Scotland in the Early Middle Ages

Scotland was divided into a series of kingdoms in the Early Middle Ages, i.e. between the end of Roman authority in southern and central Britain from around 400 AD and the rise of the kingdom of Alba in 900 AD. Of these, the four most important to emerge were the Picts, the Gaels of Dál Riata, the Britons of Alt Clut, and the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia. After the arrival of the Vikings in the late 8th century, Scandinavian rulers and colonies were established on the islands and along parts of the coasts. In the 9th century, the House of Alpin combined the lands of the Scots and Picts to form a single kingdom which constituted the basis of the Kingdom of Scotland.

Scotland has an extensive coastline, vast areas of difficult terrain and poor agricultural land. In this period, more land became marginal due to climate change, resulting in relatively light human settlement, particularly in the interior and Highlands. Northern Britain lacked urban centres and settlements were based on farmsteads and around fortified positions such as brochs, with mixed farming primarily based on self-sufficiency. In this period, changes in settlement and colonisation meant that the Pictish and Brythonic languages began to be subsumed by Gaelic, Scots, and, at the end of the period, by Old Norse. Life expectancy was relatively low, leading to a young population, with a ruling aristocracy, freemen, and relatively large numbers of slaves. Kingship was multi-layered, with different kings surrounded by their warbands that made up the most important elements of armed forces, and who engaged in both low-level raiding and occasional longer-range, major campaigns.

Some highly distinctive monumental and ornamental art, culminating in the development of the Insular art style, are common across Britain and Ireland. The most impressive structures included nucleated hill forts and, after the introduction of Christianity, churches and monasteries. The period also saw the beginnings of Scottish literature in British, Old English, Gaelic and Latin languages.

As the first half of the period is largely prehistoric, archaeology plays an important part in studies of early Medieval Scotland. There are no significant contemporary internal sources for the Picts, although evidence has been gleaned from lists of kings, annals preserved in Wales and Ireland and from sources written down much later, which may draw on oral traditions or earlier sources. From the 7th century there is documentary evidence from Latin sources including the lives of saints, such as Adomnán's Life of St. Columba, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Archaeological sources include settlements, art, and surviving everyday objects. Other aids to understanding in this period include onomastics (the study of names) – divided into toponymy (place-names), showing the movement of languages, and the sequence in which different languages were spoken in an area, and anthroponymy (personal names), which can offer clues to relationships and origins.

By the time of Bede and Adomnán, in the late seventh century and early eighth century, four major circles of influence had emerged in northern Britain. In the east were the Picts, whose kingdoms eventually stretched from the river Forth to Shetland. In the west were the Gaelic (Goidelic)-speaking people of Dál Riata with their royal fortress at Dunadd in Argyll, with close links with the island of Ireland, from which they brought with them the name "Scots", originally a term for the inhabitants of Ireland. In the south was the British (Brythonic) Kingdom of Alt Clut, descendants of the peoples of the Roman-influenced kingdoms of "The Old North". Finally, there were the English or "Angles", Germanic invaders who had overrun much of southern Britain and held the Kingdom of Bernicia (later the northern part of Northumbria), in the south-east, and who brought with them Old English.

The confederation of Pictish tribes that developed north of the Firth of Forth may have stretched up as far as Orkney. It probably developed out of the tribes of the Caledonii (whose name continued to be used for at least part of the confederation), perhaps as a response to the pressure exerted by the presence of the Romans to the south. They first appear in Roman records at the end of the 3rd century as the picti (the painted people: possibly a reference to their habit of tattooing their bodies) when Roman forces campaigned against them. The first identifiable king of the Picts, who seems to have exerted a superior and wide-ranging authority, was Bridei mac Maelchon (r. c. 550–84). His power was based in the kingdom of Fidach, and his base was at the fort of Craig Phadrig, near modern Inverness. After his death, leadership seems to have shifted to the Fortriu, whose lands were centred on Moray and Easter Ross and who raided along the eastern coast into modern England. Christian missionaries from Iona appear to have begun the conversion of the Picts to Christianity from 563.

In the 7th century, the Picts acquired Bridei map Beli (671–693) as a king, perhaps imposed by the kingdom of Alt Clut, where his father Beli I and then his brother Eugein I ruled. At this point the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia was expanding northwards, and the Picts were probably tributary to them until, in 685, Bridei defeated them at the Battle of Dunnichen in Angus, killing their king, Ecgfrith. In the reign of Óengus mac Fergusa (729–761), the Picts appear to have reached the height of their influence, defeating the forces of Dál Riata (and probably making them a tributary), invading Alt Clut and Northumbria, and making the first known peace treaties with the English. Succeeding Pictish kings may have been able to dominate Dál Riata, with Caustantín mac Fergusa (793–820) perhaps placing his son Domnall on the throne from 811.

The Gaelic overkingdom of Dál Riata was on the western coast of modern Scotland, with some territory on the northern coasts of Ireland. It probably ruled from the fortress of Dunadd, now near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute. In the late 6th and early 7th centuries, it encompassed roughly what is now Argyll and Bute and Lochaber in Scotland, and also County Antrim in Ireland. Dál Riata is commonly viewed as having been an Irish Gaelic colony in Scotland, although some archaeologists have recently argued against this. The inhabitants of Dál Riata are often referred to as Scots, from Latin scotti, a name used by Latin writers for the inhabitants of Ireland. Its original meaning is uncertain, but it later refers to Gaelic-speakers, whether from Ireland or elsewhere.