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Chapter 3
Disunited Kingdoms (80–750)
In This Chapter
Seeing how Scotland fought off the Romans
Looking at the presence of Christianity in Scotland
Identifying the four linguistically separate groups who made up early Scotland
The hunter/gathers (see Chapter 2) gave way to more settled communities. These communities gradually formed alliances with one another, in order to resist the Romans’ attempts to conquer the north of Brita
By the time the Romans had given up trying to conquer the north of Brita
Roamin’ in the Gloamin’: The Roman Invasion and (Near) Conquest
In 80 AD, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, governor of the province of Brita
Figure 3-1:
Map of Scotland during Roman times.
In 83, Agricola took Galloway and then struck north into Morayshire by land, his navy supplying him by sea (a route later followed by Edward I, Oliver Cromwell and the Duke of Cumberland). Agricola built ten more forts and 2,092 kilometres (1,300 miles) of roads north of the Tyne.
According to the Roman historian Tacitus, the Battle of Mons Graupius was fought in 84, possibly at the Pass of Grange, near Huntly. It seems that a Roman army of 15,000 to 30,000 men faced a united force of 30,000 tribesmen of the Caledoni, as the Romans called the northern Scots, led by Calgacus. According to Tacitus, Calgacus lost 10,000 men (killed or wounded), while the Romans lost only 360. As Tacitus wrote,
men and horses were carried along in confusion together, while chariots, destitute of guidance, and terrified horses without drivers, dashed as panic urged them … the earth reeked with blood.
There have been so many fruitless attempts to precisely locate the site of the battle that we can’t be sure of the exact location. Some historians have suggested alternative sites, such as Be
Another brick in the wall
In the aftermath of battle, Agricola ordered his fleet to sail around the north of Scotland to prove that Britain was, indeed, an island and to receive the surrender of Orkney. He boasted that all the tribes of Britain had been subdued. There is some doubt about this because the bulk of the Caledonian army was still intact, and attacks continued on Roman positions.
One of these attacks, in 117, was supposed to have a
The Eagle
(2001), it seems that the Ninth Legion was elsewhere – in fact, on the Rhine – at the time.
After Agricola’s departure for Rome, walls became the answer to subduing the northern tribes. In 118, Emperor Hadrian built a wall (still known as Hadrian’s Wall) made of stone and turf 6.1 metres (20 feet) high and 3 metres (10 feet) deep, stretching about 117.5 kilometres (73 miles) from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. In 142, the Antonine Wall, named after Emperor Antoninus Pius, was added; it extended from Bo’ness to Old Kilpatrick, or from the Clyde to the Forth, about 64.4 kilometres (40 miles) long with 18 forts. It took legio
What the Romans did for Scotland
In 208, Septimius Severus was forced to conduct two more Scottish campaigns. During this time, he fought no major battles, and on his death in 211, his son, Caracalla, made peace with the tribes and quit the country. The Roman Empire had bigger troubles further afield.
During the negotiations over the Roman retreat, the first recorded statement by a native of Scotland was made. The wife of a Caledonian chieftain said the following, in response to criticism from Severus’s wife, Julia Domma, of the loose sexual morals of Caledonian women:
We fulfil the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest.
Touché!
South of the border, the impact of the Romans is generally seen as positive, but the impact in the north was piecemeal and very limited. Despite having had a presence for over a century, they left little behind, except a road network. However, their presence did bring the tribes together – before the Romans arrived, there were 17 tribes, and when they left there were only 4. But the most important legacy of the Roman invasion was the introduction of Christianity.
When the Saints Come Marching In
The coming of Christianity to pagan Scotland is, like so much of the history of the country, steeped in myth and personality. The story, as told down the centuries to countless schoolchildren, is the one of Columba, an Irish missionary, who in 563, singlehandedly, from his base in the Hebridean island of Iona, converted the Gaels of Dál Riata to Christianity. It’s an often told story, and its appeal lies in the simplistic way it explains the spread of Christianity in Scotland.
However, the truth is, Christianity came to Scotland well before the arrival of Columba. We know this because
Archaeological evidence of the Lothians in the post-Roman period shows graves lacking goods, a deviation from pagan practices.
Monuments in Galloway and Kirkliston (outside of Edinburgh) bear post-Roman Chi-Rho symbols invoking God and naming priests, deacons and bishops.
St Patrick mounted missions to the far west of Scotland in 430 AD.
So, Christianity was already embedded in Scottish society among the northern aristocracy when the following saints arrived:
St Ninian:
We know very little about Ninian, except that he was a bishop and a Briton by birth, who studied in Rome and came to Whithorn in 500. But he wasn’t sent to a
St Kentigern:
Later known as St Mungo, Kentigern was raised by monks and established a monastery around which the town of Glasgow eventually grew. He’s known as the first bishop of Strathclyde. There’s nothing to suggest that Kentigern was a missionary who brought religion to that area.
Columba:
Columba was born in Moville in 521 or 522 into the Irish royal clan O’Neil. He began his religious life as a copier of manuscripts, something that got him into deep trouble. His copy of a rare gospel that belonged to his teacher created a scandal over the ownership of the document, which in turn led to a war. For his part in the affair, Columba was excommunicated (which was later reversed), and he was advised to leave the country.
So, in 563, at the age of 42, Columba arrived in Iona accompanied by 12 followers – Christ and his 12 apostles! But crucially, he did not bring Christianity to the Gaels – the kingdom of Dál Riata was the eastern part of a political and cultural unity whose western part was Ireland. Columba brought his monks to an already Christian society; in fact, he was given Iona by a Christian king. That’s why his biographer, Adomnán, described him not as a missionary but an ascetic monk.
The early Christian Church in Scotland, as elsewhere, was monastic – the clergy were monks, not priests. On the whole, it took its lead from Rome, but it differed in some important respects:
Unlike the Church of Rome, which revered St Peter, the Celtic Church preferred to follow the example of St John – a form of Christianity founded on love, not law. Maybe that’s why monastic orders such as the Celi Dei (Clients of God) had a relaxed attitude to celibacy!
Abbots were generally viewed as more important than bishops. Abbots were the heads of monasteries, and bishops were leading churchmen in a given area or region. One was private; the other, public.
The Celtic Church calculated the date of the resurrection of Christ earlier in the year than the Church of Rome did. This may seem a bit like splitting hairs, but people tend to take hair splitting very seriously!
Matters came to a head when the Celtic king, Oswald of Northumbria, married an Anglo-Saxon princess who followed the Roman calendar. As the Venerable Bede, the author of
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People
(731), pointed out:
When the king, having ended his fasting, was keeping the Paschal [end of Lent] feast, the queen and her retainers would be fasting and celebrating Palm Sunday.
To resolve matters, Oswald called a
synod
(a meeting of church leaders) at Whitby in Yorkshire in 664, which after much argument and debate accepted the Roman calendar. As a result, Celtic monasticism was gradually replaced by Roman Catholic orthodoxy. About 710, Abbot Ceolfrith, of the twin monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, sent a letter to King Nechtan of the southern Picts and persuaded him to adopt the Roman Church. With his acceptance, the Celtic religious orders, which depended on his protection and goodwill, followed suit. The monks of Iona accepted the Easter ruling in 716; the Scottish Church was no longer Celtic but Roman.
Four Nations and Five Languages
There is no ‘original Scot’. There is no common ancestral or genetic heritage that links the peoples of Scotland. The country was a patchwork quilt of various peoples grouped together in tribes who certainly never thought of themselves as Scottish. They owed allegiance only to their kin and king, but in the campaign against Roman imperialism they built federations that laid the basis of kingdoms.