. In Britain the only examples are the Welsh village Bassaleg and, if we accept the conventional view, Paisley itself. In places where Brittonic speech survived until quite late (i.e. to the 11th century) we might expect native ‘church’ names to contain eccles (from Latin ecclesia) or the prefix llan-, ‘enclosure’ (i.e. ‘monastic enclosure’) rather than basilica. The latter’s rarity in place names is consistent with its specialised use in Continental Europe where it denoted an important relic-church containing the bones of a major saint. Did the original church at Paisley hold the remains of such a person? By this definition the tomb or shrine was unlikely to commemorate a local or regional saint such as Mirin but one of international renown like a famous martyr or even an Apostle. It may seem surprising, then, to find no folklore at Paisley comparable to the elaborate foundation-legends of St Andrews which claim that the eponymous Apostle’s bones were brought from Constantinople to Fife. If Paisley did indeed have an early basilica, and if the latter term is usually associated with an important saint, why is there no local tradition of major relics being enshrined? The absence of such lore may seem, at first glance, to cast doubt on the usual derivation of the place name.

Or maybe the term basilica was not used so narrowly in the British Isles? Perhaps the Britons and their Irish neighbours associated it with any category of saint, even a minor local one? When we look at Baslick in Ireland, for instance, we find stories about St Sacell, an obscure disciple of Patrick and hardly a figure of international importance. At Bassaleg in Wales we find a similar picture: tales of a local saint (the female hermit Gwladys) but nothing about anyone of major significance. To me, this raises the possibility that the Irish and Britons regarded basilica as simply another word for ‘church’. Its occurrence (or survival) in only a handful of place names suggests that it was well down the list of preferred terms, perhaps being seen as exotic and pretentious. If Baslick and Bassaleg are the relic-churches of Sacell and Gwladys respectively, then maybe Paisley is in fact St Mirin’s basilica and the place where his bones were venerated.

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The Barochan Cross (now in Paisley Abbey)

Notes
* Alternative Brittonic origins for Paisley from Welsh pasgell llethr, ‘pasture slope’ or pas lle, ‘exit place’ have been suggested (by James Johnston and William Oxenham respectively).
* Although basilica is usually associated with churches of the highest status in Western Christendom this appears not to be the case in Eastern Orthodox areas.
* William Oxenham makes the following interesting observation on Paisley: ‘Kuno Meyer the originator of the suggestion that the name is a corruption of Latin Basilica later withdrew it as being based on unsatisfactory evidence.’ (Oxenham 2005, 210) Having not yet tracked down Meyer’s text I’m not sure what reason he gave for withdrawing the basilica idea.

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References

Stephen T. Driscoll, Oliver O’Grady and Katherine Forsyth, ‘The Govan School revisited: searching for meaning in the early medieval sculpture of Strathclyde’, pp.135-58 in S.M. Foster & M. Cross (eds) Able Minds and Practised Hands: Scotland’s Early Medieval Sculpture in the Twenty-First Century (Leeds, 2005) [see p.151 on Paisley as an early relic-church]

James B. Johnston, Place-Names of Scotland. 3rd edition (London, 1934)

William Oxenham, Welsh Origins of Scottish Place-Names (Llanrwst, 2005), pp.210-11

William J. Watson, The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1926), p.194

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This post is part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde series:

A battle in 952

Those of you who are familiar with Kevin Halloran’s articles in academic journals will know that he has a special interest in the political history of 10th century Britain. Kevin recently sent me his thoughts on a little-known event from this period: a Viking victory dated by the Irish annalists to the middle years of the century. In giving a summary of his views Kevin produced a useful and original piece of research which I think deserves a wider audience. As it relates to Scotland I’m publishing it here as a blogpost, with Kevin’s permission.

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A Small Matter Of Identity
by Kevin Halloran

In his excellent overview of early Scottish history, From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070, Alex Woolf considered the identity of the victors in an obscure battle of 952. The event is mentioned in two Irish annals: the Annals of Ulster 952.2 and the Annals of the Four Masters 950.14. The entries are fairly similar, recording that ‘The foreigners won a battle over the men of Alba, the Britons and the Saxons.’ One question at issue is: were the ‘foreigners’ led by the Eric, son of Harold, who took over as king of York that year, by the ousted Amlaib Cuaran and his Irish-based Vikings or were they Vikings from elsewhere?

