The Age of the Picts (History S.)

by W.A. Cummins

Hardcover, 1995

Status

Available

Call number

936.11

Collection

Publication

Sutton Publishing (1995), Hardcover

Description

The Pictish nation, forged in the shadow of the Roman Empire, was the dominant power in northern Britain for more than 500 years. In this book, Dr Cummins provides a fresh look at the whole Pictish story, placing it firmly in its true historical context and reassessing topics such as the legend of Drust son of Erp and St Columba's evangelising mission in 563.The Age of the Picts also includes unusual but useful comparisons with contemporary events in Wales and England as well as new and controversial interpretations of Sueno's Stone and Pictish symbols, and a fresh explanation of how the Scots took over Pictland in the ninth century AD.This concise and readable work is a valuable resource for those with existing knowledge on the subject, and an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to delve further into the fascinating world of the Picts.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member DirtPriest
Just finished this little gem of a book. The author makes the most of the scanty evidence in existence about the Pictish nation in the Dark Ages of Scotland. Most of this consists of the Pictish Chronicles, two separate lists of kings, giving names and years of reign, corroborating data from the
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Ulster Chronicle of Ireland and the life of St. Columba (who was granted the isle of Iona by a Pictish king), as well as the king lists of both Wales and Scotland. Also used are relevant snippets of Bede, Nennius, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Not a lot, but some interesting conclusions can be inferred from them.

Most of the data covers the interaction between the Picts of the eastern two-thirds of 'Scotland' and the Irish Scotti tribe of Dalriada, roughly modern Argyll in western modern Scotland. After showing the validity of the Pictish Chronicle by comparing it against the Ulster Chronicle mostly using the dates of events in the life of St. Columba, the crux of the book lays out a rough outline of a probable history of a large nation of unknown people (as far as where exactly they came from), and a supposition as to where they went. As opposed to a fictional story, I have no problem throwing out a 'spoiler' to a history, so the author's theory is simply that the Picts never went anywhere. The key to this to my mind is the simple sentence 'Over the centuries, the English language had far more success than the English armies.' The different names applied to 'Pictavia' reflect the changes in language throughout the British Isles, and the Picts simply lost their language, slowly, to a more succinct and versatile English. Thus, they became referred to as Scots and so they became Scots, simple as that. Kenneth mac Alpin appears in both the Pictish Chronicle and the list of Scottish kings, and is referred to in various sources as both king of the Scots and King of the Picts. There is absolutely no reference to any mass defeat or extinction/exodus, so the simplest solution is that they never left and just merged in with the Scotti. Over this span, the region went from being called Pictavia to Alban to Fortren (a diplomatic name for an allied region against the Vikings) to Scotland.

All in all, quite a lot of information gleaned from scattered and lean sources. There is even a bit of discussion about Pictish standing stones and an attempt to understand, if not decipher the symbols on them. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of the British Isles, but probably pretty drab for someone who could care less.
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LibraryThing member lpg3d
This is a very good introduction to the history of the Picts. Since the Picts didn't leave any writings, it's very difficult to piece together their history. It appears that most of our information regarding the Picts comes from the people that they interacted with, not the Picts themselves. This
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book also gives a great overview of the pictish stones that may be found in Eastern Scotland, and attempts to decode the symbols on the stones.
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Language

Physical description

176 p.; 9.92 inches

ISBN

0750909242 / 9780750909242
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