Remember Kincardine, or at least the carden element, is also a Pictish word, meaning woodland. So maybe a king would visit to go hunting at the “head of the woods. If its primary purpose was for the hunt there would not necessarily need to be an estate to provide sustenance for a longer stay
Also, if you are taking the David iconography as the marker for such stopping off points on a royal itinerary, where does Forres fit in if Jane’s identification of the inauguration scene as based on David is correct?
On an unrelated topic, are you enjoying Only Child and its Forres setting? The final episode particularly with a good Forres worthy speaking what can only be modern Pictish! 🤓
Another thought strikes me - if the meaning of 'carden' seems to span both 'forest' and 'enclosure,' as Alan James has suggested for its usage in Middle Welsh, perhaps a 'carden' in Pictish was a fenced-off forest - i.e. a forest reserved for the royal hunt. Now to see if that fits with any other instances of it :)
Thanks Alastair - incredibly astute as usual (we should co-author a paper sometime!) I hadn't really given the place-name of Kincardine very much thought, because at the back of my mind was the fact that the meaning of 'carden' is now disputed, with no very satisfactory resolution. (See p. 1-6 of Thomas Clancy's paper here: https://clog.glasgow.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JSNS/article/view/143/171). But your interpretation would make a lot of sense. A bit I meant to include in the blog, but didn't because it was already too long, was that according to Thomas Charles-Edwards, the royal circuit tended only to take in the core of the kingdom, not the periphery. In my MA I saw Portmahomack, Burghead and Kinneddar as the central places of Moreb, so the core of the kingdom, which leaves Kincardine outside.
I deliberately missed out Sueno's Stone because the carbon dating points to it belonging to a later time period from the other four monuments, which are likely all to be contemporary. But my general view is that Forres succeeded Burghead as the caput of Moreb, at least for a little while (I see Macbeth's dynasty as hailing from Elgin), so it would make sense to find David imagery there too - perhaps even as a conscious harking back to Moreb's glorious eighth-century past, when its art was magnificent and its kings went on splendid royal hunts.
I only saw part of the first episode of Only Child - must get back to it!
I was being a bit tongue in cheek with my comment on the Forres cross slab however maybe there could also be a 9th/10th C circuit once Burghead/Kineddar were lost/abandoned?
Yes, absolutely - although the late-ninth and tenth centuries feel like troubled times in Moray, fending off the Norse earls on one hand and the kings of Alba on the other, with an undercurrent of internal strife that saw Ruaidrí and his dynasty gain control from whoever might have been based in Forres (but this is very speculative). So maybe less time for travelling around being lavishly entertained and going on hunts. (Another thought is that if the 'carden' of Kincardine was a royal hunting forest, the same might be true of the 'carden' of Pluscarden/Carden/Carden Hill, and perhaps they were associated with a royal, or at least aristocratic, estate at Elgin, which might also have been part of the eighth-century iter, especially since the Elgin cross-slab has a prominent hunting scene - but that is a lot of speculation at once!)
Many thanks for sharing your research, which is fascinating reading. I became aware of the royal practice of itineration through study of Northumbrian kings of the 7th century, for which there are diverse and surprisingly plentiful sources. Recently I re-read Max Adams's "The King in the North, the life and times of Oswald of Northumbria" (2013), which despite the Game of Thrones reference in the title is actually a very fascinating and close study of royal practices and of how land was exploited in that period. I'd recommend it to anyone struggling to understand how these systems work. Of course, Northumbria isn't Pictland, but it would be a surprise to me at least if there wasn't a similar system employed in the real north!
Thanks very much Colin, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I have Max Adams's book but haven't read it yet - another one I must get around to! I'm always slightly wary of using England as a model for north-east Scotland, but some of the stuff that's been written about e.g. multiple estates in England does seem like it might have applied in Pictland too. Without written sources it's very hard to be sure - the only clues tend to be place-names and (as here) carved monuments, and both of those things have moved around in the landscape over the centuries.
