Tim Clarkson's Blog, page 10

The last king of Strathclyde

From the front cover of History Scotland magazine, Nov/Dec 2013. The illustration of Earl Siward and his children is from a Victorian painting.

‘The last king of Strathclyde’ is the title of my article in the current issue of History Scotland. It’s a discussion of the final phase of the kingdom of the Clyde Britons, from the Battle of Carham (1018) to the eventual takeover by the Scots (sometime before 1070). I consider several possible candidates for the label ‘last king of Strathclyde’ durin...

Degsastan discovered?

Hot on the heels of his suggestion that the battle of Brunanburh (AD 937) was fought in County Durham comes another thought-provoking theory from Professor Andrew Breeze. This time, the battle in question was fought not in the tenth century but in the seventh, in the year 603. On one side stood an army of Scots from Dál Riata, led by King Áedán mac Gabráin. Facing them were the English of Bernicia under the command of their king Aethelfrith. The ambitions of these two mighty warlords clashed...

The lost island of Saint Columba

Sculptured cross from Riskbuie Chapel, Colonsay. Illustration from Allen & Anderson The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland (1903).

According to the vita or ‘Life’ of Saint Columba written by Adomnán at the end of the seventh century, the monastery on Iona had a number of satellites on various islands and coastlands around Argyll. One of these was on an island called Hinba and seems to have been the chief daughter-house of Iona. Adomnán tells us that it was founded by Columba himself and com...

Searching for Brunanburh

The battle of Brunanburh, fought in AD 937, was a notable victory for the English king Athelstan. On the losing side stood an alliance of Scots, Vikings and Strathclyde Britons, led by their respective kings. Contemporary annals, later chronicles and an Anglo-Saxon poem have left us in no doubt of the battle’s importance. Some modern historians regard it as a defining moment in the history of Britain: the moment when ‘England’, the territory of the Anglo-Saxons, became a true political entity...

Pictish warrior women (again)

Axelle Carolyn as ‘Aeron’ in the movie Centurion (2010)

The most popular post at this blog – by a very long way – is one of the first I ever wrote. It appeared in July 2008, just a few weeks after the launch of Senchus. In writing it I hoped to spark a discussion on the question of whether or not Pictish military forces included female soldiers. I voiced my own views on the topic and waited for a response from readers. What I got was a mixture of useful feedback and vitriol, the latter reminis...

Columba and the Pirates

Two hundred years before the first Viking longships appeared off the west coast of Scotland, the Hebridean seaways were stalked by home-grown pirates. One band of cut-throats plied their trade in the late sixth century, when Saint Columba was abbot of the monastery he had founded on Iona. They were led by the sons of Conall mac Domnaill, an obscure figure of whom we know almost nothing beyond the name. According to Adomnán, author of Vita Columbae (‘Life of Columba’), Conall’s sons were membe...

Big Roman Week

Antoninus Pius

Antoninus Pius, the Roman emperor who commissioned the Antonine Wall, was born on 19 September in AD 86. His birthday is marked in the Falkirk district by an annual event celebrating the local Roman heritage, which includes a section of the Wall. This year the ‘Big Roman Week’ takes place from 14-22 September. It offers a good mix of interesting activities and is well worth a visit.

In fact, the whole thing sounds great and I really wish I could turn up for a day or two. It’s suc...

The Netherton Cross

Few examples of sculpture from the kingdom of Strathclyde have survived, and fewer still survive intact. The main collection is at Govan, a place regarded by archaeologists as the origin-centre of a distinct style or ‘school’ of stonecarving in the ninth to eleventh centuries. One of the outlying monuments of the Govan School can be seen in the town of Hamilton, 12 miles upstream along the river Clyde. It’s an impressive free-standing cross and is well worth a quick detour off the M74 motorwa...

The location of Rheged

Pictish symbols carved on a rock at Trusty’s Hill (from John Stuart’s Sculptured Stones of Scotland, 1857)

Back in May, in a blogpost about the hillfort on Trusty’s Hill in Galloway, I wrote the following:

‘Many historians think Galloway was part of a kingdom called Rheged which seems to have been a major political power in the late sixth century. The little we know about Rheged comes from a handful of texts preserved in the literature of medieval Wales. These suggest that the kingdom rose to p...

Fortunate Fellow

Last year, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland conducted a survey of its Fellowship to gather views on the Society’s activities and to invite suggestions for future developments. The survey, which took the form of an electronic questionnaire, was completed and returned by more than 650 Fellows. An initial report on the data has recently been made available at the Society’s website. It may be of interest to readers of this blog so I’ve posted a link at the end of this post.

Fellows who compl...