tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post8830609265132625836..comments2023-11-29T07:39:34.401+00:00Comments on Carla Nayland Historical Fiction: The Female Royal Line: matrilineal succession amongst the Picts?Carlahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-57451564532583964002008-03-17T19:30:00.000+00:002008-03-17T19:30:00.000+00:00Tenthmedieval - thanks very much for the link.Tenthmedieval - thanks very much for the link.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-54055148525721500512008-03-16T15:40:00.000+00:002008-03-16T15:40:00.000+00:00Just to say that, since comments here have died do...Just to say that, since comments here have died down a bit and I had some more stuff worked up to say, <A HREF="http://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/pictland-should-be-plural/" REL="nofollow">I've developed some of it in a post at my own blog</A> if anyone would care to have a look.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-63147613542477536722008-02-28T12:37:00.000+00:002008-02-28T12:37:00.000+00:00Gabriele - that seems a very sensible approach, an...Gabriele - that seems a very sensible approach, and I'd probably do the same if I was writing in the period.<BR/><BR/>Constance - now, that's a novel use for <I>A Brief History of Time</I> :-)Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-24257966509449164452008-02-27T19:32:00.000+00:002008-02-27T19:32:00.000+00:00*opened Pict books. Read several chapters. Closed ...*opened Pict books. Read several chapters. Closed Pict books, found 'A Brief History of Time', wet, wrung out, applied cool book liberally to forehead*<BR/><BR/>There, I feel better. :)Constance Brewerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17964121072645959593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-79297384217036526102008-02-27T18:55:00.000+00:002008-02-27T18:55:00.000+00:00Carla, that's why I prefer to call my early 'Picts...Carla, that's why I prefer to call my early 'Picts' for Caledonians, also used in Roman sources or use the tribal names like Selgovae, Epidii etc, though those are not what they called themselves.Gabriele Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17205770868139083575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-51815868877186613762008-02-27T18:31:00.000+00:002008-02-27T18:31:00.000+00:00Tenthmedieval/Rick - yes, marriage probably became...Tenthmedieval/Rick - yes, marriage probably became very complicated for a while as one set of customs were giving way to another. Perhaps people had two or three ceremonies to make sure they were properly married and would be treated as such, in the same way that Admiral Cochrane in the early 19th C married his wife three times (civil ceremony and two different church ceremonies).<BR/><BR/>Steven - I've heard of Jack Dixon's book but not yet read it. Kirsten has read and reviewed it, I believe - there's a <A HREF="http://www.jdixon.net/id72.html" REL="nofollow">link to her review</A> on Jack Dixon's site. It's set in the 1st century AD when the Caledonii and the rest of the tribes of what's now north Scotland were fighting the Romans. I could carp and say that the term 'Pict' didn't come into use until a couple of centuries later, but that would be nit-picking as there's little doubt that the people fighting the Romans were the same people who later became called the Picts. The title just jars me because I always think of the Picts as an early medieval society, spanning roughly the fourth to the ninth centuries. You don't see much of them in fiction, which is a shame. <BR/>Yes, they merged with the Scots of Dal Riada (roughly modern Argyll). Traditionally the first king to unite the Picts and Scots was Kenneth mac Alpin in around 850, but it was probably a gradual process. The people of the combined kingdom were referred to as Albans in Irish-language sources, Picts in Latin, and Scots in English, and their territory occupied what's now Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde valleys. Around the end of the ninth century the Irish annalists stop writing in Latin and start using Irish, so the name 'Picts' disappears. Doesn't mean the people did, though.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-31390280180506985992008-02-27T17:18:00.000+00:002008-02-27T17:18:00.000+00:00Interesting read. Don't hear about the Picts very ...Interesting read. Don't hear about the Picts very often. What eventually happened to their society? Were they absorbed by the Scots? I came across this book the other day called The Pict, by Jack Dixon. Didn't know if you had heard of it and/or were familiar with it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-27876109298272904162008-02-27T17:08:00.000+00:002008-02-27T17:08:00.000+00:00Tenthmedieval - I suppose the complications of mar...Tenthmedieval - I suppose the complications of marriage are greatest precisely when a society is becoming Christianized, and church-door marriage is just becoming the norm without yet banishing traditional usages. The distinctions between wives and concubines must become very hazy, and depend on who you ask. <BR/><BR/>At an earlier date, I imagine church marriage is still a novelty with mostly retrospective significance. Later on, as the church secures its primacy, any other wives fall to the status of mistresses, and the customs involved fall into abeyance.