In both annals the Irish text uses the word Gallaibh to mean ‘foreigners’ and it is evident from many entries in both annals of the period that this term was used to describe the Vikings based in Ireland. The very fact that the event was mentioned in two separate Irish annals suggests strongly in my view that the victors were from Ireland. There is further support for this view. The AFM 940.9 records a battle between Irish-based Vikings and other ‘foreigners who came across the sea’ and is the only entry from either source in the period that refers to Vikings definitely based other than in Ireland. The Irish Vikings are as usual described as G(h)allaibh but their enemies are not, instead being called Goill dar muir. The annal’s use of Goill cannot be simply to differentiate between two groups of Vikings as there are many entries that depict conflicts between Irish Vikings where both sides are described as Gallaibh.

The annals give no context for the battle of 952. The fact that Alba, the Britons (presumably of Strathclyde) and the Saxons (again, presumably of Bamburgh) were in alliance suggests, as Woolf argues, that this was a north British event and also in my view that the alliance was a defensive one as I know of no precedent for such a coalition invading southern Northumbria or elsewhere. Four possibilities come to mind, although there may well be others. Firstly, that Amlaib left York to attack Lothian or Bernicia and Eric usurped the throne in his absence. Secondly, that the ousted Amlaib fought the battle after being driven from York. Thirdly, that supporters of Amlaib fought the battle en route to an attempt at reinstating him in York. Fourthly, that this was simply an unconnected large-scale raid by Irish Vikings into lowland Scotland.

The annal entries give no hint as to the cause of the conflict and, so far as we can tell, there appear to have been no significant or lasting political consequences. There are, however, two events in Ireland prior to the battle that might bear some relation to it. The first took place in 951 and is recorded in AU951.3, AFM949.10, Chronicon Scotorum CS951 and the Annals of Clonmacnoise under 946=951. These all record major raids against Irish churches by the Dublin Vikings under Guthfrith, son of Sihtric, in which 3000 captives and a great spoil of cattle, horses, gold and silver were taken. Similar attacks in Ireland preceded other Viking incursions into Britain and may well have provided the necessary finance for an expedition.

The other event occurred over the winter of 951-2 and is recorded in three of the annals, AU951.7, AFM949.15 and AClon 947=952. The first two refer to an outbreak of leprosy and dysentery among the Vikings of Dublin while the third states that ‘The pox ran over all Ireland’ and describes it as ‘Dolor Gentilium’. It is possible then that the Vikings abandoned Dublin temporarily and crossed over to Britain to escape the outbreak of disease.

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Kevin examines other aspects of the 10th century in these articles:

‘The Brunanburh campaign: a reappraisal’ Scottish Historical Review 84 (2005), 133-48
‘The identity of Etbrunnanwerc’ Scottish Historical Review 89 (2010), 248-53
‘Welsh kings at the English court, 928-956′ Welsh History Review 25 (2011), 297-313

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The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland

The text of Professor Donnchadh Ó Corráin’s 1997 O’Donnell Lecture The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the ninth century is available as an online article at the Irish e-journal Chronicon.

Professor Ó Corráin gives an excellent overview of the initial impact of the Vikings. He proposes that the mysterious Lochlainn - a region named in Irish sources – was a large chunk of northern Scotland brought under Scandinavian control before 850. A few topics previously mentioned here at Senchus turn up along the way. The great battle of 839, in which the Picts and Scots were crushed by a Viking army, gets a mention, as does the Pictish marriage of Rhun of Alt Clut. As regular visitors to this blog will know, I don’t share the view (expressed in the article) that the Clyde Britons lost their independence after 870, but that’s only a minor quibble.

Here’s the abstract:
‘This study attempts to provide a new framework for ninth-century Irish and Scottish history. Viking Scotland, known as Lothlend, Laithlinn, Lochlainn and comprising the Northern and Western Isles and parts of the mainland, especially Caithness, Sutherland and Inverness, was settled by Norwegian Vikings in the early ninth century. By the mid-century it was ruled by an effective royal dynasty that was not connected to Norwegian Vestfold. In the second half of the century it made Dublin its headquarters, engaged in warfare with Irish kings, controlled most Viking activity in Ireland, and imposed its overlordship and its tribute on Pictland and Strathclyde. When expelled from Dublin in 902 it returned to Scotland and from there it conquered York and re-founded the kingdom of Dublin in 917.’