Yes, the lack of written sources is truly the great difficulty of studying these parts in the Early Medieval period. The other factor is that the agriculture of the period leaves omly very slight traces in the ground, and those capable of other interpretations. You are making great progress though, and giving us much to think about.
Interesting, thanks. I agree that there are fascinating biblical connections in Scotland but what makes you think these relics/shrines/stones are David? They look like dogs. With the Kinneddar one , the harp was common in Pictish culture and central to it. Cruitneach (irish for Pict) means 'harper' (cruit = harp). NOt sure why this would indicate David particularly? Have you considered dogs/wolves like Fenrir (chaos) etc whose mouth had to be kept open for the river to come through, or other dogs of myth?
Hi Cally, thanks for your comment. I'm not an art historian in any sense, so I go by the interpretation favoured by art historians (here Isabel Henderson, Donald Bullough and Jane Geddes - their works are cited in the bibliography).
As ever, this is so interesting, and I particularly liked the fact that I now have TWO general facts in my head that were not there before I read this, although they both make perfect sense: the idea that "the biblical David was seen in early medieval Europe as a model for kings to emulate", and the idea of itineration (which I did know about) being necessary because of food (which had not occurred to me). I love it!
Thanks Jocelyn - this post has caused me no end of anxiety as so much of the subject matter is outside my comfort zone, so it's lovely to hear you enjoyed it!
Many thanks Francis - I'm always happy to share my research, even if it's sometimes not very polished! This is my way of thinking through a research question, and if other people enjoy it then so much the better.
Another intriguing and well argued idea Fiona.
Couple of thoughts:
Remember Kincardine, or at least the carden element, is also a Pictish word, meaning woodland. So maybe a king would visit to go hunting at the “head of the woods. If its primary purpose was for the hunt there would not necessarily need to be an estate to provide sustenance for a longer stay
Also, if you are taking the David iconography as the marker for such stopping off points on a royal itinerary, where does Forres fit in if Jane’s identification of the inauguration scene as based on David is correct?
On an unrelated topic, are you enjoying Only Child and its Forres setting? The final episode particularly with a good Forres worthy speaking what can only be modern Pictish! 🤓
Another thought strikes me - if the meaning of 'carden' seems to span both 'forest' and 'enclosure,' as Alan James has suggested for its usage in Middle Welsh, perhaps a 'carden' in Pictish was a fenced-off forest - i.e. a forest reserved for the royal hunt. Now to see if that fits with any other instances of it :)
Thanks Alastair - incredibly astute as usual (we should co-author a paper sometime!) I hadn't really given the place-name of Kincardine very much thought, because at the back of my mind was the fact that the meaning of 'carden' is now disputed, with no very satisfactory resolution. (See p. 1-6 of Thomas Clancy's paper here: https://clog.glasgow.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/JSNS/article/view/143/171). But your interpretation would make a lot of sense. A bit I meant to include in the blog, but didn't because it was already too long, was that according to Thomas Charles-Edwards, the royal circuit tended only to take in the core of the kingdom, not the periphery. In my MA I saw Portmahomack, Burghead and Kinneddar as the central places of Moreb, so the core of the kingdom, which leaves Kincardine outside.
I deliberately missed out Sueno's Stone because the carbon dating points to it belonging to a later time period from the other four monuments, which are likely all to be contemporary. But my general view is that Forres succeeded Burghead as the caput of Moreb, at least for a little while (I see Macbeth's dynasty as hailing from Elgin), so it would make sense to find David imagery there too - perhaps even as a conscious harking back to Moreb's glorious eighth-century past, when its art was magnificent and its kings went on splendid royal hunts.
I only saw part of the first episode of Only Child - must get back to it!
I was being a bit tongue in cheek with my comment on the Forres cross slab however maybe there could also be a 9th/10th C circuit once Burghead/Kineddar were lost/abandoned?
