From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795Shortlisted for the 2009 Saltire Society History Book of the Yea. rFrom Caledonia to Pictland examines the transformation of Iron Age northern Britain into a land of Christian kingdoms, long before 'Scotland' came into existence. Perched at the edge of the western Roman Empire, northern Britain was not unaffected by the experience, and became swept up in the great tide of processes which gave rise to the early medieval West. Like other places, the country experienced social and ethnic metamorphoses, Christianisation, and colonization by dislocated outsiders, but northern Britain also has its own unique story to tell in the first eight centuries AD.This book is the first detailed political history to treat these centuries as a single period, with due regard for Scotland's position in the bigger story of late Antique transition. From Caledonia to Pictland charts the complex and shadowy processes which saw the familiar Picts, Northumbrians, North Britons and Gaels of early Scottish history become established in the country, the achievements of their foremost political figures, and their ongoing links with the world around them. It is a story that has become much revised through changing trends in scholarly approaches to the challenging evidence, and that transformation too is explained for the benefit of students and general readers. |
Contents
1 | |
13 | |
15 | |
Chapter 2 The Later Roman Iron Age and the Origins of the Picts | 43 |
Chapter 3 Uinniau Ninian and the Early Church in Scotland | 68 |
Columba in Northern Britain | 94 |
Postscript The Roman Interlude | 116 |
Part Two The Age of the Kings of Bamburgh 576692 | 119 |
Part Three The Pictish Project 692789 | 235 |
Bridei son of DerIlei Iona and Argyll 692707 | 237 |
Northumbria and Pictavia 70424 | 264 |
Despot Butcher and King 72861 | 287 |
A Doubtful Generation 76189 | 320 |
Chapter 13 Regimecraft in Early Historic Northern Britain | 347 |
Postscript Remote from the Roman Nation | 375 |
Timeline | 380 |
Áedán Urbgen and Aeðilfrith 576616 | 121 |
Iona and the Kingdoms of Northern Britain 61643 | 155 |
Oswy and his Hegemony 64270 | 175 |
Bridei son of Beli and the Fall of the Aeðilfrithings 67192 | 200 |
Postscript Scotland and the Aeðilfrithing Legacy | 229 |
Guide to Further Reading | 386 |
393 | |
410 | |
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Common terms and phrases
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