Genus tribe among the ancient Scots. The Scots: An Outline of Ethnic History. Gaels. Traditional clan system
The population of Scotland is 5 million.
Ah, if only we could
See everything that is visible to others,
What the eyes of those passing by see
From the side -
Oh how tolerant we would be
And how humble!
(Translated by S. Marshak)
Folk tradition represents the Scotsman as a red-haired, red-bearded hero-hero, eager to fight, with a checkered plaid on his shoulders. The stocky, chubby and balding inhabitants of Scotland, of course, are quite flattered by such an image.
The Scots are not famous for frivolity and carelessness; with gray skies, oatmeal, angular architecture and the same manners, solidity is best combined. Even in the English mockery of Scottish solidity, prudence, sternness and pride, there is a considerable amount of respect. The Scottish mind is not a myth at all. There is such a joke in Scotland: a young man, a resident of Edinburgh, who traveled to London for the first time to meet with his leadership, is asked:
Well, how do you like the English?
I don't know, he replies. - I didn't see any Englishmen, only heads of departments.
The French, who have known the Scots for a long time, have an expression that entered the language back in the days of Rabelais: “ fier comme un ecossais- "proud as a Scot". They say that in Poland the word " Szkot” (“Scotsman”) also means a peddler, a hawker, a peddler, because at one time many Scots roamed the Polish roads. And in the First World War, the Germans called the Scottish regiments flaunting in skirts "ladies from hell."
And yet, the Scots cannot be denied a certain romantic halo. For the British, giving a child to a Scottish nanny is a clear plus, since this circumstance introduces the child to a colorful past and gives it an unusual charm.
How they want to be seen
The Scots would like to be seen through their own eyes. But, being proud people, they will not talk about how they see themselves; they rely on the insight of the tourist, on his ability to discern a romantic soul behind a serious, unsmiling appearance.
Clans of Scotland- tribal communities with an internal patriarchal structure, having a common ancestor. A distinctive sign of belonging to a particular clan among the Scots is a kilt with a pattern characteristic of each clan (the so-called tartan). The word clan (English clan, Gaelic clann) is of Gaelic origin and is translated as “children, offspring, descendants” (children, offspring, descendants). Historically, every Scottish clan was a tribal community - a large group of people who had a hypothetical common ancestor and united under the leadership of a leader or the eldest in the family - the leader. The Scottish traditional clan system of the XIV-XVIII centuries was a peculiar, close to the Irish clans, septs (septs) and kingdoms, the connection of the patriarchal-clan and feudal ways of life, and both systems were inextricably linked and served as a mutual basis and support to each other.
Traditional clan system
The origins of the clan system must be sought in the 13th century, when the structure that preceded it began to collapse. The ancient Scottish tribal regions: Fife, Atholl, Ross, Moray, Buchan, Mar, Angus, Strathearn, Lennox, Galloway, Menteith - gradually began to lose their leaders - Mormaers - local earls and princes, whose titles and power were either abolished or passed by inheritance and concentrated in the hands of a new, predominantly Norman aristocracy, among which the leaders of the Scottish court and the future kings of the Stuarts most succeeded. As a result, the local population, which had lost its old powerful patrons, who came from the same lands and were indeed related to themselves to some extent, began to unite around new ones - lairds and barons, often strangers and newcomers, but who now had a legal feudal right to land. At the same time, the renewed diverse elite, the descendants of the Gaels, Picts, Norwegians, Irish, Normans, Flemings, Anglo-Saxons and even Hungarians, for their part, sought, in addition to legal rights guaranteed by royal power, to receive “tribal”: to become “their own” on the ground and enlist the support of people subject to and subordinate to them.
clan list
mountain clans
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Plains Clans
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An excerpt characterizing the Clans of Scotland
Running, whispering, the troika still desperately flying by, and all eyes were fixed on the jumping sleigh, in which the figures of the sovereign and Volkonsky were already visible.All this, according to fifty years of habit, had a physically unsettling effect on the old general; he anxiously hurriedly felt himself, straightened his hat, and at that moment, as the sovereign, getting out of the sleigh, raised his eyes to him, cheered up and stretched out, filed a report and began to speak in his measured, ingratiating voice.
The emperor glanced at Kutuzov from head to toe, frowned for a moment, but immediately, overcoming himself, came up and, spreading his arms, hugged the old general. Again, according to the old, familiar impression and in relation to his sincere thoughts, this embrace, as usual, had an effect on Kutuzov: he sobbed.
The sovereign greeted the officers, with the Semyonovsky guard, and, shaking the old man's hand once more, went with him to the castle.
Left alone with the field marshal, the emperor expressed his displeasure at the slowness of the pursuit, for the mistakes in Krasnoye and on the Berezina, and told him his thoughts on the future campaign abroad. Kutuzov did not make any objections or comments. The same submissive and senseless expression with which, seven years ago, he listened to the orders of the sovereign on the field of Austerlitz, was now established on his face.
When Kutuzov left the office and with his heavy, diving gait, head down, walked down the hall, someone's voice stopped him.
“Your Grace,” someone said.
Kutuzov raised his head and looked for a long time into the eyes of Count Tolstoy, who, with some small thing on a silver platter, stood in front of him. Kutuzov did not seem to understand what they wanted from him.
Suddenly, he seemed to remember: a barely perceptible smile flickered on his plump face, and he, bending low, respectfully, took the object lying on the dish. It was George 1st degree.
The next day, the field marshal had a dinner and a ball, which the sovereign honored with his presence. Kutuzov was granted George 1st degree; the sovereign gave him the highest honors; but the sovereign's displeasure against the field marshal was known to everyone. Decency was observed, and the sovereign showed the first example of this; but everyone knew that the old man was to blame and good for nothing. When at the ball Kutuzov, according to the old Catherine's habit, at the entrance of the sovereign into the ballroom, ordered the taken banners to be thrown down at his feet, the sovereign grimaced unpleasantly and uttered words in which some heard: "the old comedian."
The displeasure of the sovereign against Kutuzov intensified in Vilna, especially because Kutuzov, obviously, did not want or could not understand the significance of the upcoming campaign.
When the next day in the morning the sovereign said to the officers gathered at his place: “You saved more than one Russia; you saved Europe,” everyone already understood then that the war was not over.
Only Kutuzov did not want to understand this and openly expressed his opinion that a new war could not improve the position and increase the glory of Russia, but could only worsen its position and reduce the highest degree of glory on which, in his opinion, Russia now stood. He tried to prove to the sovereign the impossibility of recruiting new troops; talked about the plight of the population, about the possibility of failure, etc.
In such a mood, the field marshal, naturally, seemed only an obstacle and a brake on the upcoming war.
To avoid clashes with the old man, a way out was found by itself, consisting in, as in Austerlitz and as at the beginning of the Barclay campaign, to take out from under the commander-in-chief, without disturbing him, without announcing to him that the ground of power on which he stood , and transfer it to the sovereign himself.
To this end, the headquarters was gradually reorganized, and all the essential strength of Kutuzov's headquarters was destroyed and transferred to the sovereign. Toll, Konovnitsyn, Yermolov received other appointments. Everyone said loudly that the field marshal had become very weak and upset with his health.
He had to be in poor health in order to hand over his place to the one who interceded for him. Indeed, his health was poor.
How naturally, and simply, and gradually Kutuzov appeared from Turkey to the state chamber of St. a new, needed figure appeared.
The war of 1812, in addition to its national significance dear to the Russian heart, was supposed to have another - European.
The movement of peoples from west to east was to be followed by the movement of peoples from east to west, and for this new war a new figure was needed, having other properties and views than Kutuzov, driven by other motives.
Alexander the First was as necessary for the movement of peoples from east to west and for the restoration of the borders of peoples as Kutuzov was necessary for the salvation and glory of Russia.
Kutuzov did not understand what Europe, equilibrium, Napoleon meant. He couldn't understand it. The representative of the Russian people, after the enemy was destroyed, Russia was liberated and placed on the highest level of its glory, the Russian person, as a Russian, had nothing more to do. The representative of the people's war had no choice but death. And he died.
Pierre, as is most often the case, felt the brunt of the physical hardships and stresses experienced in captivity only when these stresses and hardships were over. After his release from captivity, he arrived in Orel, and on the third day of his arrival, while he was going to Kyiv, he fell ill and lay ill in Orel for three months; he became, as the doctors said, bilious fever. Despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him and gave him medicines to drink, he still recovered.
