Life in the Middle Ages: Picts

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Picts

Picts were an important--though not well documented--part of the history of early medieval Scotland. They were there when the Romans moved into Britain in the first centuries AD, and our name for them (Picts) comes from the Latin, because the Romans called them "painted people" (same root as 'picture'). We don't know what they called themselves.

(I assume that costume dramas set in medieval Scotland paint the hero's face blue because of the Picts. But this still doesn't explain why he's wearing a modern kilt.)

The Picts were distinct from the Scots. The former were over on the eastern side of what is now Scotland, while the Scots, a Gaelic/Celtic people from Ireland, were over on the west. Not surprisingly, the two groups have become genetically mingled in the last 1500 years, but those who can boast of "pure Pictish" blood do so at every opportunity.

Both Picts and Scots were Christianized as the Roman Empire overall was Christianized, especially in the third and fourth centuries. Indeed, what is now Scotland remained Christian after a lot of England became pagan with the invasions of the Angles and Saxons in the fifth and sixth centuries. The Picts erected great stone crosses along their roads. These roads are now narrow country lanes, but they were thoroughfares in the early Middle Ages.

The Picts also erected stones telling of glorious battles (apparently). It's kind of ironic that a battle would be important enough to go to the great deal of trouble required in carving its story on a stone, but we now have no idea when or where the battle took place, or even who won. Was it a battle between Scots and Picts? Picts and Northumbrians? (from what is now northern England). Between different groups of Picts? We will never know (there's a reason historians like written records).

The above is a casting of the back of the same stone cross (the casting shows detail a little better than does the original). The cross is in the churchyard of the church of Aberlemno, where it has apparently been since first carved. The stone is about 10 feet high.

Dozens of Pictish stones still exist, some in museums, some still out along the lanes. They are all carved with a variety of what are now called "Pictish symbols" because we don't exactly know what they mean.