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-360361023565389432008-02-27T14:19:00.000+00:002008-02-27T14:19:00.000+00:00There then arises the question of what counts as `...There then arises the question of what counts as `marriage', which gets a lot more complicated when the Church gets involved. There was a really good recent article by Ruth Mazo Karras in <I>Early Medieval Europe</I> 14 (2006) about this kind of `lay' marriage in early Germany which you might find interesting, I did.<BR/><BR/>Carla: glad Áedán was of interest. What the journal seem to have been doing was replacing one inactive editor after another with one no better, and they have finally sacrificed competence and academia just to get a final issue out. Oh well, nothing to be done now.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-50284885838719092002008-02-27T10:23:00.000+00:002008-02-27T10:23:00.000+00:00Kirsten - There may well have been chief and secon...Kirsten - There may well have been chief and secondary wives, which can be very handy when politics gets complicated. Like Cnut the Great marrying Aelfgifu of Northampton and then Queen Emma at the same time and having sons by both of them, both of whom went on to become king. As usual, I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-29350591144819227632008-02-26T18:37:00.000+00:002008-02-26T18:37:00.000+00:00Carla - Yes, indeed. If we had some female names i...Carla - Yes, indeed. If we had some female names in the genealogies we would be able see if a Pictish king had a Pictish, Briton, or Anglo-Saxon mother, which could answer some questions. But we don't, and it's incredibly frustrating. <BR/><BR/>You brought up an interesting point regarding the practicalities of these marriages. They might very well have depended on the situations and parties involved. Perhaps the Pictish laws had a system similar to that of "chief wife" and "secondary wife" of early Irish law which had some bearing onto the marriage alliances they made? Tenuous, I know.<BR/><BR/>Tenthmedieval - <I>And descent through the female line wouldn't necessarily make for any extra power or independence for the relevant princesses anyway, it might just make them higher-value tokens in a male-ruled game of arranged marriage.</I><BR/><BR/>The same thing has occurred to me, too. Surely that would just make their futures and prospects even more tightly controlled?<BR/><BR/>I'll need to make time have a look at all those sources you listed. It's a subject I'm very interested in. As you've said, however, we've got all these agenda-driven writers muddying the waters by stretching the facts as far as they can for their own ends. I like to let my imagination run away with me, but I also like my history to be academic!Kirsten Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09742983194293251047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-76915940370634662562008-02-26T13:52:00.000+00:002008-02-26T13:52:00.000+00:00Isn't there a single Pictish princess with an obit...Isn't there a single Pictish princess with an obituary notice in the Irish Annals some time in the 8th century? So I suppose we could add her and - hey - two women mentioned by name in half a millenium or so. This is hardly evidence of matriarchy.<BR/><BR/>Arguably, a historical fiction writer only needs the absence of evidence against something. So all those <A HREF="http://furiaspes.wordpress.com/2006/02/20/how-to-write-feministly-reimagined-historical-novels/" REL="nofollow">Feministly-Reimagined Novels</A> are safe from refutation. I suspect they say more about modern society than the one they are supposedly set in, though.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-35322175485919398902008-02-26T13:51:00.000+00:002008-02-26T13:51:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-10544352602255069912008-02-26T13:49:00.000+00:002008-02-26T13:49:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-33422132090049144432008-02-26T13:38:00.000+00:002008-02-26T13:38:00.000+00:00Rick - whether there was a widespread problem depe...Rick - whether there was a widespread problem depends when kings typically married and started fathering heirs, how prolific they were and what the rate of attrition was. But it would seem highly sensible to have a contingency plan to cope with the situation of under-age sons. With regard to 15th and 16th century Scotland, I wonder if it was more profitable to be on the Regency council with your fingers in the till than it was to be actually king? Also if you usurp the throne, all the other factions will promptly try to usurp you, even if they can agree on nothing else. The throne was quite likely far more trouble than it was worth to a canny nobleman.<BR/>Ship names - presumably the Roman navy used the Greek terms because they got a lot of their seafaring skills from Greece, which had been a maritime power since the year dot?