Everything that happened to Pierre from the time of his release to his illness left almost no impression on him. He remembered only gray, gloomy, sometimes rainy, sometimes snowy weather, inner physical anguish, pain in his legs, in his side; remembered the general impression of the misfortunes and sufferings of people; he remembered the curiosity of the officers and generals who questioned him, which disturbed him, his efforts to find a carriage and horses, and, most importantly, he remembered his inability to think and feel at that time. On the day of his release, he saw the corpse of Petya Rostov. On the same day, he learned that Prince Andrei had been alive for more than a month after the Battle of Borodino and had only recently died in Yaroslavl, in the Rostovs' house. And on the same day, Denisov, who reported this news to Pierre, mentioned the death of Helen between conversations, suggesting that Pierre had known this for a long time. All this only seemed strange to Pierre at the time. He felt that he could not understand the meaning of all this news. He was then in a hurry only to leave these places where people were killing each other as soon as possible, to some quiet refuge and there to come to his senses, rest and think over all the strange and new that he had learned during this time. But as soon as he arrived in Orel, he fell ill. Waking up from his illness, Pierre saw around him his two people who had come from Moscow - Terenty and Vaska, and the elder princess, who, living in Yelets, on Pierre's estate, and learning about his release and illness, came to him to walk behind him.
During his recovery, Pierre only gradually weaned from the impressions that had become habitual to him of the last months and got used to the fact that no one would drive him anywhere tomorrow, that no one would take away his warm bed, and that he would probably have lunch, and tea, and supper. But in a dream he saw himself for a long time in the same conditions of captivity. Just as little by little, Pierre understood the news that he learned after his release from captivity: the death of Prince Andrei, the death of his wife, the destruction of the French.
A joyful feeling of freedom - that complete, inalienable freedom inherent in a person, the consciousness of which he first experienced at the first halt, when leaving Moscow, filled Pierre's soul during his recovery. He was surprised that this inner freedom, independent of external circumstances, was now, as it were, surrounded with excess, with luxury, by external freedom. He was alone in a strange city, without acquaintances. Nobody demanded anything from him; they didn't send him anywhere. Everything he wanted he had; The thought of his wife, which had always tormented him before, was no more, since she was no more.
- Oh, how good! How nice! he said to himself when a cleanly laid table with fragrant broth was moved to him, or when he lay down at night on a soft, clean bed, or when he remembered that his wife and the French were no more. - Oh, how good, how nice! - And out of old habit, he asked himself the question: well, then what? What will i do? And immediately he answered himself: nothing. I will live. Ah, how nice!
The very thing that he had tormented before, what he was constantly looking for, the purpose of life, now did not exist for him. It was no coincidence that this desired goal of life now did not exist for him only at the present moment, but he felt that it did not exist and could not exist. And this lack of purpose gave him that full, joyful consciousness of freedom, which at that time constituted his happiness.
He could not have a goal, because he now had faith - not faith in any rules, or words, or thoughts, but faith in a living, always felt god. Previously, he had sought it for the purposes he had set for himself. This search for a goal was only a search for God; and suddenly, in his captivity, he recognized, not by words, not by reasoning, but by direct feeling, what his nanny had told him for a long time: that God is here, here, everywhere. In captivity, he learned that God in Karataev is greater, infinite and incomprehensible than in the Architecton of the universe recognized by the Masons. He experienced the feeling of a man who found what he was looking for under his feet, while he strained his eyes, looking far away from him. All his life he looked somewhere, over the heads of the people around him, but he had not to strain his eyes, but only look in front of him.
Peoples of Alba. Part 1. Picts and Scots
Scotland. The ancient homeland of the Picts, a disappeared people who completely assimilated into the Scottish people, from whom the country got its name. A country in which the no less mysterious people of the Celts left a very noticeable mark, dissolving into linguistic traditions, ancient buildings and the DNA of the local population, becoming the spirit of Scotland.
A country of militant highlanders and peaceful lowlanders. Country of kilts, whiskey and bagpipes. The country of the wind - it blows constantly, sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, not knowing tired. Scotland is a country that will stay in your heart if your heart is open enough for it. Anyone who has visited Scotland, whether in reality or thanks to books, forever leaves a piece of his heart in it.
It is impossible to describe Scotland in a nutshell. It needs to be heard, felt, understood. Listen to the sound of bagpipes, taste real Scotch whiskey with a touch of peat smoke and plunge into the warlike past of this country.
Picts
The king of Scotland has come
Ruthless towards enemies.
He drove the poor Picts
To rocky trees.
R.L. Stevenson
Translation by S.Ya.Marshak
Even as a child, when we “passed” this poem at school, I was very interested in: who are these Picts, who, judging by the text, are local residents, and the Scots are invaders. And why did the ruthless king so need a recipe for heather honey. With the advent of the computer and the Internet, it became possible to get answers to all questions.
My article is not some kind of serious research, I just tried to summarize all the most interesting things that I found on the Internet.
The Romans called this people Pictii, that is, "colored". It is not known whether the Picts tattooed their bodies, or simply painted them before the battle.
“We are the most distant inhabitants of the earth, the last of the free, were protected by our remoteness and the obscurity that surrounds our name. Behind us there are no nations, nothing but waves and rocks. These are the words of the Pictish leader Kalgak, recorded by Tacitus. It can be seen that already in those days this tribe was mysterious.
There are several versions about the origin of the Picts.
Version 1. Indigenous people
There is an assumption that the Picts were the indigenous, pre-Celtic, population of Britain and were direct descendants of the builders. Naturally, this hypothesis is not supported by anything, because it is completely unknown who these builders of megaliths were.
Version 2. Scythians
The Anglo-Saxon monk and chronicler Bede the Venerable wrote in 731 that the Picts were Scythians who landed in the north of Ireland and demanded land. The Irish sent them to Scotland and gave all men Irish wives, but with the condition that inheritance be passed down the female line. If there were only men on the Pictish ships, without women, then this is more like the retreat of one of the detachments of the defeated army than the resettlement of the people.
Neighboring peoples marveled at the Pictish custom of covering their bodies with numerous colorful tattoos. That is why the Picts were called "painted people." Tattoos were not just decoration. They carried information - for example, about the social status of their owner - they symbolically depicted various representatives of the animal world or fantastic creatures - the same as on the surviving Pictish stone slabs. In these images it is quite possible to catch a certain resemblance to the Scythian animal style.
Contemporaries were also amazed by the sexual freedoms that existed among the Picts. The Roman writer Dio Cassius said that Empress Julia Domna, wife of Emperor Septimius Severus, reproached a certain Pictish woman for depravity, but she replied that Roman women secretly become mistresses of the most miserable men, while Pictish women openly converge with the best husbands of their people by your own choice. This custom is also very similar to the Scythian.Or maybe the Picts had some kind of local custom of polygamy?
Version 3. Iberians
The Iberians lived on the east coast of Spain, and later settled throughout the Iberian Peninsula.
The Picts who fought against the army of the Roman general Julius Agricola were described as tall and blond. However, the Romans then met another tribe of barbarians, whom they described as swarthy and similar to the Iberians whom they had conquered in Spain.
In the physical appearance of the Scots, who are mostly of the light Caucasoid type, there are sometimes individuals with dark hair and swarthy skin, such as British actor Sean Connery. Probably, these are the descendants of a part of the Picts, whose ancestors were Iberians.
The connection of this ancient population of Scotland with their Iberian ancestors can be found in the many spiral patterns carved into the stones and rocks of the northern lands of Britain, which can also be found in Spain, France and Ireland.
But there are also enough arguments against this version. For example, the names of Iberia (Spain) and Ibernia (the medieval name of Ireland) - Iberia and Hybernia - are spelled differently, but pronounced similarly. It is possible that they did not mean the Iberians, but the Irish.
Version 4. Basques
Modern Basques live in northern Spain and southwestern France. The Basque language resembles the language of the Iberians. Recent genetic studies have confirmed that many Western Europeans, including a significant number of Spaniards, Portuguese, English, Irish and French, have common roots with modern Basques.
In the book "Basques" by the Spanish explorer Julio Caro Baroja, there is a link where it is said that the French traveler of the XII century Aymeric Pico cites the fact of a curious connection between Basque and Scottish men's clothing. But it is not specified exactly what details are involved.
Version 5. Celts
The British Isles received several invasions by the Celtic tribes who occupied most of Central and Western Europe. Their invasion began around the 10th century. BC. The most intensive migration of the Celts took place in the 6th century BC. BC. As a result of this migration, two branches of the Celtic group of peoples were entrenched in the British Isles - the Britons, who settled in Britain, and the Goidels (Gaels), who settled mainly in Ireland. The Britons came from the south to Scotland. Perhaps the Picts were the descendants of the first Celtic settlers.
