The Picts were a people who settled in the lowlands of Scotland.
Etymology of the name
The name Pictes, perhaps formed from a Latin epithet, would literally mean "painted men" (among others, according to the Venerable Bede). It was attributed by the Britto-Romans, then by the Anglo-Saxons to the inhabitants of the lowlands of present-day Scotland for a period ranging from the 3rd century until the middle of the 9th century approximately. The Picts thus probably corresponded to the Caledonii mentioned by the Roman conqueror Agricola in 80.
The name "Picts" evokes the warlike relations that the tribes established beyond Hadrian's Wall had with Rome, since the paintings to which this qualifier alludes were probably war paintings.
It also evokes the concept - probably foreign to those it designates - of the many peoples and tribes of Caledonia belonging to a common ethnocultural group. In the absence of reliable and precise historical sources, the contours of such a group nevertheless remain hypothetical, which has given rise to a more or less fanciful literature on the question of the origin of the Picts.
In addition to this (too) often debated question, questions about the definition of the Picts also relate to the following points:
* the nature of their language - and in particular the "degree" of its Celticity;
* the circumstances of their disappearance.
The Picts, in fact, disappeared during the formation of medieval Scotland, around the middle of the 9th century, probably absorbed by the Scots.
History
Almost nothing is known about the origin of the Picts:their ancestors would have come from the continent at the end of prehistory, perhaps during the 1st millennium BC. Their first mention is due to the Breton orator Eumenius, in 297:the latter cites them alongside the Hibernii (the Irish) as enemies of the Britons. In 310, a mention of the "woods and swamps of the Caledonians and other Picts" is known:its exact translation poses a problem and authorizes or not to count the Caledonians among the Picts. Shortly after, Ammien Marcellin mentions that the Picts are divided into two groups:the Dicalydones and the Verturiones.
In addition, Celtic names of tribes which populated the north of the island of Brittany during the Roman period are known through the geography of Claudius Ptolemy (in the middle of the 2nd century):the Cæreni (people of the sheep), the Lugi ( of the raven), the Smertae (the coated, or painted), and the Decantae (nobles). Near the Caledonii (strong?) were the Vacomagi and the Venicones. We must add to them, finally, the Epidii on the west coast and the Damnonii, the Novantæ and the Selgovæ, established further south. The Picts probably arose from regroupings and divisions which agitated these tribes at the end of the third century of the Christian era, although some historians have proposed the date of the Flavian campaigns to distinguish them (at the latest the year 97).
According to a late tradition (9th century?), known from a 14th century parchment copy (ms. Colbertin or ms. Latin 4126 in the French National Library), the foundation of the Pictish people goes back to a mythical Cruithne, son of Cinge who reigned for a century and had seven sons:Fib, Fidach, Fotlaig, Fortrenn, Cait, Ce and Circinn. The latter then divided the white island (Alban, Caledonia) into seven clans taking their name:Fortriu, Cat, Circind, etc. This information appears in the List of Pictish Kings and in a text named De Situ Albania, attached to this list:both are part of the Pictish Chronicle.
The name of this founder has been compared to the Pritenii or Pretenii, the name of the inhabitants of the island of Britain allegedly reported by Pytheas, in 325 BC. J.-C., and quoted by Diodore of Sicily, in the 1st century BC. AD; The Latin name britanni, the Irish name criuthni and the Welsh name Prydyn, later, could have the same origin.
In 600, it was under the pen of Isidore of Seville that the first reference appeared to the fact that the Picts took their name from the tattoos that adorned their bodies. This idea has been linked by modern historians to information reported by Julius Caesar about the Bretons:
“Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod cæruleum efficit colorem, atque hoc horridiores sunt in pugna aspectu”,
i.e. "in truth all Britons artificially dye themselves with what produces a blue color, so that they look more terrible in battle".
The Pictish “kingdoms”
As regards the organization of the Picts, it seems that the "Pictish kings" never reigned except over a confederation of chiefdoms:there were several Pictish "kingdoms" contemporaneous with each other and their number could vary from two to seven. , if we are to believe later sources or the brief mentions made by foreign sources. The organization of these kingdoms remains largely hypothetical, but it is possible that an "over-king" existed. In any case, the "royalty" of the Picts must have been clan-based and it is not known whether it was exercised over a well-defined territory.