<BR/><BR/>Kirsten - to be fair, we don't know who the mothers of the Pictish kings were, so for all we know some of them might have been from other kingdoms. I wonder how a marriage between a Pictish princess and a powerful foreigner might have worked in practice? If the children of the marriage were brought up in the father's country, the Picts might justifiably be concerned about foreign influence if one of them became king of the Picts. You could solve this if it was a condition that the children had to be raised in Pictland (which would also mean they wouldn't develop a power base in their father's country and so would be unlikely to succeed him there) - but then this raises the question of how the marriage worked. It would be fine for an exile like Eanferth, who might just as well live in Pictland as anywhere else, but what about a powerful foreigner like Maelgwn Gwynedd? Would his wife and her children live in Pictland and just expect him to travel north from time to time, do his marital duty, and go home again? In which case, did he have a non-Pictish wife at home as well, who would produce heirs for his own country?<BR/>As a terribly un-academic aside, I remember seeing one of Michael Palin's travel series (Himalaya?) where he interviewed a woman whose society practised matrilineal descent. They have what she called a "walking marriage". If a woman takes a liking to a man, he comes to her, they have a baby together, then he goes away and her brothers bring up the baby. I wonder if the Picts did something similar if a royal lady married a foreign king?<BR/><BR/>Tenthmedieval - many thanks, those are very helpful. I've read your article (and your blog post - what on earth was the journal doing with it for seven years?!), and thought your suggestions about Aedan mac Gabran's possible marriage alliances were very interesting.<BR/><BR/>Bernita - it has all sorts of practical advantages.<BR/><BR/>Tenthmedieval/Rick/Gabriele - I agree about agendas! I thought twice before even putting this post up. You see the same in arguments about pre-Christian religions, where it's very easy to come up with an attractive theory and then look for evidence that can be stretched to fit. When there's not very much real evidence, insufficient to make a really definitive statement either way, it can be difficult to disprove an agenda-driven theory because it's hard to prove a negative. Rick's comment about para-historical fiction reminds me of a discussion we had here a while back about Oprah-type self-fulfilment in a novel set in Iron-Age Scotland. I don't think that's terribly likely or convincing, but in the absence of any real evidence I can't prove it wrong. Non-fiction can go in for agendas too (especially the 'narrative' type, which sometimes seems to me to be more or less fiction with footnotes instead of dialogue), which is one reason I try to start with the contemporary sources if there are any. The early medieval period seems to be particularly prone to agendas, perhaps because it has just enough evidence to be tantalisingly mysterious but not enough to be really sure about anything. Perhaps similar to the way the classical world always put the Amazons just on the fringes of the known world? You know there's something there, but you don't know what, so you write "Here be Dragons" (or "Here be a feminist utopia" according to taste).<BR/><BR/>It's noticeable that Norman laws allowed women to inherit property, yet nobody would call it a female-dominated society (!). I recall reading an anthropological book a while ago now, something about the evolution of humans, and the authors made the telling point that although human societies vary considerably, they are all either roughly equal or male-dominated to varying degrees. So while it seems plausible that the Picts practised a form of matriliny, I certainly agree that this doesn't mean they were matriarchal! Princesses were important in matrimonial alliances in medieval Europe because the throne sometimes happened to descend through the female line - Stephen, Henry II, the Hapsburgs getting Spain through Juana la Loca - or because a woman with a strong claim could be used to bolster a weak male claim - Henry VII marrying Elizabeth of York - but that didn't mean the women concerned had much of a say in the matter.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-11109871836424041742008-02-26T13:32:00.000+00:002008-02-26T13:32:00.000+00:00Sure, fiction writers have more leeway (and I bet ...Sure, fiction writers have more leeway (and I bet I'll get some comments about my portrait of Arminius' wife should the book ever get published) but I'm tired of those tree hugging, sexually empowered, matriarchalic Celtic priestesses woh are Better Than Men. :)Gabriele Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17205770868139083575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-84904294393005998712008-02-26T13:00:00.000+00:002008-02-26T13:00:00.000+00:00Gabriele, this is it. Those who want to make of Pi...Gabriele, this is it. Those who want to make of Pictland a matriarchy where women were loved and respected need to explain why on earth we don't know the name of a single Pictish woman bar <I>perhaps</I> Verb mother of King Nechtan. Historically-known Picts are few, but they're not so few that all being male isn't, well, like everywhere else and not like somewhere so radically different as that!