Version 6. All together
Most scholars consider the Picts to be a people who appeared as a result of a mixture of the Celts who came to the north and the local aboriginal population (for example, the Caledonian tribe). The Celts came to these places (north of the line of Forth - Clyde) in about 100 AD. This happened, apparently, as a result of the salvation of the Celtic tribes from Roman rule. In turn, this local element was not ethnically united. One of its constituents was possibly Iberian.
Version 7. Unknown who
Whether the Picts were actually called Picts, or is it just a Roman nickname, is not very clear. Actually, the Scots called them cruitney. Appeared on the historical arena also some shade, but whether these are Picts, and if they are Picts, then all, or a separate part, is also not very clear.
The language of the Picts was somewhat similar to the Celtic, but the Scots needed an interpreter to communicate with them. That is, either the Celtic language, veryь far removed from related Scottish and British, or not Celtic at all, but having many borrowings.
Writing. A list of Pictish kings has come down to us in chronological order, written in Latin, and in addition - some obscure fragmentary records that do not make it possible to decipher them properly. That is, there was definitely a written language, but it has not been preserved.
One of the main proofs of the non-Celtic origin of the Picts is considered to be their rare custom for Western societies of inheritance through the female line. None of the Celtic tribes had such a custom. Women were not the rulers of the throne, but the supreme power did not pass from father to son, but, for example, from brother to brother, or sister's son. Apparently, the royal crown was inherited by members of the seven royal houses within which marriages took place. However, it was this rare form of inheritance that brought the crown of Pictia to the Scots by blood in 843, who massacred the remaining members of the seven ruling houses. After that, an extraordinary disappearance from the history of both the Pictish people and their culture took place. In fact, after three generations of kings of the MacAlpin dynasty, their name became legendary.
But this custom of inheritance leads us to the most curious version of the origin of the Picts.
Version 8. Semites
So, among the Picts, the inheritance of power occurred through the female line, unlike all neighboring peoples. But among other Semites, Jews, nationality is still transmitted through the maternal line.
In the 7th century, an active resettlement of Semitic tribes to neighboring lands began from the Armenian Highlands. Significantly ahead in knowledge of other tribes and peoples of the world who still lived in the material culture of the Bronze Age, using iron weapons and advanced technologies for those times, the newcomers were able to capture large areas of Western Asia, North Africa and Europe in a short period of time. An attentive reader will immediately detect a temporary discrepancy. And here it is time for us to turn to an alternative version of the history of mankind.
The history of Britain begins in 55 BC. e. Traditional history names this date on the basis of the established chronology, where all Roman rulers are lined up in a single chronological chain, and events are scheduled by year. That is, if we recognize the year 2 BC. year of the birth of Jesus Christ, we get that 53 years before his birth, Roman troops invaded Britain, led by Julius Caesar. But let's not forget that the traditional chronology was compiled only in the Middle Ages on the basis of reports from various ancient authors, who often turn out to be only medieval historians or writers who fantasized about historical themes.
Albert Maksimov, ohone of the authors of alternative history, believes that Jesus Christ was born in 720 AD. e., and was crucified in 753. Julius Caesar conquered Britain 53 years before the birth of Christ. According to an alternative version, the year 667 is obtained. So we come to the same 7th century, when the Semitic hordes went through Celtic Europe with fire and sword, eventually destroying the Great Roman Empire. And then, according to version No. 2, the Semitic detachment, battered in battles, ended up off the coast of Ireland, where the aliens took wives and set off to settle on the coast of Caledonia.
Interesting piece this alternative history! According to this version, world history turned out to be younger by as much as 6 centuries! But this is another topic, those who are interested can read the relevant literature themselves.
And what other peoples lived on the territory of ancient Scotland?
Map showing the approximate areas of the Pictish kingdoms Fortriou(800 AD) and Alba(AD 900)
Historically attested (albeit quite late, on the eve of the end of its existence) the Pictish kingdom occupied a rather limited territory in the segment between the Moray Firth in the north and the Firth of Forth in the south - about two of its northeastern thirds.
In the west it bordered on the Gaelic kingdom Dal Riada, in the southwest - with the British kingdom Strathclyde, and in the south - with the possessions of the Angles in Northumbria.
It is assumed that at an early stage of their existence there were several independent Pictish kingdoms - from two to six. However, by name it is confidently called only Fortriou. But by the middle of the 6th century, a single kingdom of the Picts was fixed with the first more or less historical king - Bride I, the son of Maelkon. However, this is where geography ends and history begins.
It is generally accepted that for the first time the Picts appear in the famous "Geography" of Ptolemy and on the map he compiled of the whole world known to the ancient Greeks. But the title picts it is not mentioned at all. And they appear on the territory where the Picts are later fixed (we will conventionally assume that this is Scotland) Caledonia, who gave the name to the country, and three more tribes, about which nothing more is known.
But the information of Tacitus can be dated quite accurately: they date back to the three British campaigns of his father-in-law Julius Agricola, which took place in the 70s and 80s. The population of the future Scotland Tacitus calls in a generalized way - Caledonians without division into tribes.
Roman period
Rome, turning along the way into the Empire, began an active expansion. Caesar did not reach the region of interest to us, he was stuck somewhere in Wessex. The Britons offered resistance, cleverly organized: war chariots and coordinated actions of small detachments. The legions, well trained and equipped, with the support of the cavalry, were still able to cross the Thames, they were not enough for more.
90 years later, in 1943, the Romans took Britain seriously. They landed a large army, conquered almost all of England, invaded Wales. True, they fiddled with Wales for 10 years, but they managed. However, nothing stronger than the legions at that time had yet been invented, so in the mid-60s the southern half of the island became completely Roman.
In the 77th consular legate (viceroy) of Britain, Gnaeus Julius Agricola was appointed. In 82, Agricola decided it was time to invade Pictavia. The Romans beat the Picts a little, the Romans a little Picts, all as reconnaissance in battle. The main battle took place in the next, 83rd year.
The Picts at that time were about a dozen tribes. But by and large, they were united in two tribal unions (if you like - kingdoms) - Meatia (Veniconia) And Caledonia. Apparently, everyone participated in the Battle of the Grampian Mountains. How else could a 30,000-strong army be assembled?
True, it was Agricola and his beloved son-in-law Tacitus who counted so much, by what method is unknown. The Romans defeated the Picts. And they had better training, and weapons, and Agricola was a talented commander in everything. But it is clearly seen that they did not fight with an armed crowd, but with an army controlled by a single will and not without tactical frills. And the Picts retreated in an orderly manner. In addition, a very inspiring speech by the commander of the Pictish army, Calgacus, delivered by him before the battle and, apparently, recorded by Tacitus from the words of the prisoners, has been partially preserved. “We are the most distant inhabitants of the earth, the last of the free. Behind us there are no nations, nothing but waves and rocks.
Roman soldiers later said that the Picts fought naked and painted. Maybe they lied, but the fact is that a Pictish warrior, even in trousers and a shirt, is legally considered naked compared to a Roman in bronze armor.
The Caledonians and other Meats retreated. The Romans occupied most of the lowlands of Scotland, built seven fortresses from Stirling to Perth, and left garrisons. However, middle Scotland was honestly not included on the then maps of Roman Britain. The Picts did not give a quiet life, the newly built fortifications were periodically set on fire.
Having won a glorious victory at the Battle of the Grampian Mountains (especially glorious in the description of Tacitus), the Romans got an interesting logical problem on their heads. Keeping an army in Pictavia is expensive, inconvenient and completely pointless. To leave everything and go south - on the one hand, it is somehow indecent, but on the other hand, the Picts can show up in Northumbria, and even in Mercia (Mercia and Northumbria have not yet been, but somehow these territories need to be called). The warrior emperors could not solve this problem, but the purely peaceful man Adrian did not give a damn about all the conventions, led the army out and ordered to build a chain of fortifications in a narrow place, sit behind them and not let the Picts go.
Hadrian's Wall was a fairly serious structure, mostly stone, 5-6 meters high, with towers, forts and garrisons. Another emperor would be shy, it turns out that the Romans, who conquer everyone and everything, built such a colossus with the aim that the Picts would not offend them very much. The shaft was built in 122-126.
