The word Pict, I believe, means pained? The Picts were in any case only
aminoritu, although not an unim****tant one. There just were not enough
Picts
to inhabit such a large area.
"allan connochie" <allan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:43369840@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "hawker@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <flink@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:dgtlvd$lg3$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> This raises an interesting point concerning the Antonine Wall. Was it
>> maintained by the local people after the Roman's abandoned it?
>
> That is an interesting question. In truth I don't know. I think the
wall
> was abandoned for the last time about a couple of centuries before the
> Roman
> withdrawal from Britain. The Romans seem to, at least at certain points
> in
> time, have come to some kind of agreement or alliance with the Votadini,
> and
> this tribe are thought to have been used as a buffer. What I've read
> seems
> to suggest that there was an anti-Roman alliance stretching from the
> Brigantes, through the Selgovae, to the tribes north of the Wall who
were
> forming into the Picts. Various local histories seem to suggest that the
> Selgovae in particular suffered from Roman oppression and that the
> Votadini
> territory seems to have expanded at their expense. The tribes were not
> supposedly friendly to each other.
>
> So I don't know if they used the Wall but the Votadini certainly
remained
> in
> control of their territory a long time after the Romans abandoned the
> Wall,
> and for that matter a long time after the Romans left Britain. If we're
> to
> believe the accounts from the first millenium then their power was still
> centred on Edinburgh around 600AD when they led the attack on the
Deirans
> at
> Catraeth. Again we don't really know but it's suggested that the defeat
> they suffered there perhaps enabled the Picts to exploit the situation
and
> make their presence on the southern shore of the Forth, though this
> occupation would have been relatively short term as within half a
century
> the Anglian Bernician rulers controlled Edinburgh and even for a while
> pushed into Pictland itself proper.
>
> It wasn't until the 10thC that the northerners gained a real foothold in
> the
> Lothian area this time it was the rulers of Alba (the emerging Scotland)
> that took control. They had raided extensively at an earlier date.
> Kenneth
> MacAlpin is said to have sacked Melrose Abbey on four seperate
occassions.
> The area wasn't officially annexed as such until the Scots defeated the
> army
> of Bamburgh at the Battle of Carham in 1018. Further west the
Stratchlyde
> kingdom had become basically a vassalage of the Scottish kingdom and
> shortly
> after the annexation of Lothian the Scots took full control of
Strathclyde
> too.
>
> My only point to the other poster was that he has Picts taking over all
> this
> territory and even Brigantian territory further south more than half a
> millenium before Carham. There is absolutely no evidence to back up his
> assertions.
>
>
> Allan
>
>
|
