Picts [L
picti, painted men]. Historical ancient people of the British Isles, perhaps the earliest to speak any form of a Celtic language in these islands. The Roman name, Picti, dates only from the late 3rd century AD and derives from a soldiers' nickname, apparently based on observing the tribal penchant for decorating bodies with tattoos, a custom not unknown to other Celtic peoples. While the Picts' name for themselves is not known, the
P-Celtic Preteni, Pretani and
Q-Celtic Cruithni, Cruithnig, Cruithne, Cruthin imply that if they did have one it would have included the elements -r-t-n-. The name for the Picts, therefore, may be at the root of the name Britain, although the Picts are not identical with the P-Celtic Britons conquered by the Romans. Because of their lack of surviving records and their apparent archaism, the Picts have been the subject of much scholarly speculation. At one time the Picts were thought to have been exotic intruders akin to the Basques of southern France, and to have resided primarily in northern and north-eastern Scotland; recent informed opinion rejects both notions. According to Kenneth H. Jackson (1980), the Picts had two languages, one P-Celtic, brought from the Continent by Gallo-Brittonic settlers, and the other which was non-Indo-European but absorbed some Celtic vocabulary. Further, the Picts settled throughout the British Isles including Ireland; T. F. O'Rahilly (1946) cites them as among the earliest inhabitants of that island. Custom tended to distinguish the Picts from their neighbours, e.g. descent was matrilinear, or reckoned through the female side: only sons of the Pictish royal lineage could succeed to kingship. The Picts also left an impressive artistic legacy of stylized carved memorial stones and crosses that have been much esteemed by modern aesthetes. Although the Picts are cited in Irish chronicles as late as the 8th century, they maintained a more lasting presence in Scotland. The Romans classified the Picts into two divisions, the Dicalydones [Double Caledonians], north and south of the Forest of Atholl barrier, and the Verturiones farther to the south. The initial migration of Q-Celtic
Scotti from Ireland to
Dál Riada during the 6th century and earlier seems to have caused little conflict, and the Irish saint
Colum Cille evangelized the Pictish king Bridei or Brudei. A more constant enemy were the Northumbrians, whom the Picts defeated at
Nechtansmere, AD 685. In another 200 years, however, the Picts were united with the Gaelic invaders by Cináed mac Ailpín [Kenneth MacAlpin] to form the nation of Alba, which would become Scotland.
Bibliography
See T. F. O'Rahilly , ‘Priteni, Pritani, Britanni’, in Early Irish History and Mythology (Dublin, 1946), 444–52;
F. T. Wainwright (ed.), The Problem of the Picts (Edinburgh, 1955;
rev. Perth, 1980), esp. K. H. Jackson 's ‘The Pictish Language’;
Sally M. Foster , Picts, Gaels and Scots (London, 1996);
Isobel Henderson , The Picts (London, 1967);
‘Pictish Art and the Book of Kells’, in R. McKittrick et al. (eds.), Ireland in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1982);
Anthony Jackson , The Pictish Trail (Kirkwall, Orkney, 1989);
Lloyd and Jenny Laing , The Picts and The Scots (London, 1993);
E. Nicoll (ed.), Pictish Panorama (Balgavies, 1995);
A. Ritchie , Picts (Edinburgh, 1989).