But after 16 years, in 142, it was decided to snatch another piece of Pictland. It is unlikely that Emperor Antoninus Pius himself thought of this, but the new fortification was called rampart Antonina. Shaft cut off for Roman Britain Lothian with adjacent territories, incl. and Edinburgh (the city and the castle may not have existed yet, but the rock was definitely there). They did it in vain: on the new border, the fortification was not really completed, and the quality was worse, and the one on the old one is no longer being repaired or guarded. It was then that the Picts pulled back. Val Antonina(earthen) overcame without any problems, Hadrian's Wall(stone) - in desolation, you can terrorize the Roman garrisons in the future Northumbria. In general, the Romans kept 3 (three!) Legions on the rampart of Antoninus for forty years, without any effect. The Picts roamed wherever they wanted, and to their shame, of course, plundered as much as they saw fit.
In the year 193, problems with the imperial throne began in Rome, i.e. everyone who is not lazy declared himself emperor. The Caledonians decided that it was time for the Romans to show their place. In alliance with the Meats and Brigantes (this is already the Britons), they drove the Roman garrisons from Hadrian's Wall, not to mention Antonin's. The Roman governor managed, however, somehow to agree with them all, since he had the money. The border was again established along the Hadrian's Wall and became more or less peaceful.
Hadrian's Wall Val Antonina
In the year 209, Roman troops under the command of Emperor Septimius Severus invaded the Picts, as it was proclaimed, in search of a glorious victory and subjugation of the barbarians. Everything turned out, however, corny into robberies and devastation of the territory.
INIn the year 297, when the next list of the enemies of Rome was compiled, the Picts and Scots took pride of place in it. It seems that all these gentlemen periodically caused trouble to the Romans to the best of their ability. Probably, they still got it, in the year 306 Constantius Chlorus and his son Constantine, the future Great Emperor, undertook a punitive campaign to the north, in the direction of modern Aberdeenshire. The Romans do not mention any glorious victories in this connection.
In the 4th century, the Romans had enough other problems, the legions from Britain began to slowly withdraw. The Picts were not particularly embarrassed by the presence of Hadrian's Wall if it became necessary to plunder Northumbria (in Roman - Britain the Second).
In 367, a strategic, perfectly coordinated operation was carried out by the Romans, however contemptuously called the "Conspiracy of the Barbarians." True, in modern Wikipedia it is already called the "Great Conspiracy". Picts, Scots and Saxons simultaneously attacked Roman Britain, went through it all with fire and sword all the way to London. London, however, failed to take, the Romans were still not as weak as we would like. To gain a foothold in the conquered territories also did not burn out, although, most likely, there were no such plans. The Roman commander Theodosius pushed back the Picts (burdened with trophies) right behind the Antonin shaft. The territory between the ramparts was once again proclaimed a Roman province. The Picts, it seems, did not know about the new status of this area, and the Antonin Wall (if there was still something left of it) did not put anything into it.
In 383, the Duke of Britain (there were already such titles then) Magnus Maximus declared himself emperor and left to fight for a great goal on the continent, taking with him more or less combat-ready troops. He did not achieve the imperial crown, he was executed in 388 in Rome. But he gained extraordinary popularity in British legends. It is believed, among other things, that Magnus Maximus was the first owner of Excalibur, the sword of the great Arthur.
In 396-398, the regent of the Western Empire, Stilicho, organized a long-distance campaign to Pictavia, for which a real legion was even sent to Britain. What he achieved is not clear, but it was the last expedition of this kind. In the 401st, the legion was in demand on the continent, and within a decade all Roman units and subdivisions went there. In 410, Emperor Honorius officially announced to the leaders of the Britons that Rome had abandoned interests in Britain. The Britons were forced to independently repel raids from the north.
Forced to defend themselves against the barbarian Pictish and Scottish hordes, the Britons, who spoke a Celtic language very similar to the language of their kindred Celts in Wales, created a new kingdom Strathclyde.
Scotts (Gaels)
By the end of the 3rd century AD. In northern Scotland began to penetrate detachments of the Irish - Scots. This word in Irish means a warrior who went on a campaign to plunder and conquer new lands.
From Ireland to Scotland - only 15 miles by sea. Some of the Scots, for various reasons, moved to the other side of the strait and lived there quietly.
At the very end of the 5th century, the ruler of one of the small kingdoms of Northern Ireland Dal Riads Fergus Mor MacErk (Fergus Mor mac Earca) decided to include these colonies in his possessions. And take some territory away from the Pictish kingdoms. The Picts were not a single nation. To conquer Caledonia, one must have an army more abruptly than that of the Roman Empire, and in order to marry a Caledonian princess, the Scots did not come out with a snout. The small Pictish kingdom of Epidia is a different matter. Both methods work here. Epidia became part of Dal Riada. The metropolis was at that time still in Ireland. This is the 498th year.
Fergus More entrenched himself on the banks of the Firth of Clyde securely, one might say, forever. In the year 501, his son already rightfully inherited the territory on the island of Great Britain, in addition to the domain in Ireland. By the way, all subsequent rulers of Scotland, up to the now living queen (through the MacAlpins, Bruces and Stuarts), are considered (and were proud of it) to be the descendants of Fergus.
The Germanic tribes of the Angles and Saxons begin to penetrate from the south. The Anglo-Saxon state appears in the southeast of Scotland in the 7th century Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxons fought wars to seize land for settlement. On some they settled and eventually moved on to a peaceful life - as far as it was possible in that not very peaceful time. The Picts, on the other hand, did not pursue predatory goals, but they did not show any inclination to pacification either.
Entering the arena of history at the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries as a gang of thugs, they amazed all the surrounding peoples with their ferocity. Including colleagues in the craft - Scots, Anglo-Saxons and Franks, who themselves did not differ in angelic character. Their predatory raids covered almost all of Britain: remember that in 367 they, together with the mentioned comrades, reached London.
Moreover, judging by the sources, these were precisely predatory raids - they did not pursue any predatory or resettlement goals. And they continued for centuries: the Christianization of the Picts in the 6th century did not change anything.
The pressure of the Scots on the Picts led to armed conflicts between them, as a result, the Picts won. Dal Riada became a vassal possession of the Picts.
The Picts fought the Scottish invasion in the west, the Britons and Angles in the south, and the Vikings in the north. Sometimes they lost great battles and lost huge territories, only to gain them back in the terrible wars of the Dark Age. In the 7th century, the Scots pushed their frontiers far to the north, and a victorious Celtic army marched in half a day to the Pictish capital of Inverness in the north, destroying it.
In the south, the Angles led their German armies north, captured the southern Pictish lands and owned them for 30 years. On May 20, 685, the united Pictish army led by King Bride III met with a huge army of Anglo-Saxon invaders on the plains of Dunnichen in Angus. The ensuing battle, known to the English as the Battle of Nechtansmeer, and to the Caledonians as Battle of Dunnichen, became one of the most significant turning points in ancient history and determined the character of the country for the next 1300 years. What happened under Nekhtansmer made the name of Brides III great. The Picts destroyed the Anglo-Saxon army, along with the king, killing or enslaving the remnants of the Northumbrians who settled in Pictia. Lose to Brida this great battle, and Scotland would not exist now, and all of Britain would be English.
After the adoption of Christianity by the Picts around the 6th century, they began to marry Scots more often. In addition, the main preachers of Christianity among the Picts were Irish monks, which means that the Pictish kingdom was under the strong influence of the Irish. This allowed the Irish to settle in northern Scotland almost without obstacles. And yet, the battles between the Scots and the Picts continued.
As a result of all these wars, robberies and migrations, by the 8th century, a status quo was established between the four kingdoms - the British Strathclyde, Gaelic (or, if you prefer, Scottish) Dal Riadoy, Northumbria Angles and the Pictish kingdom Fortriou.
The aforementioned status quo, not excluding all sorts of border robberies and other disgrace, also implies some kind of peaceful relationship, as they would say today - diplomatic. And the main form of diplomatic relations at that time was dynastic marriages between kings, princes and princesses.
What were the aims of the Picts? Probably the same as the beks of the Turkic nomadic tribes, passing off their daughters as the rulers of neighboring states - that is, introducing their agents of influence. But with regard to the Picts, we can only guess about this.
But the goals of the second marriage party, that is, the rulers of the surrounding kingdoms, are clearly visible. The fact is that the Picts established the inheritance of royal power through the maternal line. It seems that this was not so much a law as an established practice. But, in any case, in a line of about fifty Pictish kings who ruled according to the so-called Pictish Chronicle, a monument presumably of the 10th century, from the 5th to the middle of the 10th century, the facts of the inheritance of the royal title of the father by the son are noted literally a few times.