And here’s a link to the full-text at Chronicon.
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Oswald and the Rock of Blood

Oswald, king of Northumbria (from a drawing of the 12th century Hildesheim Reliquary)

The English king Aethelfrith of Bernicia was slain in battle in 616 or 617. His defeat allowed his rival, Prince Edwin, to replace him as overking of Northumbria. Edwin’s ancestral kingdom was Deira, the southern part of Northumbria, but he quickly seized power in Bernicia and drove Aethelfrith’s family into exile.

Aethelfrith’s children sought sanctuary among the Celtic peoples of the North. One son, Eanfrith, came to the Picts, while other siblings found refuge with the Scots. At that time, the ethnic label ‘Scots’ applied to a number of Gaelic-speaking groups in mainland Argyll and the Inner Hebrides. They were divided into various small kingdoms, each dominated by one or more high-status families known as cenéla. Together these kingdoms comprised a region or overkingdom called Dál Riata, which included most of Argyll together with part of northern Ireland. One of the most powerful cenéla ruled the long peninsula of Kintyre. Its members claimed descent from Gabrán, an earlier king who lived around the middle of the sixth century. At the time of Aethelfrith’s defeat, this family was starting to call itself Cenél nGabráin, ‘Gabrán’s Descendants’. Its king was Eochaid Buide (‘Yellow’ or ‘Blond’ Eochaid), a grandson of Gabrán, and it was to him that the young Bernician princes and princesses came seeking shelter and protection.

Among the English exiles was Oswald, a boy of eleven or twelve when he arrived in Dál Riata. Seventeen years later, he would return to his homeland to reclaim his father’s kingship. In the meantime, he dwelt among the Scots as an honoured guest of King Eochaid. He became a Christian and learned the Gaelic language. In his teens he probably repaid his foster-father’s hospitality by fighting as a Cenél nGabráin warrior. He may have travelled extensively throughout Eochaid’s domains, not only on military ventures but also as a member of the king’s entourage on visits to outlying districts. As a high-status Christian convert he most likely visited the monastery of Iona on more than one occasion. But where else did he reside during these years of exile?

Like many early medieval kings, Eochaid Buide would have maintained several residences in different parts of his kingdom. He and his family, together with their entourage of friends, priests, servants and bodyguards, would have used these places at particular times of the year, such as Easter and Christmas, or during periodic tours of the lands under his authority. Some residences served specific purposes as ceremonial venues where the king’s vassal-lords offered homage and tribute. Others had sacred or religious significance, or were associated with revered ancestors of the royal dynasty. One place that seems to fall into this second category was an imposing sea-girt fortress at the southern tip of Kintyre. On modern maps it is usually marked as the site of Dunaverty Castle.

Few traces of the castle now remain. It was occupied in medieval times as a stronghold of the Macdonalds and was the scene of an infamous massacre in the 17th century. Like many coastal promontory fortresses it was built in a commanding position on top of a great mass of rock. At Dunaverty this bulky foundation has a strange, irregular shape that makes it particularly distinctive, especially when viewed from a distance. Memories of the massacre of 1647 were slow to fade and the site is still known as the Rock of Blood.

Dunaverty: view from the west.

The slaughter of 300 members of Clan Donald was the grim climax in a siege by Cromwellian forces led by General Leslie. It was the last of a number of assaults dating back to the 13th century, when an Anglo-Norman lord, an ancestor of Clan Bissett, seized the castle during the reign of the Scottish king Alexander II (1214-49). Five hundred years before Alexander succeeded to the throne, the Irish annals noted the first recorded attack on Dunaverty:

712 Obsessio Aberte apud Selbacum (‘Siege of Aberte by Selbach’)

Selbach was an ambitious Gaelic king whose core domains lay in Lorn, the district around present-day Oban. He belonged to Cenél Loairn, a powerful family who competed with Cenél nGabráin for the overkingship of Dál Riata in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. In 712 he attacked and burned the Cenél nGabráin fortress at Tarbert in central Kintyre before laying siege to Aberte. Although the annalists tell us little about the geography of these campaigns there is little doubt that Aberte was an ancient stronghold on the rock of Dunaverty. The latter name is an Anglicised form of Gaelic Dun Abhartaigh, ‘Abhartach’s Fort’. In the 8th century this would have been written as Dun Abartaig.