<BR/><BR/>I mean historians here of course; fiction writers can have it however they'd like if it helps with a good story ;-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-50654781141022499572008-02-25T20:36:00.000+00:002008-02-25T20:36:00.000+00:00The feminist approach is one of my pet peeves as w...The feminist approach is one of my pet peeves as well. We know so little about the British and Pictish - or Germanic, for that matter - societies, and what we know is seen through the Roman lens and coloured by Roman agenda. Sure, Boudica and Cartimandua were different from Roman women, but how different were they in their own society? There are definitely a lot more male leaders mentioned by name. Tacitus' story about the capture of Arminius' wife jars so much I think it is an agenda rather than historiography. And female priestesses (one of the favourite features of feminist literature) can be found in evil, patriarchialic Rome as well. :)Gabriele Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17205770868139083575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-50745418395625674152008-02-25T16:38:00.000+00:002008-02-25T16:38:00.000+00:00Tenthmedieval - your points relate to a common ten...Tenthmedieval - your points relate to a common tendency in historical fiction, or what perhaps should be called para-historical fiction - fiction set in early societies that are known to exist, but about which we have very little if any first hand account. (Para-historical is not intended as a diss; you can be just as accurate about the Beaker People as the 18th century, within the limits of our knowledge and plausible inference.)<BR/><BR/>The prehistoric Celts and Minoan Crete especially, however, tend to draw a lot of what might be called feminist social fantasy - picturing these societies as matriarchal paradises, till overrun by nasty sweaty Roman/Saxon/Mycenaean XY's with lots of weapons and far too much testosterone.<BR/><BR/>Because, of course, men in a male dominant society would <I>never</I> dream of covering their palace walls with frescoes of pretty women wearing might-as-we-be-topless outfits.<BR/><BR/>(Yes, I'm perfectly well aware that applying the assumptions of <I>Maxim</I> to Minoan iconography is precisely as tendentious as applying the assumptions of <I>Our Bodies, Ourselves.</I> I'm just sayin'.)Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-70806547486518483802008-02-25T11:59:00.000+00:002008-02-25T11:59:00.000+00:00The biggest difficulty with arguments about matril...The biggest difficulty with arguments about matriliny is that it attracts people with agendas. Aside from the Victorian scholarship Gabriele mentioned, there's a more modern feminist agenda pursued by people who don't care too much about the facts. This minority tend to want there to have been a medieval kingdom where women were important. But matriliny does not equal matriarchy!<BR/><BR/>So that Gray article I cited there has a lot of Welsh and Irish parallels about the importance of women in various ways in those societies, mostly drawn from much later literature and art which is problematic in itself. But a cursory reading of some actual <B>anthropology</B> on the subject will rapidly expose to you that though lots of societies have matrilineal characteristics, very few of them have lots, and there's no obvious natural correlation from any one to another. So that if the early Irish let family property descend down the female line, that still doesn't mean that they chose kings that way; and the converse isn't necessarily, or even likely, true for Pictland. Nowhere where such practices can be studied would lead one to expect such practices to exist together. If women are privileged in one way in a society, they are often as not disadvantaged compared to men in another. And descent through the female line wouldn't necessarily make for any extra power or independence for the relevant princesses anyway, it might just make them higher-value tokens in a male-ruled game of arranged marriage...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-18995477325441987352008-02-25T11:45:00.000+00:002008-02-25T11:45:00.000+00:00It seems sensible that matriliniar descent would b...It seems sensible that matriliniar descent would be a default choice.<BR/>From a practical standpoint, blood royal would mean training in arms, leadership,and the neessary negotiation skills.Bernitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05264585685253812090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-87443092310483251432008-02-24T21:12:00.000+00:002008-02-24T21:12:00.000+00:00Carla, okay, here goes with some references, and I...Carla, okay, here goes with some references, and I am rather behind the field here, but I don't <B>think</B> much more has happened in it on matriliny because I tend to ask Alex Woolf when I see him.