In the kingdoms of the Scots, Britons and Angles, the patrilineal tradition of succession to power has long been established - if not de jure (the legal justification of the dynastic principle was still far away), then de facro. So for their rulers, marriage to Pictish princesses was a real opportunity to attach younger sons to power. Indeed, most of the Pictish kings were, from the point of view of their neighbors, Gaels or Britons in origin. And Pictish blood flowed in the veins of all the dynasties of the north of Britain.
Mixed marriages have become the order of the day, this applies not only to kings and princes, but to all the inhabitants of the future Scotland. Moreover, such a scheme emerges - the son of a Scott and a Pictish woman is the heir of both clans, if the parents of the royal family are the king of two kingdoms. The son of a Pict and a Scottish woman is nobody.
The end of the Pictish kingdom was caused precisely by dynastic reasons: one fine day in 843, the king of the Gaelic Dal Riada turned out to be Kenneth McAlpin, grandson of a Pictish princess. Which gave him reason to claim power in the kingdom of the Picts after the death of their king. Having won victories over other applicants for the royal title, he realized something like a personal union of the two kingdoms: together they received the name Alba. "n'Alban" is roughly how it sounds in Gaelic. Perhaps the Britons and Angles were a little swarthy, in contrast to the white-skinned Picts and Scots.
Kenneth moved the administrative center to the east, to (near Perth) - the place where the Pictish kings were crowned. The result of the territorial unification of the two ethnic communities was the spread of the Gaelic language and Celtic culture in areas long inhabited by historical Picts.
However, if Kenneth himself were asked about his title, he would first of all say that the king of the Picts, and then everything else. And the next heirs of Kenneth were called primarily the kings of the Picts.
That is, there was no conquest of the Picts by the Gaels, and no genocide of the Picts either. The ruthless King of Scotland did not exterminate the poor Picts in the moorland, did not drive them to the ends of the earth to the rocky shores. The most common assimilation took place. The Pictish language, already authentically Celtic at that time, was gradually supplanted by Gaelic. Both peoples made up the population of a single state. Contrary to the statements found in the literature, the Picts in it occupied by no means an underestimated position. Many noble families of Alba traced their origin to the Picts, and this was remembered centuries later after the disappearance of a separate kingdom. So, the Pictish line is recorded in the genealogy of Macbeth and his wife Gruoh - moreover, it was she who determined his rights to the throne, contrary to Shakespeare, much more significant than those of King Duncan. However, the true, not Shakespearean, story of Macbeth - a noble man, a fearless fighter and a wise ruler, is.
The name "Picts" was used only until the end of the 9th century. However, certain features of the public administration of the Picts passed into the state system of Alba. Thus, the term "mormaer" was still used in relation to those representatives of the tribal nobility who headed the districts on the territory of the former Pictish state.
Something in the customs of the Scots is reminiscent of their Pictish past. This, for example, is a more equal position of a woman compared to the British. Women had equal inheritance rights with men. Until the 19th century, a woman could not change her surname upon marriage. Until 1939, the Scots retained a peculiar form of marriage. To do this, it was enough to announce the desire to marry, and after a handshake, the marriage became valid.
heather ale
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HEATHER HONEY Heather drink Forgotten long ago And he was sweeter than honey Drunker than wine It was boiled in cauldrons And the whole family drank Little meads In caves underground. The king of scots has come Ruthless towards enemies. He drove the poor Picts To the rocky shores. Translation by S.Ya.Marshak (1941) |
HEATHER BEER Ripped hard red heather And boiled from it Beer is stronger than the strongest wines, Sweeter than honey itself. They drank this beer, they drank And for many days afterwards In the darkness of underground dwellings They fell asleep peacefully. But the king of Scotland came Merciless to enemies He defeated the Picts And drove them like goats. Translation by N.K. Chukovsky (1935) |
HEATHER ALE From heather bells In ancient times The craftsmen cooked the drink Sweeter and stronger than wine. We brewed ale and drank And fell into oblivion One next to the other In their underground burrows. Dashed into the Scottish mountains King, merciless and dashing. He slew the Picts in battle, The raid went on them. Translation by A. Korotkov |
Everyone knows only Marshak's translation. But the ballad of R. L. Stevenson "Heather Ale" (ale, not honey at all) was first translated by N.K. Chukovsky in 1935.The modern translation of the ballad belongs to Andrey Korotkov.
All translations are good in their own way, but Marshak's version is clearly adapted for children. Little mead-makers drink honey instead of beer, and most importantly, they don’t get drunk on home-made alcohol until the whole family loses consciousness.
Aleksey Fedorchuk in his study "The Picts and Their Ale" reconstructed the events that formed the basis of Stevenson's ballad. This reconstruction seemed very plausible to me.
The Picts throughout their history, most likely, adhered mainly to their beliefs, customs and rituals - regardless of whether they were considered by those around them to be pagans or Christians. We can only guess about beliefs. But some customs and rituals can be reconstructed by analogy with the Celts, from whom they descended, and with the Germans, who throughout their early history were under strong Celtic influence.
So, an integral part of all religious rites of both the Celts and the Germans was ... a very big booze. On it they drank for peace and harvest, drank in memory of their ancestors, drank for the health and good luck of the king or other representative of power. who, in fact, led this booze.
They drank with horns and other hefty containers, each container brought up was supposed to be emptied. Otherwise, the table conversation turned into a plane of disrespect for the gods and rulers. That is, it was interpreted as blasphemy and high treason. And on the other hand, if the ruler skimped on his duties as the organizer and head of the booze, this could well serve as a basis for his overthrow, and such cases in the history, for example, of ancient Scandinavia, are known.
In general, the Scandinavian sagas have preserved very colorful descriptions of such sacred drinking parties, sometimes, like all crowded drinking parties, which led to serious political consequences. For example, in "The Saga of Egil Skallagrimson" the undesirable participation of the latter in a sacred feast with abundant libations leads to the murder of the owner of the feast by him and, in the future, to his enmity with the Norwegian kings that stretched for decades.
By the way, if highly moral Slavophiles believe that our ancestors differed in this respect from the Celts and Germans, they are deeply mistaken. It is not for nothing that the chronicle ascribes to Prince Vladimir, the future Saint, the words: "The joy of Rus' is drinking" .
So what did they drink during such sacred booze? There was no wine in the northern countries due to the lack of grapes. The notorious old-fashioned honeys required both raw materials, which were not in abundance everywhere, and complex manufacturing technology, and the duration of the process, which was calculated in decades, with a very small yield of finished products. That is, they were not suitable in any way as a mass popular drink.
There remained alcoholic beverages obtained by fermenting grains - primarily barley, as the most common crop in the north at that time, sometimes with the addition of rye or wheat. In Scandinavia, most of the cereals were not used at all for baking bread, but for preparing such drinks.
In Russian translations of primary sources, such drinks are often referred to as beer. However, this is wrong. Real beer (beer) is necessarily made with the addition of hops. And it became widespread in Europe not earlier than the 12th century, first - in Southern Germany and Bohemia, since then the glory of Bavarian and Czech brewers has been going on.
Throughout the rest of Europe, since ancient times, alcoholic beverages were obtained by simple fermentation of grain or, at best, malt. It was behind them that the names - braga and ale - were entrenched.
Modern ale is made from the same material as beer - barley malt and hops, differing only in fermentation technology. And even then ale differs quite distinctly from beer in taste. And in order to imagine what that ancient ale (or mash) was like, it’s enough to try a semi-finished product for making high-quality, as they say, “for yourself”, village moonshine. The taste, I must say, is specific ...
Another thing is that this semi-finished product is not intended for ingestion - only for distillation. But the distillation process in the days of the Picts, Scots and other Vikings in the north was not yet known ...
So the above-named citizens used ale and mash, the taste is far from refined and the benefits for the body are dubious. And they were supposed to be used in large quantities, so that subjects would not be suspected of disloyalty to the gods and rulers, and the latter - to avoid reproaches of disrespect for comrades-in-arms and breadwinners.
In ancient Norway, the amount of beer that each full-fledged bond had to brew for religious holidays, such as (Midwinter Festival), was regulated by law. And, according to the sources that have come down to us, this number was exceedingly large.
So the problem of developing a technology for preparing high-quality alcoholic beverages from improvised materials at the dawn of the Northern Middle Ages was very relevant. And isn't that where the legend of the heather ale of the Picts originated?
I can hardly imagine what kind of drink can be made from heather. Moreover, heather, regardless of its properties, is a very common plant in the Scottish wastelands. And if it could be used as "ennobling" additives to ale (which, I repeat, was an ordinary grain mash), this technology would be quickly mastered by the Scots, the Angles, and later the Norwegians. And there would be no mystery in it.
