Pict Survival

[othyrsyde]

Is it possible to keep Pict culture, identity, and language around? Of course, they would go through all the general cultural evolutions of Europe, and adapt Christianity, but could they have survived to the the modern day?

(And I know they didn't call themselves Picts, but just so everyone knows who I'm talking about )

 

[Tongera]

Is it possible to keep Pict culture, identity, and language around? Of course, they would go through all the general cultural evolutions of Europe, and adapt Christianity, but could they have survived to the the modern day?

(And I know they didn't call themselves Picts, but just so everyone knows who I'm talking about )

I would assume someway to keep all the other powers on the British Isles focused south is one way.

 

[Zuvarq]

No Roman conquest, and butterflies probably prevent the Gaelic raids of Scotland.

And prevent the Anglo-Saxons from settling the Lowlands and the Picts could probably survive in the east even if Gaelics invade the west.

 

[othyrsyde]

I would assume someway to keep all the other powers on the British Isles focused south is one way.

Wasn't it the Irish raiders that ultimately did them in, at least as a seperate ethnic identity? From my understanding most Scots are descended from them.

Sorry if these might have been disproven theories. It's been probably over a decade since I read much about Celts and pre-Roman Europe. Use to love that stuff.

 

[Tongera]

Wasn't it the Irish raiders that ultimately did them in, at least as a seperate ethnic identity? From my understanding most Scots are descended from them.

Sorry if these might have been disproven theories. It's been probably over a decade since I read much about Celts and pre-Roman Europe. Use to love that stuff.

And the Irish raiders and Vikings as well. I forgot to mention that.

I thought it was the mainland Britons that done it, but I ain't quite too sure.

 

[othyrsyde]

No Roman conquest, and butterflies probably prevent the Gaelic raids of Scotland.

And prevent the Anglo-Saxons from settling the Lowlands and the Picts could probably survive in the east even if Gaelics invade the west.

So Boudica needs to win

And the Irish raiders and Vikings as well. I forgot to mention that.

I thought it was the mainland Britons that done it, but I ain't quite too sure.

I got the impression they warred a lot with the southern Britons/Anglo-Saxons, in addition to the Vikings and Gaelic raiders that did them in.

 

[Tongera]

So Boudica needs to win



I got the impression they warred a lot with the southern Britons/Anglo-Saxons, in addition to the Vikings and Gaelic raiders that did them in.

Didn't the Picts pay tribute to one of them? Also, if Scots are descendants of Picts, then maybe their language and culture are similar?

Anyhow, knowledge on the area is very fuzzy, so I am kind of guessing.

 

[othyrsyde]

Didn't the Picts pay tribute to one of them? Also, if Scots are descendants of Picts, then maybe their language and culture are similar?

Anyhow, knowledge on the area is very fuzzy, so I am kind of guessing.

I have no idea about tribute. Never read much about them in post-Roman days, except about the Irish Raiders. There might be words and stuff, but Scot Gaelic isn't what the Picts spoke. Heard it sounded more like Welsh.

 

[Bee]

The Picts outlasted the Romans by many centuries, and were the dominant people in what is now Scotland until the 9th century.

Viking attacks badly weakened both the Pictish and Scottish kingdoms in the 830s. They became one country in 843 when Kenneth I became king, but exactly what happened then isn't known with confidence. The Pictish crown descended through the female line which had sometimes led to the Picts getting kings from English and Welsh dynasties, so maybe Kenneth inherited both thrones.

There is an early record stating that Kenneth eliminated the Pictish nobles at a banquet or peace conference, but it was written down many years after the events it purported to record, and looks suspiciously like a retelling of the story of Hengest and the Britons.

I can't answer why the Scottish language supplanted Pictish. Very little writing in the Pictish langage has survived (mostly proper names).

 

[Berserker]

I had a topic on this once: the outcome was in fact that the Picts didnt have to be assimilated in a cultural way: iff Dal-riada is weakend somehow, the Picts could have lasted much longer.

 

[othyrsyde]

The Picts outlasted the Romans by many centuries, and were the dominant people in what is now Scotland until the 9th century.

Viking attacks badly weakened both the Pictish and Scottish kingdoms in the 830s. They became one country in 843 when Kenneth I became king, but exactly what happened then isn't known with confidence. The Pictish crown descended through the female line which had sometimes led to the Picts getting kings from English and Welsh dynasties, so maybe Kenneth inherited both thrones.

There is an early record stating that Kenneth eliminated the Pictish nobles at a banquet or peace conference, but it was written down many years after the events it purported to record, and looks suspiciously like a retelling of the story of Hengest and the Britons.

I can't answer why the Scottish language supplanted Pictish. Very little writing in the Pictish langage has survived (mostly proper names).

That's sad the history or language wasn't recorded

I had a topic on this once: the outcome was in fact that the Picts didnt have to be assimilated in a cultural way: iff Dal-riada is weakend somehow, the Picts could have lasted much longer.

Kinda what I was thinking. Have to do some research on the matter.

 

[Cináed]

That's sad the history or language wasn't recorded

Oh, it was recorded. But bear in mind that the records were sparse, and kept in monasteries, which are notoriously combustible when there are Vikings, Angles and history-rewriting Gaels in the vicinity.

To get the Picts to survive as a distinct kingdom, you need two things.

Firstly, King Óengus I has to defeat the Kingdom of Strathclyde. Having subdued the Gaels of Dal Riada, he went on to lose what must have been a significant battle in 750 to Strathclyde. Change the course of that battle, with Oéngus possibly establishing overlordship over Strathclyde, and you have a secure kingdom which could not only repel the resurgent Gaels, but would be externally secure enough that Óengus could crush internal dissent decisively. Óengus strikes me as the sort of character who was ruthless and determined enough to make a good job out of the kingship, much like Máel Coluim II did 250 years later.

