The title is a terrible editorial imposition. This article argues that the term ‘Scotland’ though not attested before the late ninth-century (for Ireland) and the early tenth (for Alba) was probably already in use as the Northumbrian English term for Dál Riata in the time of Bede and certainly by the beginning of the Viking Age.

This paper attempts to correlate Bede’s account of the British king Caedualla, to whom he attributed Edwin’s death, with the information provided by Historia Brittonum and the Harleian pedigrees. It is suggested, inter alia, that his identification with Cadwallon ap Cadfan may be in error.

This paper examines the career and reputation of perhaps the longest reigning Pictish king, Onuist son of Urguist, who was a contemporary of Offa of Mercia.

This paper re-examines the late medieval and early modern pedigrees of the families claiming descent from Somerled mac Gillebrigte and argues that the earlier part of the pedigree was constructed in the fourteenth century or later.

This brief note reconsiders the standard translation of a brief passage in the Annals of Ulster and considers the implications of this alternate view.

In the nineteenth century the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu and the site of
the Battle of Nechtansmere were located by scholars in Menteith and
Strathearn and at Dunnichen in Forfarshire respectively. These identifications
have largely gone unchallenged. The purpose of this article is to
review the evidence for these locations and to suggest that…[Read more]

In 1247, in conflict with English forces, a man described as MacSomhairle, King of Argyll, was slain at Ballyshannon in Donegal. This paper seeks to identify which member of the kindred descend from Somerled this was and to investigate the context of his intervention in Irish politics.

It does what it says on the tin.

This paper looks at Jämtland, a province now in Sweden but, until the seventeenth century considered a dependency of the Norwegian crown. The paper considers the textual and archaeological evidence that Scandinavian (as opposed to Saami) settlement in the region originated from Trondelag, in Central Norway, and goes on to look at the conflicting…[Read more]

This book looks at how early medieval texts explained the abandonment of hillforts observed in the landscape with refence to providential models of history. the main example focused upon in the account of Moel Fenlle in Historia Brittonum.

This chapter discusses the reporting of events in what would become Scotland in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. Observations are made on the perspective of the chroniclers and the sources of their information.

This paper examines the twelfth-century Latin poem known as the Song of the Death of Somerled and argues that contrary to previous interpretations the action in the poem covers two separate events eleven years apart; a successful attack on Glasgow in 1153 and a the final battle in which Somerled dies in 1164.

This article deploys both textual and archaeological evidence to question the assumption that retained court poets existed in pre-Viking Age Ireland.

This paper revisits the idea that there was a direct link between Sweden and the the rites and materials found in the cemetery at Sutton Hoo. It argues instead that both Sweden and and East Anglia were frontier regions on the edge of a core located in Danish territories.

This essay reflects on the developments in our understanding of the Pictish Church since Kathleen Hughes visited the topic half a century ago.

A brief historical interpretation based upon the excavations carried out at the Northumbrian ecclesiastical site at Auldhame in East Lothian.

This chapter looks at the use of the word plebs in a number of Late Antique texts thought to be written by Britons and discusses what this reveals about the social and ecclesiastical conditions amongst the Britons in the fifth and sixth centuries.

This paper attempts to look at the evidence for English ideas about their own national origins in the period before Bede.

This short note cautions against essentialist ways of thinking about the Picts and reminds readers that the term itself is an exonym and that there is little or no evidence that the people we call Picts had any self identification as a group.

A discussion of the educational context of Columbanus in and around Bangor and Moville in the sixth century.