But it is easy to assume that the servants of the Pictish gods, responsible, along with the rulers, for organizing sacred feasts, being experts in the flora of their native land, found some herbs that could perform the functions of continental hops. And it was these ingredients that formed the subject of their secret knowledge, passed down from generation to generation.
As for the name - "heather ale" , then this is most likely nothing more than a symbol: an ale made not from heather, but originating from the Land of the Moorlands. A kind of trademark, like cognac, armagnac or champagne.
It is also impossible to exclude the moment of deliberate misinformation on the part of the Pictish priests in relation to hostile neighbors, designed to hide the true technology of preparing the drink and its ingredients.
Further, the fate of heather ale could develop in this way. Living in an environment of peoples, albeit superficially, but Christianized, the Picts could not help but be exposed to Christian influence. Moreover, most of their kings were Picts only on the maternal side and were brought up at the courts of the Christian rulers of Dal Riada, Strathclyde or Northumbria. The secret of "heather" ale belonged to the bearers of the traditions of the old faith, and most likely did not go beyond their circle.
With the unification of Dal Riada and the kingdom of the Picts into a single state, the Christian tradition finally prevailed. The Pictish nobility joined the ranks of the Christianized Gaelic nobility, and lost the secret knowledge of their ancestors. Just as King Kenneth, although a descendant of a Pictish princess, did not have access to her, but he was a Christian.
Of course, the bearers of the pagan tradition, in particular, and experts in the technology of "heather" ale, continued to exist. And, most likely, for obvious reasons, they were in opposition to the central government. What the latter, just as obviously, did not want to put up with.
And although there was no genocide against the Picts by the Scots, an irreconcilable war with the pagan opposition seems quite real. And it was she who was reflected in the very legend in which
Dashed into the Scottish mountains
King, merciless and dashing.
He slew the Picts in battle,
The raid went on them.
The position of King Kenneth is clear:
The edge obeyed him,
But he did not bring gifts.
And he, apparently, had a chance to try “heather” ale, and he understood the difference with the swill that the Scots prepared. And therefore, having caught the last surviving carriers of technology,
He ordered them to be taken to the sea,
On a terrible steep cliff:
"Save life, bastards,
Revealing the secret of ale to me.
However, it didn't break off. The eldest of the Picts, having provoked the murder of the boy, says:
"And I'm not afraid of your torture -
Burn, burn with fire.
Sweet Ale Mystery
Will die in my heart."
Having lost everything, including the meaning of life, he takes revenge on the enemy, dooming him to slurp lousy barley mash all his life ...
To be continued...
In heavy burial mounds, sitting on a horse,
Among the riches, as grandfathers bequeathed,
Sleep our formidable kings: in a dream
They dream of feasts, battles, victories.
(Bryusov V.)
Many of us, studying history, were probably interested in questions about where our ancestors went. To many of those who read this article, it may seem like nonsense, but ... as they say, there is a lot of BUT, and it proves a lot again that people are strong in their history.
The name of Scotland sounds in English as Scotland. It consists of two words Scot + Land. The word Land is translated as COUNTRY. So Scon+Land means Cattle Country. There is nothing new in this. It is less well known that in the old English chronicles the Scots are also called SCITHI, namely SCITHI! For example, the manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. So the old English chronicle states in plain text that the SCOTS are SCYTHIANS. In this case, it turns out that Scotland is the Country of the Scythians, that is, Scithi-Land.
In this regard, it is very interesting to turn to the old maps of Scotland. This is probably a trace of the great = conquest, as a result of which Scotland was settled by immigrants from Rus'.
This circumstance again clearly identifies the medieval SKOTOV with ROS, that is, with immigrants from Rus'. By the way, let's pay attention to the English word Kingdom. It means Kingdom and was previously written as two words King Dom. And the old indigenous Slavic word DOM has not changed at all and, in general, has retained its primary meaning in the languages of Western Europe. Only Western Europeans began to write it down in Latin letters. The word DOM has turned out.
The name ROS of this RUSSIAN region remained on the maps of Scotland until at least the 18th century.
But especially remarkable from this point of view is the map of the British Isles, compiled by George Lily (George Lily) allegedly in 1546. We see here the same Scottish region, and it is called ROSSIA, that is, simply RUSSIA. Thus, on some maps of Britain of the 16th century, we see a large area in Scotland, directly called RUSSIAN - ROSSIA.
Today, of course, this name is no longer on the map of England. Apparently, in the era of the Reformation of the XVI-XVII centuries, all the names were prudently removed. All kinds of reminiscences were carefully wiped from the memory of the peoples.
On another map of Britain in 1754, we see that the RUSSIAN (ROSSIA) region of Scotland is named differently, namely ECOSSA. But this name practically coincides with the English word COSSAck, which still means Russian COSSACKS in English. Thus, the same large area of Scotland on some old maps was called ROSS, that is, probably the RUSSIAN area, and on others - eCOSSA. That is, probably the COSSACK region or the COSSACK region. Which, in principle, is the same thing, since the Russian conquest of the XIV century was carried out by troops, that is, COSSACK troops. Apparently, these areas of Scotland were inhabited by a particularly large number of Cossacks who came here in the XIV-XV centuries and mastered these lands.
Now it becomes clear and one more very interesting old name of Scotland, present on medieval maps. It turns out that Scotland was once called SCOCIA. Moreover, the Latin letter C is depicted here almost coinciding with the Latin letter q, that is, Q is small. Further, quite distinctly and unequivocally, ALL SCOTLAND is entirely called SCOCIA on an old map supposedly from 1493. As we are now beginning to understand, the name SCOCIA could well have come from the Slavic word SKAKAT or SKOK (horses).
The Cossacks were riders, riders, RIDED on horseback. The Russian-Horde troops included cavalry as the main shock and highly maneuverable military force. It is not surprising that names like SKAKAT, SKOKUNY, SKOK naturally associated in the minds of people with the cavalry troops of Rus'-Horde. And they froze on the maps in those countries through which the “Mongolian” conquest swept and where the Cossacks then settled, starting the development of new lands.
The fact that both SCOTLAND and SCYTHIA were called SKOKIA in the XIV-XVI centuries is absolutely clear from the old maps. So, summing up some results, we get the following. As it turned out, SCOTLAND on old maps was called by the following names: ROS (ROS), ROSS (ROSS), RUSSIA (ROSSIA), SCOTIA (SCOTIA or SCOTS), COSS (ECOSSA) - Cossacks, SCOCIA (SCOCIA) - gallop, horses, riders . That is, in fact, these words point to the same Cossacks.
Let us now turn to the map of England, attributed today to the "ancient" Ptolemy, allegedly the 2nd century AD. Above the word ALBION, placed in the center of the Ptolemaic map, we see the name ORDUICES PARISI. That is, probably, the HORDE P-RUS or the HORDE WHITE RUSS = Belo-Rus. Perhaps the very name of the entire island - ALBION, that is, WHITE - came from the name of the WHITE Horde, whose troops settled the British Isles during the invasion of the XIV-XV centuries. By the way, on the map of Ptolemy there is the old name of London in the form of TRINOVANT (Trinoantes), that is, Troy New.
No less interesting is the map of Ireland in 1754. On it we see an area called ROSCOMMON and a city called ROSCOMMON. It is possible that ROS-COMMON once meant RUSSIAN COMMUNITY, RUSSIAN COMMON land or RUSSIAN PUBLIC land. Or this name comes from RUS-KOMONI, that is, RUSSIAN HORSELTS, that is, again, the same COSSACKS. Recall that in the old Russian language, the word KOMONI was called HORSES, horses.
Thus, we see that on the maps of Britain until the 18th century there were still quite a lot of bright “Russian traces of the Ataman conquest of the 14th-15th centuries. Then they were gradually erased and replaced by other names.
In the chronicle of Nennius, in a chapter entitled “On the experience of the Scots, or about when they took possession of Ibernia,” Nennius reports: “If anyone wants to know when ... Ibernia was uninhabited and deserted, then the most knowledgeable of the Scots told me the following. When the children of Israel were walking along the Red Sea, the Egyptians chasing them, as the Scripture tells, were swallowed up by its waters. The Egyptians had a noble husband from Scythia with numerous relatives and many servants, who, having been expelled from his kingdom, was in Egypt at a time when the Egyptians were swallowed up by the open sea ... The surviving Egyptians decided to expel him from Egypt so that he would not seize their country and did not subject her to his power.
