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Picts

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The Picts lived in northern and eastern Scotland, beyond the Roman frontier. A Latin speech first names them in 297 CE; over the next centuries they raided Roman Britain, became Christian, defeated Northumbria at Dun Nechtain in 685 and carved the symbol stones that still stand across eastern and northern Scotland. In the 9th century, under a new line of kings, their kingdom became Alba, and over the following generations Gaelic replaced the Pictish language.

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Key events

  1. A Latin speech praising the emperor Constantius names the Picts, the first time they appear in writing

    The speech, given in 297 to celebrate Constantius retaking Britain, is anonymous; older works credit it to Eumenius. Picti is a Latin name, usually read as 'painted people', though historians disagree on whether that was its origin.

  2. – Picts carve symbols such as crescents, double discs, mirrors, combs and animals on undressed stones: the earliest Pictish symbol stonesDisputed

    These stones were long dated to between the 5th and 8th centuries; radiocarbon dates from Dunnicaer and other sites, published in 2018, put the first symbols in the 3rd or 4th century. Later stones of the 8th and 9th centuries combine the symbols with Christian crosses.

  3. – Picts, Scots and Attacotti raid Roman Britain while Franks and Saxons attack the coasts of Gaul; the Roman commander of the coast is killed

    Ammianus Marcellinus, the main source, names two Pictish peoples, the Dicalydones and the Verturiones. Historians disagree on whether the attacks were planned together. In 368 Count Theodosius brought Britain back under Roman control.

  4. – Columba, an Irish monk settled on Iona, preaches to the northern Picts in the reign of King Bridei son of MaelchonDisputed

    Bede dates Columba's coming to 565 and says the southern Picts had already been converted by Ninian; the Annals of Ulster put Columba's voyage to Iona in 563. Conversion was gradual.

  5. At Dun Nechtain the Picts under Bridei son of Beli defeat and kill King Ecgfrith of Northumbria and take the lands Northumbria had heldDisputed

    Fought on 20 May 685. Bede says the Picts drew Ecgfrith into mountain passes by pretending to retreat. The site is disputed: traditionally Dunnichen in Angus, though the historian Alex Woolf has argued for Dunachton in Badenoch.

  6. King Nechtan son of Derile adopts the Roman date of Easter and asks the abbot of Jarrow in Northumbria for builders to raise a church in the Roman manner

    Bede places this around 710.

  7. Vikings defeat the men of Fortriu; the Pictish king Eóganán, his brother Bran and Áed son of Boanta, king of Dál Riata, are killed

    The Annals of Ulster add that countless others fell; the site is not recorded. The defeat ended the line of Óengus son of Fergus that had ruled Pictland for about a century and opened the way for Kenneth MacAlpin.

  8. Kenneth MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín) becomes king of the PictsDisputed

    843 is the traditional year; sources also give 842, 848 or 850. Later tradition made him the first king of a united Scotland, but the Annals of Ulster still call him king of the Picts when he died in 858.

  9. Donald II (Domnall son of Constantine) dies; the Annals of Ulster call him king of Alba, the first king they name that way rather than king of the Picts