In the 6th century, the kingdom of Fortriu dominated the lands around Scone and Dunkeld:its name is similar to that of the Verturiones tribe, mentioned in the 2nd century by Claudius Ptolemy; Bede still cites the kingdom of Fib (Fife) at this time. The Pictish Chronicle provides a list of seven kingdoms (the symbolic character of the number may have dictated the number):
1. Cait (modern Caithness and Sutherland);
2. This (modern Mar and Buchan);
3. Circinn (modern Angus and Mearns);
4. Fib (modern Fife and Kinross; Fife is still known as the kingdom of Fife);
5. Fidach (modern Moray and Ross);
6. Fotla (modern Atholl and Gowrie);
7. Fortriu (modern Strathearn and Menteith).
At the time of Bede, and if we are still to believe the latter, at the beginning of the 8th century, a "kingdom of the Picts of the north" and a "kingdom of the Picts of the south" were established on either side of the Firth of Forth.
Still, despite their divisions, the Picts still resisted the Roman Empire, then the Germanic invaders for several centuries. Eventually, the disappearance of the kingdoms of the Picts was the result of a process of fusion which resulted, in the middle of the 9th century, in the creation of medieval Scotland. In this respect, the rule of devolution of the throne in force among the Picts certainly played an important role.
We know thanks to Bede, in fact, that the system of royal succession of the Picts was matrilineal (filiation by women), which resulted in nephews succeeding their uncles. The murders between cousins that this could entail are easy to imagine. It was also this system that allowed foreign rulers to rule the Picts in the Middle Ages, such as the Scotsman Kenneth MacAlpin). However MacAlpin belonged to the royal line of the kingdom of Dalriada, and his rule over a unified people was also facilitated by the disaster of 839.
In the 8th century, Angus (Œngus) king from 731 to 761 managed to temporarily unify the Picts. Oengus II of the Picts, son of the Scots king Fergus and a Pictish princess, ruled these two peoples jointly in the early 9th century. On his death in 834, his son Eoganan succeeded him.
Another factor in the integration of the Picts and Scots into a single kingdom could, finally, be betrayal. A 14th century document, Ranulph Higden's Polichronicon, contains a passage probably derived from the Pictish Chronicle which mentions a massacre of the Pictish nobles by the Scots, during an interview organized by the latter, around 850.
Culture
The most abundant historical source on the Picts is almost the only one to inform us about their culture:it is The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede the Venerable.
According to some historians, the Picts may have used a Celtic language, from the Brittonic group. The Irishman Saint Columba, in the sixth century, did not understand it. They knew the Ogham script, derived from the Latin script, but the inscriptions they left are generally unintelligible.
More recent studies seem to indicate that the original language of the Picts - or at least an important linguistic substratum of their language - was not part of the Indo-European group, even if the poverty of the known vocabulary does not allow any certain conclusion.
The Picts left many standing stones decorated with geometric figures (including crosses after their Christianization), or figurative:quadrupeds, birds, cauldrons, wheeled carts. These so-called "symbolic" stones undoubtedly had a sacred character, perhaps associated with funeral rites.
The Picts are still credited with certain brochs, the prehistoric round towers that dot Scotland.
Timeline
Antiquity
* 80:Agricola fights the Celts of Scotland (which he names Caledonii)
* 84:Calgacus unifies the Celtic tribes but he is beaten and killed by the Romans during the battle of Ardoch
* 122:Emperor Hadrian had Hadrian's Wall built to protect the Roman province of Brittany (now England) against Pictish incursions
* 142:construction of the Antonine Wall further north, from the Forth to the Clyde
* 207:construction of the wall of Septimius Severus further north
* 343:Constant I campaigns against the Scots and the Picts
* 364-368:Hadrian's Wall is crossed by bands of Picts
* 368:Theodosius the Elder, father of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, pushes the Picts north of Hadrian's Wall
* 410:abandonment of the province of Brittany by the Roman troops
* 418:the Picts and the Scots spread in the old Roman province; the Bretons appeal to Germanic mercenaries.
High Middle Ages
* 430:victory of Saint Germain, bishop of Auxerre against the Picts and the Saxons at Verulamium
* 449:the Jutes Hengist and Horsa, called by Vortigern to fight against the Picts and the Scots, found the kingdom of Kent
* 503:foundation of the kingdom of Dalriada in Argyll, evidence of the establishment of the Scots from Ireland
* 563:Saint Colomba settles in the island of Iona where he founds a monastery
* 650s:push of the Angles towards the north, where the Scots, the Bretons of Strathclyde and the Picts already live together
* 685:the Picts push back the Anglo-Saxons at the battle of Nechtansmere. The king of the Angles Ecgfrith is killed during this one; the border is fixed at the Firth of Forth
* 750s:Beginning of Viking incursions into England
* 839:death of Eoganan at the head of the Picts and the Scots against the Vikings
* 843:the Scot king Kenneth MacAlpin accedes to the Pictish throne:it is the first political union of the two peoples; it becomes definitive in the 11th century (next line)
* 1034:King Duncan is the only king of Scotland