As a result, the Scythians were expelled, set sail and conquered Ibernia. Nennius considers this event to be the conquest of Ibernia by the Scots. Today it is believed that medieval Hibernia = Hibernia is Ireland. However, it is possible that the name Ibernia here means Spain = Iberia. Or some other country.
If in a certain historical era Scythia was also called Scotland, then the following question becomes especially interesting. We have seen that the English chronicles called the Russian Tsar Yaroslav the Wise
Maleskold. Hence, in calling him by his full title, they should have called him King Maleskold of Scotland. But today we are well aware of at least several Scottish kings, the Malcolms, in Scaligerian history. Is not one of them Yaroslav the Wise, or his descendants, transferred to the "island Scottish soil" as a result of a chronological and geographical shift?
The very first page of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle provides important information. “On this island (that is, in Britain - Auth.) There were five languages:
English (ENGLISH),
British or Welsh (BRITISH or WELSH),
Irish (IRISH),
Pictish language (PICTISH),
Latin (LATIN).
... The Picts came from the south of Scythia (Scythia) on warships;
There were few of them, they landed first in northern Ireland and
We turned to the Scotts (Scots) - is it possible for them to settle here ...
The Picts asked the Scotts to give them wives... Some of the Scotts came to
Britain from Ireland.
In general, the term Vlach or Volohi is well known in medieval Europe. Starting allegedly from the 9th century AD. they lived on the territory of Romania and formed the state-principality of Wallachia. It is remarkable that the second name of Wallachia was Tzara Romyniaska, that is, the Romanian or Romanesque Country. Wallachia had the greatest influence on the fate of the region in the 14th century. The history of Wallachia is closely connected with the history of Turkey.
“Wallachia (in the form of Blakie) is a geographical term often used by Robert de Clary (and also by Geoffroy Villardouin) for what is believed to be part of the territory of the Eastern Balkans. This territory was called by the Byzantine authors Great Vlachia. In other words, Great Vlachia is part of modern Bulgaria (although this is a moot point, because we had some strained relations with Bulgaria).
Regarding the Saxons, historians write like this. “The Saxons are Germanic tribes that lived in northern Europe, mainly in the territories adjacent to the North Sea. In the 5th-6th centuries, Britain was conquered by the Germanic tribes... Most often, Geoffrey refers to the GERMANIC CONQUERERS collectively as the SAXES, although in some cases he also mentions the ENGLISH.
N.M. Karamzin reports: "Herodotus writes that the SCYTHIANS, known to the Persians under the name SAKOV, called themselves Skolots (that is, CATS or Scots)." In addition, according to the same Karamzin, “Menander calls the TURKS SAKAS, and Feofan calls MASSAGETS.”
Thus, it turns out that the old English chronicles do not speak of some supposedly relatively small peoples who originally inhabited the modern island of Britain, but of huge medieval states, kingdoms that played a decisive role in the history of Europe and Asia in the 11th-16th centuries. As a result, it has shrunk, turned into a local, local history that fits into a relatively small area. But extended over time.
But, no matter how critical we are, according to previous data, there is another person - this is King Arthur, you tell me, and he is already on which side, and here is the answer, and you decide:
The legendary English King Arthur, who is considered today one of the most prominent rulers of "ancient" England and dates back to the supposedly 5th century AD, - HAD INTELLIGENCE WITH THE TSAR OF Rus'. One of the associates of King Arthur says: "And the king of Rus', the most severe of the knights ...". This fact is reported by Layamon, an allegedly early thirteenth-century author of the poem Brutus, or Chronicle of Britain. It is believed that under King Arthur, a queen or princess was kidnapped from Rus' to England.
At the same time, we can assume that the inscription begins with the Greek word NICIA, that is, NIKEA or NIKA, which means WINNER in Greek. Further, it is extremely curious to see how the name of King Arthur is represented in the inscription. We see that it is written like this: REX ARTU RIUS. That is, KING OF THE HORDE RUS or KING OF THE RUSSIAN HORDE. Note that ARTU and RIUS are separate from each other, written as two separate words. By the way, if the authors of the old inscription wanted to write ARTU RIUS as a single word ARTURIUS, they could have done it, but there would have been enough space for this in the line, so the second word RIUS had to be moved to the next line.
Moreover, some modern philologists, referring to Celtic mythology, indicate that the name ARTHUR was originally written in the form of two words: ARDU + DU, where the word DU meant “black” in the Celtic language. But in this case, the name of Arthur simply meant the BLACK HORDE. Recall that in Rus'-Horde there were several ORDs: White, Blue, Gold. Maybe Western Europeans called the entire Horde in a generalized way, in one word Black. This is how the name Arthur came about.
Since the 17th and 18th centuries, Arthur's personality has been regarded as largely legendary. For example, in the preface to Thomas Malory's medieval work "The Death of Arthur" the following is written: "If anyone says and thinks, AS IF THERE WAS NO SUCH KING ARTHUR IN THE WORLD, one can see great foolishness and blindness in that person ... And therefore ... a person cannot , judging sensibly, to deny that there was a king named Arthur in this land. For in all regions, Christian and pagan, he is glorified and listed among the nine most worthy, and of the three men of Christians is revered first. AND HOWEVER, HE IS MORE REMEMBERED ABOUT THE SEA, THERE MORE BOOKS ARE WRITTEN ABOUT HIS NOBLE DEFECTS THAN IN ENGLAND, and not only in French, but also in Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Greek ... And therefore, having judged all of the above, we already we cannot deny that THERE WAS SUCH A NOBLE KING NAMED ARTHUR."
This preface is believed to have been written for an edition of Le Morte d'Arthur, which allegedly appeared in 1485. In fact, this text, of course, was written no earlier than the 17th century.
Rus' often appears in English and other Western chronicles under the names of Ruthenia or Rusia. Matuzova writes:<<Интерес к Руси в Англии обусловлен и событием, глубоко потрясшим средневековую Европу, - вторжением татаро-монгольских кочевых орд… Это… сообщения о появлении какого-то неведомого народа, дикого и безбожного, самое название которого толковалось как «выходцы из Тартара»; оно навевало средневековым хронистам мысль о божественной каре за человеческие прегрешения>>. But too beautiful, overdone. Naturally, at the same time, the old names were carefully and tendentiously edited.
There is only one answer, most of the European historians do not recognize that our ancestors were those people who lived on the territory of European countries, created their culture, roughly speaking, “raised” them, no matter how pathetic it sounds.
Of course, religious leaders played an important role, who would want our ancestors to raise and develop culture, they are not religious “humanists” (of course, we know about their activities, and with what efforts all this was done, not on the positive side, but like the majority He will say: "God be their judge...").
Scottish clans
Word clan(English) clan, Gaelic. clann) is of Gaelic origin and translates as " children, offspring, offspring"(children, offspring, descendants). Historically, every Scottish clan was a tribal community - a large group of people who had hypothetical a common ancestor and united under the leadership of a leader or the eldest in the family - the leader. The Scottish traditional clan system of the 14th-18th centuries was a peculiar connection, close to the Irish clans and septs, of the patriarchal-clan and feudal ways of life, and both systems were inextricably linked and served as a mutual basis and support for each other.
Traditional clan system. The origins of the clan system must be sought in XIII, when the structure that preceded it began to collapse. The ancient Scottish tribal regions: Fife, Atholl, Ross, Moray, Buchan, Mar, Angus, Strathearn, Lennox, Galloway, Menteith - gradually began to lose their leaders - mormaers - local earls, whose titles and power were either abolished or inherited and concentrated in the hands of a new, predominantly Norman (and Flemish) aristocracy, among which the most successful were the leaders of the Scottish court and the future Stuart kings. As a result, the local population, which had lost its old powerful patrons, who came from the same lands and were indeed related to themselves to some extent, began to unite around new ones - lairds and barons, often strangers and newcomers, but who now had a legal feudal right to land. At the same time, the renewed diverse elite, the descendants of the Gaels, Picts, Britons, Normans, Flemings, Anglo-Saxons, Norwegians, Irish and even Hungarians, for their part, sought, in addition to the legal rights guaranteed by royal power, to receive "tribal": to become "their own" on the ground and enlist the support of people subject to them and subordinate to them. So, for example, there are legends and partly evidence that the early representatives of the Norman and Flemish families, for example, the Comyns, Murrays and Sutherlands, Inns, as well as the O'Beolans Gaels (ancestors of the Ross clan), who received royal charters for lands in rebellious counties of Moray and Ross in the XII-XIII centuries, nevertheless intermarried with the local disgraced nobility, securing the loyalty of the indigenous population and securing the ancient Gaelic tribal rights.
