Picts

I

Introduction

Picts, inhabitants of Scotland north of the River Forth between c. 300 and 900. Picti (Latin, “painted ones”) are first mentioned by Roman sources in 297. They were not a new people but an old one. When the Romans came to Britain they did not distinguish the inhabitants of the north from those of the south. As the southern Britons became more Romanized the term Picti was introduced to denote their wild cousins beyond the frontier who still practised tattooing. During the late Roman period the Picts engaged in wide-ranging raids into southern Britain (see Roman Britain).

Very little in the way of written evidence survives from the Picts. The names of their kings, groupings, and places make it clear that their language was a form of British Celtic very close to Welsh, but a handful of inscriptions survive which have proved indecipherable and this has led to much controversy.

II

The Unification of the Picts

In Roman times the Picts were divided into many different groups, and there is little evidence of a developed social hierarchy. By about 700 one kingdom had developed along the banks of the River Tay that was to dominate the whole region. This kingdom was called Fortriu by Irish writers, and Werteru by the Anglo-Saxons. The name derives from one of the Roman period peoples, the Verturiones. To outside observers the kings of Fortriu looked very much like the kings of the Picts, and were often so called. Indeed, the only native text that survives from the kingdom is in Latin, and calls the realm Pictavia. It is probable that the kingdom of Fortriu dominated weaker neighbours and gradually incorporated their territories into its own. In the 7th century the Picts suffered from the expansionist ambitions of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia. Oswiu of Bernicia (642-671) conquered some of southern Pictavia, and his son, Ecgfrith (671-685), installed a relative, Bridei (672-693), son of Beli, as a sub-king in Fortriu. It was Bridei’s victory over Ecgfrith at the Battle of Nechtansmere, or Dunnichen Moss, in 685, which set the stage for the creation of the Verturian kingdom. A generation later, Naiton (706-724), son of Derile, established better relations with Bernicia, and reorganized the Pictish Church along Anglo-Saxon lines. Another Verturian king, Onuist (729-761), son of Urguist, conquered the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata, and led expeditions deep into England.

III

Christianity in Pictavia

Although there may have been some conversions in the late Roman period, the Picts as a whole probably converted to Christianity in the 6th century. Missionaries came from both the Britons to the south, and from the Gaels to the west, most notably from Iona, although it is not clear how significant any impact St Columba himself made.

The Verturian kingdom is best characterized by the great relief cross-slabs found across eastern Scotland between the River Forth and Easter Ross in the far north. These carved stone monuments, several metres high, generally have a cross and abstract imagery on one side, and naturalistic depictions, some secular and some scriptural, on the reverse. The Pictish artists seem particularly taken with the image of the Old Testament king, David. The apogee of Pictish art is the royal shrine known as the St Andrews Sarcophagus, which depicts David rending open a lion’s jaws. The absence of these relief monuments from the Orkney and Shetland islands, which were ethnically Pictish, may mean that they were never fully within the kingdom. It was the Verturian king, Unuist, who founded the Church of St Andrews, and it was probably his bones that were kept in the St Andrews Sarcophagus.

IV

The Decline of the Picts

The disappearance of the Picts and their language has courted controversy. When the Gaelic prince, Cinaed mac Ailpín (Kenneth MacAlpin), became king of the Picts in 843, contemporary sources make no suggestions that this was the end of Pictavia, but in the time of his grandsons, c. 900, the kingdom changed its name to Alba, and by the year 1000 all trace of the Picts as a living people had gone.