Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80 - 1000

The New History of Scotland #1

by Alfred P. Smyth

Basing his work strongly on documentary and archaeological sources, Alfred Smyth covers traditional topics in a thoroughly unconventional manner.Winner of the 1985 Spring Book Award for Literature (Scottish Arts Council)

Genres: History, Scotland, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Timbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first millennium AD is an opaque period in Scottish history; anyone expecting an accessible narrative will necessarily be disappointed - such a book does not, and cannot, exist. But Smyth does a splendid job of assembling our scraps of knowledge and teasing meaning from them; his conclusions are argued from a fine sifting of the evidence, particularly the written sources, though he also makes judicious use of the archaeology, and his conclusions, on the whole, convince. The Picts as ever remain elusive, but whether or not Smyth is right in dismissing matrilineal succession, he is surely correct in seeing the Picts, whatever their origins, as firmly integrated into the Celtic world. His reassessment of Columba and the Iona community is eye-opening, and he is also illuminating on the Strathclyde Britons, Northumbrian expansion and the Gall-Ghàidheal. I was a little disappointed however not have more on the origins of Dal Riata.

This is not an introduction for the casual reader, but taken on its own terms as a work of historical scholarship, it is well-written, and stimulating, and can be heartily recommended to anyone with a grounding in the subject.

[Rob Amundson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.

From the Roman invasion through the Viking era and formation of Scotland with the conquest of the Northern Britons and Picts by the Scotish (Dal Riata). Good breadth of perspective and depth in topic but without becoming overly academic.

[dragonhelmuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is mainly a history of Scotland and the various strands (norse, gaelic, pictish, british, English from ad 80-1000 There are chapters on each of the above powers, and a special couple of chapters on Iona, both in Columba’s time and Adomnan’s. The final few chapters present a breathtaking overview of history, where all the strands of Britain (norse, west Saxons, various kings of York, Scottish, Strathclyde (princedom), kingdoms of wales) all have a part to play. In particular, the argument pp.217-218 is the first truly convincing one I have read that argues that Gododdin was first compiled in the north, and taken south to Gwynedd in 890. Three quotes:


{Literature of Strathclyde
It may well be, as Dumville has suggested, that early Welsh literature has created its own false horizons in its emphasis on the desperate heroism of those Britons who fought the Angles and lost, and on telescoping all of those events into the age of Urien and his circle back at c.600. In the late seventh century the Dumbarton Britons were still at the head of a formidable warband and could lead a confederacy of Pictish and British tribes to successfully fight off pressure from both Scots and Angles.

{Cult of Columba}
In Scotland, Columba’s cult survived the onslaught of the Viking wars in spite of the destruction of Iona, and was even absorbed into Scandinavian society there. In later Scandinavian tradition the old Celtic patriarch was seen as the defencer of the Southern Isles and its Gaelic-Norse inhabitants. According to akonar Saga, when Alexander II of Scotalnd was lying in the sound off Kerrera Island in Argyll in 1249 on his way to attack King Haakon’s fleet in the Hebrides, the Scottish monarch saw Columba in a dream. Of enormous stature and repulsive appearance, he appeared in the company of olaf the Saint of Norway and St Magnus of Orkney. Columba in Norse imagination had taken on something of the awful and sinister qualities associated in Viking times with visions of the war god Odin.

{Scottish Iceland?}
The more we study Old Icelandic records the more we appear to be faced with a long line of apparent historical accidents which require an explanation. We learn for instance in the Icelandic annals of a bishop Eirik of (p174) Greenland who sailed off in search of Vinland in 1121. Is it yet another coincidence that according to Landnamabok this bishop was fifth in descent from the Hebridean Orlygur Hrappsson, who took with him the cult of Columba to Western Iceland? It may well be that the legacy of Iona and knowledge of the North Atlantic that was accumulated there led the northmen not only to the shores of Iceland but to Greenland and a new world beyond.

[Max Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alfred Smyth's roller coaster ride through a thousand years of Scottish history is compelling, insightful and thought-provoking. Some of the kites he flies have since been brought to earth - for example, Alex Woolf has now shown that the kingdom of Fortriu lay north of the Mounth in Moray. The work is a little out of date for that and other reasons - much new archaeology, such as the seminal excavation at Portmahomack, allows us to fill in some of the gaps. Even so, the rewards come in his insights - some quirky, some sharp as a pin, and although I think I know a lot of that material I'm still raising eyebrows and wondering why I hadn't thought of some of these connections before. If I were to read this period in Scottish history from scratch, I would start with Warlords and Holy Men and work up through the original sources to the big new volumes on the period, Woolf and Fraser. This is cracking stuff.

[Old-Barbarossa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good history of early Scotland...well, before it was Scotland. Influx of Anglosaxons, Norse and Scots and the shaping of the country.