Yes, absolutely - although the late-ninth and tenth centuries feel like troubled times in Moray, fending off the Norse earls on one hand and the kings of Alba on the other, with an undercurrent of internal strife that saw Ruaidrí and his dynasty gain control from whoever might have been based in Forres (but this is very speculative). So maybe less time for travelling around being lavishly entertained and going on hunts. (Another thought is that if the 'carden' of Kincardine was a royal hunting forest, the same might be true of the 'carden' of Pluscarden/Carden/Carden Hill, and perhaps they were associated with a royal, or at least aristocratic, estate at Elgin, which might also have been part of the eighth-century iter, especially since the Elgin cross-slab has a prominent hunting scene - but that is a lot of speculation at once!)
Many thanks for sharing your research, which is fascinating reading. I became aware of the royal practice of itineration through study of Northumbrian kings of the 7th century, for which there are diverse and surprisingly plentiful sources. Recently I re-read Max Adams's "The King in the North, the life and times of Oswald of Northumbria" (2013), which despite the Game of Thrones reference in the title is actually a very fascinating and close study of royal practices and of how land was exploited in that period. I'd recommend it to anyone struggling to understand how these systems work. Of course, Northumbria isn't Pictland, but it would be a surprise to me at least if there wasn't a similar system employed in the real north!
Thanks very much Colin, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I have Max Adams's book but haven't read it yet - another one I must get around to! I'm always slightly wary of using England as a model for north-east Scotland, but some of the stuff that's been written about e.g. multiple estates in England does seem like it might have applied in Pictland too. Without written sources it's very hard to be sure - the only clues tend to be place-names and (as here) carved monuments, and both of those things have moved around in the landscape over the centuries.
Yes, the lack of written sources is truly the great difficulty of studying these parts in the Early Medieval period. The other factor is that the agriculture of the period leaves omly very slight traces in the ground, and those capable of other interpretations. You are making great progress though, and giving us much to think about.
Interesting, thanks. I agree that there are fascinating biblical connections in Scotland but what makes you think these relics/shrines/stones are David? They look like dogs. With the Kinneddar one , the harp was common in Pictish culture and central to it. Cruitneach (irish for Pict) means 'harper' (cruit = harp). NOt sure why this would indicate David particularly? Have you considered dogs/wolves like Fenrir (chaos) etc whose mouth had to be kept open for the river to come through, or other dogs of myth?
Hi Cally, thanks for your comment. I'm not an art historian in any sense, so I go by the interpretation favoured by art historians (here Isabel Henderson, Donald Bullough and Jane Geddes - their works are cited in the bibliography).
me neither, but thanks for opening this subject up - there seems to be a debate on the christian/pictish animals - which came first , I just found this https://www.enotes.com/topics/book-kells/criticism/criticism/isabel-henderson-essay-date-1982
That's a good summary of the 20th-century art-historical debates around the evolution of Pictish art. More recently, archaeology at Dunnicaer has scientifically put the origin of the Pictish symbols back to at least the fourth century AD, pre-dating the arrival of Christianity: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/development-of-the-pictish-symbol-system-inscribing-identity-beyond-the-edges-of-empire/4F09B9C943A1C29F226591A20BEC5248. (I think the only demonstrably early animal symbol is the fish, though.) If you're interested in the parallels between Pictish art and the Book of Kells, Victoria Thompson is giving an online lecture on her latest thinking on that topic on 30th Jan (it's £6): https://www.tickettailor.com/events/tarbatdiscoverycentre/1506358
As ever, this is so interesting, and I particularly liked the fact that I now have TWO general facts in my head that were not there before I read this, although they both make perfect sense: the idea that "the biblical David was seen in early medieval Europe as a model for kings to emulate", and the idea of itineration (which I did know about) being necessary because of food (which had not occurred to me). I love it!
Thanks Jocelyn - this post has caused me no end of anxiety as so much of the subject matter is outside my comfort zone, so it's lovely to hear you enjoyed it!
Fascinating read - thanks for sharing your research.
Many thanks Francis - I'm always happy to share my research, even if it's sometimes not very polished! This is my way of thinking through a research question, and if other people enjoy it then so much the better.
bravo!
Thanks Murray - I feel like this one got away from me a bit :)
Perhaps, but it’s exciting stuff!