Who were the Picts? Have you ever heard of them before? Living on the edge of the known world (as far as the Romans were concerned) in northern Scotland, they were considered to be barbarians by many. Modern movies, such as Centurion (2010) and The Eagle (2011) agree with this sentiment. Who were these naked, painted warriors? Is this an apt description?

The Picts are heavily lost to the ages, we have only scraps of information here and there, and nothing from Pictish peoples themselves. How, then, do we know anything about them? Fortunately for us, though not without issue, those who interacted with the Picts wrote about them. From sons of Rome such as Gildas in the 6th century, to monks Adomnan, Bede and Stephen in the 8th century, and even various annals (also written by monks). Part of the difficulty of relying on outsiders to write about the Picts is that we have to deal with distortions in what each of these resources reports. Scholars have to dig in between the lines of the written words to understand the perspective and benefits of what the author was writing.

The Picts weren’t mentioned in the earliest Roman reports about Northern Britain. We see references to specific peoples such as the Calidones, the Dumnonii, or the Maitai in the 2nd century. The Romans Dio, Herodian, Tacitus, and Septimius Severus also wrote of these peoples, calling them Britanni. So, where did the name come from? The most popular theory suggests that Picti comes from Latin, and means “painted ones”. There is evidence that the peoples of Northern Britain did actually paint themselves with woad. The main question becomes, was this activity alone what made them separate from their neighbors, or was there something more?

It has been suggested that Picti began to be used in opposition to the term Britanni, allowing a division between Romanized and non-Romanized Britons. Even in the vernacular languages we see medieval Welsh Prydyn and Old Irish Cruithini, referring to the same natives of Britain that Britanni was intended to describe. One should note that it is the “civilized” or Romanized Britons who retained their name, and the “uncivilized” or wild Britons who became the barbarian Picts. It is possible that the Romanized Britons did not want to be associated with their wild cousins who were known to raid across the Roman borders and into more settled lands. There were benefits to being associated with and allied to Rome.

Bede refers to the southern limit of Pictish control as being at the Firth of Forth, as well as making a differentiation between northern and southern Picts. One northern Pictish group was the Verturiones, or the Foirtrinn in Gaelic. You may have heard of the kingdom of Fortriu, situated around modern day Inverness. Although we talk about “The Picts” as a distinct entity, it is important to remember that in the beginning at least, there was no single kingdom of the Picts. Bede himself references northern and southern Pictish zones, though he does suggest the southern Picts are more unified than those in the north.

There has also been dispute over the years regarding what language the Picts spoke. There is very little extant evidence of Pictish language, and no longer phrases or sentences. Most of what remains are words or word-pieces that survived in place names. Arguments as to what language family Pictish belonged to have existed since the 19th century and has included Gaelic, British, and pre-Celtic languages. W.F. Skene, in the 1880s, argued that Pictish was a Gaelic language, and that British components were linguistic borrowings from the south. H. M. Chadwick later proposed that Pictish British had existed alongside a Gaelic language as far back as the Roman Iron Age in Britain. These are to just name a few opinions of well-known scholars in the area. To quote James Fraser, “The totality of the evidence demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that a British dialect was spoken in Pictland throughout our period.”

From materials such as Adomnan’s Life of St. Columba, we are able to get some glimpses into Pictish society. Adomnan describes interactions with Pictish kings and druids, as well as penitentials. Picts became monks and Columba is said to have baptised and blessed Pictish peasant families, along with their domestics.

The Picts were accomplished stone carvers and have left a number of stones behind. These are divided into three classes of stones (I, II, and III). Class I stones are unworked stone with incised carving. That means that the image is made by making cuts into the stone. These stones have no crosses on them and can date to the 6th, 7th or 8th centuries. Class II stones are generally rectangular in shape with a large cross and symbols on one or both sides. These stones are carved in relief, meaning that material is removed to uncover a raised image. These stones can date to the 8th and 9th centuries. Class III stones contain no specifically Pictish symbols and are generally cross slabs, freestanding crosses, or others. They may date from the 8th or 9th century. There is still a lot unknown about the stones that are carved. There have been theories that the scrollwork may depict a language, or that symbols may denote names of people or clans. Unfortunately we can only hypothesize as to the meanings of the symbols at this point.

There is a popular belief in the idea that the Picts practiced matrilineal descent for their kings and thus constituted a matrilineal society. These claims are based on a line in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People where he said that when the matter came into doubt, matrilineal succession came into play.

What happened to the Picts? Why is there so little of their culture and history that has survived to the present day? It appears that the Picts and Pictish culture became entirely subsumed within Irish Dal Riadic culture as the centuries progressed. The Dal Riada are said to have settled western portions of Scotland c. 500 AD. Their kings eventually abandoned their lands in Ireland proper and put all their effort into becoming successful in Scotland. Their kingdom became more and more entrenched into modern Scotland and their members began to intermarry with Picts. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, various Irish annals, and saints’ lives (such as Adomnan’s Life of St. Columba) give evidence on the Picts. Domnall mac Causantin, who died c. 900 AD, was the last king of the Picts. After this point references are made to Alba and later to Scotland.

Below is the back side of the Meigle 4 Pictish stone. The front is a cross slab with a large portion of the center missing. On the back you can see two mounted horsemen, 3 serpents (two interlaced), a Pictish beast, another unidentified animal, and a crescent with V-rod symbol.

Photo credit: me

References:

Adomnan, Vita sancti Columbae; A. O. Anderson and M.O. Anderson, eds, Adomnan’s Life of Columba.

Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum; B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, eds, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (Oxford, 1991).

Fraser, James. From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 2009.