Secondly, you need a better response to the Viking raids on Pictland's eastern seaboard. While it's difficult to ascribe them as the absolute cause of the Pictish collapse, there's no question that the raids severely weakened the Pictish kingdom and moved the centre of political gravity south. Though they never established a lasting foothold in the north-east, the Vikings did enough damage that it became easy for Cináed mac Ailpin - whoever he was - to seize power.

These PODs preserve the Pictish kingdom as a political entity. However, there's a lot of debate among historians about just how Gaelicised the Picts had become, even prior to the mac Aiplin takeover. There's a not-inconsiderable body of evidence to suggest that Cináed was himself a Gaelicised Pict, and that he represented the fifth-last Pictish king rather than the first Scottish one.

So while you might preserve 'Pictavia', with Pictish client kingdoms in Dal Riada and Strathclyde in the short-medium term, it may well become Gaelic speaking in the long-run anyway. The church, and it seems the aristocracy, were already in close cultural communion with Ireland. What you would have, though, would be a completely different foundation myth for the lands which went on to become Scotland.

 

[Baconheimer]

What if the Picts survive in the Highlands in A Viking Kiongdom, that focuses more on the coasts and trade route citys, who regared the Highlands as an untamed, unusable wasteland.

 

[Berserker]

What if the Picts survive in the Highlands in A Viking Kiongdom, that focuses more on the coasts and trade route citys, who regared the Highlands as an untamed, unusable wasteland.

Pictish highlands!!

 

[Cináed]

What if the Picts survive in the Highlands in A Viking Kiongdom, that focuses more on the coasts and trade route citys, who regared the Highlands as an untamed, unusable wasteland.

I doubt you'd have complete separation of the two. More likely, you'd get some kind of Scandinavian-Pictish cultural synthesis - much like what happened in OTL in the Western Isles, though with a Gaelic emphasis rather than a Pictish one. Depends how heavy the settlement is.

One of the things that has always puzzled me was the fact that Highlands didn't remain culturally Pictish in our own time. There are stones far to the west, but then again, that might represent the presence of a Pictish aristocracy ruling over a culturally Gaelic population which simply re-asserted itself after the collapse of Pictish power in the east.

A scenario where the Vikings establish fortified population centres wouldn't be any better for the Pictish population than Gaelicisation. The Vikings weren't good neighbours to have.

 

[yulzari]

In the absence of any overt evidence of the overthrow of Pictish culture I have to assume the process was similar to the end of Brythonic culture in England whereby German became the new cool.

Pictish culture was subsumed by Angle, Norse and Irish cultural influence and colonists. To retain a Pictish cultire one needs to find a plausible way of limiting these. The Irish might be retained in Ireland if the Romans had taken it over and left it a unified nation allowing some degree of control over Irish pirates and colonists in the west. South of central Scotland the lowlands might be split between the Angles to the east and the British to the west and, if this became a recognised border then the pressure from the south is reduced. With a more modern Pictish state in the rest of Scotland, able to defend the mainland and with Ireland closed to the Norse they could be limited to the Orkneys, Shetland and Outer Hebrides.

Intoduce into this proto Pictish state some strong Christian church establishment backing up a Pictish national identity one might see the retention of a Pictish language etc.strong enough to see off it's competitors. Ideally, but unlikely, would be a Pictish Church literate in Pictish with a Pictish Bible.

The Picts did not leave Scotland nor were they exterminated. They just learned to behave like the Irish, English or Norwegians.

 

[Cináed]

Intoduce into this proto Pictish state some strong Christian church establishment backing up a Pictish national identity one might see the retention of a Pictish language etc.strong enough to see off it's competitors. Ideally, but unlikely, would be a Pictish Church literate in Pictish with a Pictish Bible.

This is, I think, is one of the most significant elements of the problem. The Columban Church was a Gaelic church, and the evidence seems to suggest that much of the Christianisation which took place in Pictavia was at the hands of Gaelic priests. If Pictavia was already becoming Gaelicised, the church would have been an important vector in that process.

This wouldn't have been a process carried out in isolation - afterall, the legacy of Stratclyde British was comprehensively subsumed by both the Gaels and the Angles. The Picts aren't the only 'mysteriously disappearing people' of dark age Scottish history.

Bring Pictavia closer to Northumbria, and have the kingdom take its religious cues from that quarter, and you'd be more likely to get an articulated Pictish state/church identity. We know that there were moves along these lines - Nechtan III (Óengus' predecessor) attempted it. A more Catholic oriented church, staffed by Pictish bishops and - possibly - an archbishop - and you could cement the linguistic and cultural Pictishness of the kingdom.

 

[othyrsyde]

This is, I think, is one of the most significant elements of the problem. The Columban Church was a Gaelic church, and the evidence seems to suggest that much of the Christianisation which took place in Pictavia was at the hands of Gaelic priests. If Pictavia was already becoming Gaelicised, the church would have been an important vector in that process.

This wouldn't have been a process carried out in isolation - afterall, the legacy of Stratclyde British was comprehensively subsumed by both the Gaels and the Angles. The Picts aren't the only 'mysteriously disappearing people' of dark age Scottish history.

Bring Pictavia closer to Northumbria, and have the kingdom take its religious cues from that quarter, and you'd be more likely to get an articulated Pictish state/church identity. We know that there were moves along these lines - Nechtan III (Óengus' predecessor) attempted it. A more Catholic oriented church, staffed by Pictish bishops and - possibly - an archbishop - and you could cement the linguistic and cultural Pictishness of the kingdom.

I'm not too familiar with all the historical details, but I get the jist, and is something I was thinking about too in keeping a Pictish kingdom. The Church needed to play a big role.