Dunaverty: modern buildings on the slipway below the Rock.

A little further along the shore, but still within sight of watchers on the Rock of Blood, lies a place called Keil Point. The caves in the cliffs behind are signposted as a tourist attraction, as are the nearby ruins of St Columba’s Chapel. On a small outcrop next to the chapel two shallow footprints have been carefully carved in the stone. They are known today as ‘St Columba’s Footprints’ and, like the caves, are regularly visited by tourists. One carving is relatively modern, having been made in the 19th century, but the other is much older. The outcrop was almost certainly used in past times as a sacred place of inauguration. A new king or chieftain would have placed his foot in the ancient footprint to signify his bond with the land. A similar, more famous footprint can be seen on the summit of Dunadd, a hillfort situated somewhat north of Kintyre on the road to Oban. In the early eighth century, when Selbach and his sons stood at the height of their power, Dunadd was one of the main strongholds of their family. It is likely that the footprint on the summit was used in Selbach’s inauguration ceremony when he became king of Cenél Loairn (c.701) and likewise by his son Dungal in 723. The footprint at Keil Point in southern Kintyre surely served the same ceremonial purpose for the kings of Cenél nGabráin. If so, then the nearby fortress of Dun Abartaig was probably their main centre of power.

Dunaverty: view from the summit, looking towards the slipway.

The summit of the Rock, viewed from the northeast.

The photographs accompanying this post were taken ten years ago during a holiday in Kintyre. They give an idea of the impressive setting of ancient Dun Abartaig and the castle that succeeded it. As with many centres of power in early medieval Scotland the habitable area on the summit is fairly small but to me there seems little doubt that this is one of the places where the young Prince Oswald lived among his Cenél nGabráin foster-kin. It might even have been the royal residence he and his siblings regarded as their main ‘home’ during the long years of exile from Bernicia.

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Notes

* Cenél nGabráin is pronounced ‘Kenel Navrain’

* The identification of Aberte as Dunaverty is usually credited to William Reeves in his edition of Adomnán’s Life of St Columba (Dublin, 1857). It was supported by W.F. Skene later in the same century, by Alan Orr Anderson in 1922, by the place-name scholar William Watson in 1926 and, more recently, by James Fraser in 2009 (to name but four).

* On Oswald’s exile see two articles by Michelle Ziegler in The Heroic Age: The Politics of Exile in Early Northumbria and Oswald and the Irish. Michelle has also posted a useful Oswald bibliography at her Heavenfield blog.

* On Selbach of Cenél Loairn and his rivalry with Cenél nGabráin see James Fraser, From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795 (Edinburgh, 2009), pp.273-4 and 282-5.

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When did Scotland become Scotland?

One of my earlier blogposts looked at the origins of the Scots, and at the old idea that they came from Ireland versus a more recent theory that they were indigenous to Britain. Since writing the post, I’ve toyed with the idea of adding a sequel which would examine why other peoples, such as the Picts and North Britons, eventually became ‘Scots’. I still hope to produce something along these lines, when I get around to it. In the meantime, I’m putting up a signpost to a useful article that touches on this topic. It was published fifteen years ago, in the journal History Today, and is currently available online. The author, Dauvit Broun, is one of the foremost authorities on medieval Scotland and has written a number of groundbreaking papers on the evolution of the kingdom. This one is somewhat less academic than his usual output but it provides a good summary of where his ideas were taking him in the mid-1990s. It argues that the concept of a unified Scottish nation, and the political reality of a country called Scotland, were fairly late developments. Professor Broun (as he is now) suggests the 13th century as a plausible context. England, by contrast, already had a well-defined sense of unity and nationhood by c.1000. The article is a quick and easy read but it gives an excellent overview of a complex and controversial subject. At a time when Scottish independence is back on the political agenda the question of how the country came into being has a certain relevance.

Dauvit Broun, When did Scotland become Scotland? History Today vol.46, no.10 (October 1996), pp.16-21

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