Feudal-tribal relations based on mutual affection and dependence, when vassals needed the protection of their lords, and lords needed the support of vassals, their people, classified as one common clan, were formed and strengthened over the centuries from the end of the 13th century and the Wars of Scottish Independence to the first half of the 18th century and the Jacobite uprisings. As surnames emerged and spread: in the 12th-16th centuries in the Lowlands and up to the 17th century in the islands of the western Highlands, ordinary people took the names of their masters, forming the very kind-clan. As a result, hundreds and even thousands of clan members, regardless of social status and position, from peasants, artisans and merchants to lairds, lords and earls, bore the same surname and claimed descent from a common ancestor and distant relationship, both among themselves, so with their lords and leaders. But this did not mean general equality. The poor peasant was subordinate to his lord, laird, chieftain or leader, but in submission to the highest in the hierarchy, he, unlike his English or French counterpart, did not harbor hidden hostility or hostility towards his master, because he was a man of his name, his clan, his families. And every commoner, Fraser, Mackintosh or Leslie, rising at the call of the leader, fought not only for the lord, but also for his entire family and directly for his loved ones, knowing that the personal well-being of his family depended on the position of his lord - Baron Fraser, Mackintosh or Leslie. In the same way, every laird, whether Maclain, Laird Duart, Lord Ogilvie of Airlie, or Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, had the duty to protect the interests of every member of his clan, because insulting any of the Macleans, Ogilvies, or Lindsays meant insulting a member of his family, and thus concerned him personally. Such mutual dependence, in particular, explains the absence of large peasant uprisings in medieval Scotland, which swept at one time in many European countries, including neighboring England and France close to the Scots.
The rise of the head of the clan meant the rise of the whole clan: together with the leader, his support in the person of relatives, close associates and vassals, as a rule, members of his name and clan, received new possessions, privileges and positions. So it was at one time with the powerful Stuarts and Douglases, who owned lands throughout Scotland, the high-born Hamiltons, the numerous MacDonalds, Campbells and Gordons, full owners of their regions, and with the petty nobles Livingstones and Crichtons who made their way to power. So in the Grant clan, behind the leader, laird Grant and Freukhi, there were chieftains - the leaders of the branches of the clan, the same lairds: Grant from Gartenbeg (Gartenbeg), Grant from Auchernak (Auchernack), Grant from Dellacaple (Dellachapple), Grant from Tullochgorum (Tullochgorum) and Grant of Glenmoriston; five main branches of the Cameron clan, also led by lairds from ancient times: Cameron of Lochiel, Cameron of Erracht, Cameron of Clunes, Cameron of Glen Nevis and Cameron of Fassifern - are still symbolically depicted as five arrows on the leader's badge. And vice versa, royal disfavor or defeat from the enemies of the baron and leader would certainly be reflected in the people of his clan. In 1562, the disgrace of the influential Earl of Huntly and his posthumous accusation of high treason was followed by the confiscation of possessions and the arrest of two dozen barons of the name and clan of Gordon (including the Earl of Sutherland then), but all of them were acquitted and restored to their rights already in 1565 when Mary Stuart and Earl Bothwell needed the support of the powerful Catholic Gordon clan. In 1603, after a conflict with the Colcahoons, the entire MacGregor clan, whose members had previously been convicted of looting and robbery, was outlawed with a ban on pain of death to bear the names Gregor or MacGregor; the leader and thirty of his people were executed, the rest of the MacGregors, in order to survive, were forced to take the names of their relatives and neighbors; the ban on surnames was lifted only in 1774, and the MacGregor clan was formally restored in 1822.
Note that the power, strength and influence of the clan and its leader was determined not so much by titles, lands and wealth, but by the number of his "clan people": relatives, vassals and tenants (clients) - those whom he could call under his banners. An English report on Scottish peers dated 1577 says that the power of Graham, Earl of Montrose, is not great, as is his income; The Ruthvens and Erskines are few in number, but strong in their connections and alliances; the lands of Lord Oliphant are profitable, but he does not have a large income and his family is small; The Forbes, enemies of the Earls of Huntly, are considerable in number and wealth; and Macleod of Skye and Lewis is respected only in their own lands, but has no influence in the royal court.
The structure of the clans was not uniform throughout Scotland, and already in the 15th century, mountain clans and lowland and border families were distinguished. For a long time under the influence of the Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles, and speaking Scottish Gaelic (close to Irish), Gaelic patriarchal family relations and customs, reinforced by feudalism, were more characteristic of the Highlands, while for lowland Scotland and the Borderlands, where in use was the Scottish language (a dialect of English) - Norman feudal culture, "softened" by kinship.
But both mountain and lowland clans existed as tribal territorial units, which constituted their own military detachments and often resolved internal conflicts among themselves by armed means. On the basis of these voluntary military formations in the 17th-18th centuries, regular personal and family Scottish regiments and battalions were created, some of which, bearing the names of Gordons, Camerons, Mackenzies, have existed to this day and managed to glorify themselves on the battlefields of world wars. Clan conflicts: from "border robbers" (Border reivers) and Rob Roy McGregor, robber raids of small detachments or gangs to several dozen people who devastated the lands of their neighbors, stole cattle, stormed the castle-towers of their enemies based on surprise, where losses were more likely material character, before the battles of Harlow (Harlaw), Glendale (Glendale), Arbroth (Arbroath), "Battle of the Shirts" (Battle of the Shirts), Keiths and Gunns, Forbes and Gordons, Johnstons and Maxwells, MacLeods and Mackenzies, large bloody battles of several hundred and thousands of people and a ruthless blood feud that lasted for generations and tens or hundreds of years - left an indelible mark on the history and memory of individual Scottish families and the country as a whole.
In the XV-XVI centuries, clans began to receive official legal status, acquiring symbols and privileges, and becoming an integral part of Scottish heraldry and culture: badges, tartans, symbols, pibrochs, family traditions and customs, legends and traditions - while continuing to exist as closed tribal communities with its own internal structure and subordination to the feudal barons - their leaders and leaders. The original semi-feudal semi-clan system built in this way with the legalized power of the state and the rights of feudal leaders, existed in Scotland, and after that in Great Britain without any signs of decline and degeneration until the "Act of Prohibition" (Act of Proscription) and the "Act of Hereditary rights" (The Heritable Jurisdictions Act) 1746. At a mature stage of its existence, the definition of a Scottish clan given by Alexander Nisbet V "System of Heraldry" (1722) : clan is "a social group consisting of a collection of individual families actually descended from or recognized themselves as descendants of a common ancestor, and recognized by the Monarch through his supreme officer in charge of noble privileges (Supreme Officer of Honor), the Lord Lion (Lord Lyon), honorary community, all members of which, who were previously entitled or received new charters for hereditary nobility, bear the coat of arms as established or unestablished branches, descended, presumably, from the eldest branch of the clan ".
The abolition of the clan system. In 1746, after the suppression of the last Jacobite rising, the British government decided to destroy the Scottish clan system as a constant source of riots and Jacobitism. The "Prohibition Act" prohibited clan culture: common people wearing weapons, traditional clothes of the Scottish highlanders and clan symbols, national music and playing the bagpipes, teaching and using the Scottish Gaelic language; The "Inheritance Rights Act" abolished feudal and tribal rights and privileges of clan leaders, including the ability to call their people to arms. Backed up by the power of the English troops, both laws, as well as further measures directed against the direct participants in the Jacobite uprisings, mainly the Scottish highlanders, actually meant the liquidation of the clans: lairds, barons and leaders became ordinary landowners, their possessions a source of income, their people - simple peasants and workers . Former barons, now British aristocrats and gentry, everywhere sold their long-standing clan territories to former enemy neighbors, set aside for cattle and sheep breeding in the North and West of Scotland, or for the construction of manufactories, barracks, industrial plants for the growing cities in the south. At the same time, their "clan people", long-term tenants of these lands, who previously served as a support for the power of their leaders, now they no longer need them. The 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries were marked by a black page in the history of the Scottish Highlands - mass emigration and forced deportation of Highlanders (Highland Clearances, "Sweeping the Scottish Highlands") from the lands where they lived for centuries, fought for and defended by their ancestors. Driven or forced out of the fertile areas of the Highlands and the Western Isles, the highlanders moved to the cities of the Lowlands, replenishing the ranks of cheap labor of the British Industrial Revolution, which was gaining momentum, or to the free territories of North America and Canada, irrevocably losing touch with their homeland.