<BR/><BR/>Starting points (that you may already have read):<BR/><BR/>· M O. Anderson, <I>Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland</I> (Edinburgh 1973, 2nd edn. 1980)<BR/><BR/>· W. D. H. Sellar, "Warlords, Holy Men and Matrilineal Succession" in <I>The<BR/>Innes Review</I> Vol. 36 (Glasgow 1985), pp. 29-43 (an extended review of Smyth's <I>Warlords and Holy Men</I>)<BR/><BR/>Then more recently:<BR/><BR/>· A. Woolf, "Pictish Matriliny Reconsidered" in <I>The Innes Review</I> Vol. 49 (Edinburgh 1998), pp. 147-167 (solid solid stuff, with useful comparisons to Wales and Ireland)<BR/><BR/>· K. A. Gray, "Matriliny at the Millennium: the question of Pictish matrilineal succession revisited" in <I>Pictish Arts Society Journal</I> Vol. 14 (Edinburgh 1999), pp. 13-32 (king of the lunatic fringe!)<BR/><BR/>· A. Ross, "Pictish Matriliny?" in <I>Northern Studies: the journal of the Scottish Society for Northern Studies</I> Vol. 34 (Dundee 2000), pp. 11-22.<BR/><BR/>There may well be more but if so I don't know where, I'm afraid; I haven't worked in this field for a long time. When I did though, I had some fun messing with the possibilities of the kind of foreign-prince-marries-Pictish-princess scenario that Kirsten brings up here, and if you or she were interested you could find <A HREF="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~jjarrett/files/pubdraf2.pdf" REL="nofollow">that paper linked at my webpages as a PDF</A> (with <A HREF="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~jjarrett/files/biblio.pdf" REL="nofollow">Bibliography here</A>). It is in fact now out, as The Political Range of Áedán mac Gabrán, King of Dál Riata" in <I>Pictish Arts Society Journal</I> Vol. 17 (Brechin 2008), pp. 3-24, but as <A HREF="http://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/let-no-one-say-i-cant-take-criticism-as-well-as-i-give-it/" REL="nofollow">I describe on my blog</A> it's suffered rather since the editors first got it in <I>2000</I>...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-14102268782825188822008-02-24T20:24:00.000+00:002008-02-24T20:24:00.000+00:00Carla - See, that's what I find interesting. We ha...Carla - See, that's what I find interesting. We have these kings who had (or may have had) non-Pictish fathers who went on to become kings of the Picts, but no records of Pictish kings who had non-Pictish mothers. Certainly raises a question or two! Of course, they could easily be answered if we had some female names in the chronicles. (grumbles) There could be any number of reasons for these kings not succeeding their fathers' kingdoms, but there still might be an element of the Picts seeing these kings as producing heirs for them, rather than the other way around.<BR/><BR/>As for Kenneth macAlpin, I've wondered about the theory that his mother was a Pict. Perhaps it lends a grain of truth to the legend of macAlpin's Treason. Disregarding the hidden bolts etc., it could be possible that he was eligible for the kingship through his mother and then took steps to eliminate other candidates...Kirsten Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09742983194293251047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-88476907013305618982008-02-24T17:59:00.000+00:002008-02-24T17:59:00.000+00:00Carla - that is a convincing scenario for "difficu...Carla - that is a convincing scenario for "difficulties," and fits the short reigns in the list. You also bring up an interesting practical problem in patrilineal succession - the likelihood, in a dangerous age, of kings dying leaving only underage sons. <BR/><BR/>Remarkably, in this same geographical area, the Stewarts survived some 200 years of repeated long royal minorities without a usurpation, and it isn't like 15th and 16th c. Scotland was a famously law abiding country. Maybe the Scottish throne was not worth usurping?<BR/><BR/>If "Scythia" can include Scandinavia, there's no problem with a sea migration, and admittedly no one is going to get to Scotland any other way.<BR/><BR/><I>Nauibus/navibus longis</I> is Latin for "with warships" of whatever sort. Any ship built to carry lots of men and be fast under oars is long, longer than all but the largest sailing ships, so long ship was the natural term for warships in the galley age. Bede would naturally picture drakkar types, but the Latin term goes back to classical antiquity.<BR/><BR/>Fun aside: Latin terms like trireme and quadrireme were purely literary usage - the Roman navy used the Greek terms. For example, a rock drawing of a Roman warship, likely done by a swab, was labeled <I>navis tetraris longa,</I> using Greek <I>tetraris,</I> "4-er," rather than <I>quadriremis.</I><BR/><BR/><I>Llong</I> - It looks to me as if the proto-Welsh borrowed the Latin term for warship and used it for ships in general. There's plenty of archeological evidence for trade, but in the 5th century people were understandably more preoccupied with warships than cargo ships!Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-20985418078326364372008-02-24T13:34:00.000+00:002008-02-24T13:34:00.000+00:00Gabriele - the king-list can be interpreted any nu...Gabriele - the king-list can be interpreted any number of ways, since what it mainly shows is what didn't happen (father-to-son succession) rather than what did. It's quite likely that women married earlier than men, since that happened elsewhere, and the propensity of early medieval kings to get killed in battle might limit the number who had adult sons ready to succeed. In which case an elective system based on choosing the best man for the job out of a pool of candidates with the right descent, reckoned by male or female line or both, would be an eminently sensible system. <BR/><BR/>The naked tattooed Picts weren't entirely a Victorian invention - there's a print from 1588 on the same lines, perhaps influenced by North American Indians encountered by the settlers. There does seem to be a desire to see the Picts as somehow more exotic than other early medieval peoples, doesn't there? I have my doubts about that myself - distinctive, yes, but not completely off the wall.<BR/><BR/>Rick - Bede was in a better position to know than we are, 1300 years later, so I wouldn't throw his statement out without substantial evidence to the contrary. It's a shame he didn't explain what he meant by 'difficulties'. (Though if the poor guy had put in all the stuff we wish he'd put in, he'd be writing his book yet:-) My guess is that sometimes there would be an obvious leading candidate that most of the factions and sub-tribes and so on could agree on, for whatever reason, and then you'd get a succession without 'difficulties'. Other times you'd have several strong candidates, each with substantial support, and it wouldn't be so obvious who was the front runner. (Modern parallels, anyone...?) Then you'd get a succession with 'difficulties' that would have to be resolved, very possibly by fighting it out, perhaps over several short-lived kings until there's a last man standing.<BR/><BR/>I have read somewhere that Scythia was sometimes used to mean, more or less, "a barbarian land far far away and long long ago", and could be applied to various geographical regions distant from the writer, including Scandinavia. A migration from Scandinavia to North Scotland by ship makes perfect sense. Orkney and Caithness is full of Norse place names, and I don't suppose the Vikings were the first to think of it!<BR/><BR/>In the <A HREF="http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bede/bede1.shtml" REL="nofollow">original Latin</A> Bede's phrase is "longis nauibus". My Latin isn't good enough to tell whether that's best translated as 'long ship' or 'warship'. I doubt that Bede's source - which sounds suspiciously legendary - had a detailed description in any case, any more than a fairytale that says "he came to a castle" feels the need to specify whether this was a Roman fort, a Dun, a squat Norman keep or a twirly Hollywood castle with turrets and fluttery pennons. <BR/><BR/>Llongborth is in the Elegy for Geraint, an early medieval Welsh poem of uncertain date attributed to Llywarch Hen (if true, that would place it in the late 6th century, approx, but apply usual pinch of salt). John Morris identifies it with Portsmouth and the landing by "Port and his sons" in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for 501, but this is by no means a certain identification. Other people have placed it at Langport in Somerset, and no doubt other places too. The literal translation of Llongborth would be 'ship port' or similar, just as Loch Long in Argyll means 'ship loch' not 'long loch.<BR/><BR/>Constance - be prepared to get more confused if you do! There's so little evidence that everyone builds different towers of theory, and there seem to be at least as many opinions as there are scholars. Which is true of much of early medieval history, but applies to the Picts redoubled in spades. By the time you've read three or four books on the subject you want to lie down with a wet cloth over your eyes, or take up something simple like the physics of black holes :-)<BR/><BR/>Meghan - it's a fascinating area, and will make you very glad you've got Herodotus :-)<BR/><BR/>Kirsten - hello and welcome. Talorcan son of Eanferth is an excellent example. He may have been too young to make a bid for Bernicia when Eanferth was killed, since if he was born after Eanferth went to Pictland in exile he would have been no more than 17 in 633/4 when Eanferth was killed. But he doesn't seem to have been a candidate when Oswald died 8 years later. My guess is that he had made his life among the Picts and considered that he belonged there rather than to Bernicia. Maelchon might or might not be Maelgwn Gwynedd, there's no real evidence either way but the chronology doesn't rule it out. Brude son of Beli (victor at Nechtansmere/Dunnichen) is another with a foreign father, since his father Beli is usually reckoned to be the King of Strathclyde. There's a theory that Kenneth macAlpin was successful in uniting the Picts and Scots because he could claim the Scottish throne through his father and the Pictish one through his mother. I have to say that sounds a little too neat to me, but it could have some basis. I like the idea that female descent (possibly male descent as well) qualified you for being in the pool of candidates for king, and then the king was selected by some combination of election, diplomacy/horsetrading among factions, and success in warfare. The more flexible the system, the more confusing for us now (!), but the more chance of being able to pick a king who was up to the job.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.com