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Cináed
King of the Picts
Reign	840s–858
Died	13 February 858
Place of death	Cinnbelachoir
Buried	Iona
Predecessor	see text
Successor	Domnall mac Ailpín
Issue	Constantín Áed Máel Muire perhaps others
Royal House	House of Alpin
Father	Alpín

Kenneth (died 13 February 858) was, according to some versions of national myth, the first king of Scots. The contemporary record, although limited for northern Britain in the ninth century, shows that he was in fact one of the last kings of the Picts. In modern scholarship, he is generally referred to as Cináed or Cináed mac Ailpín, the Classical Gaelic version of his name, although other Pictish kings with the same name are normally called Ciniod.

The great majority of the kings who ruled in Pictland, in the kingdom of Alba, and then in the kingdom of Scotland until the end of the High Middle Ages belonged to the House of Alpin and traced their descent from Cináed. The earliest genealogies, dating from a century and a half after his death, make Cináed a descendant of the Cenél nGabráin kings of Dál Riata. More nearly contemporary evidence suggests that the family may have had links to Argyll.

According to myth, Cináed destroyed the Pictish kingdom and founded a new kingdom of the Scots in eastern and central Scotland with its heartland in the valleys of the River Tay and its tributaries. The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba gives some details of Cináed's reign, although these cannot be confirmed from the Irish annals or the surviving records of Anglo-Saxon England. Later writers added a great deal of perhaps unreliable detail to the accounts of Cináed's life.

Contents 1 Sources 2 Vikings in northern Britain 3 Kinadius 4 Cináed 5 Kyned 6 Kenneth 7 King of Scots? 8 Background 9 Reign 10 Notes 11 References 12 External links 13 Further reading 14 See also

[edit] Sources

Cut and paste from C II.

Compared to neighbouring Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England, few records of ninth and tenth century events in northern Britain survive. The main local source from the period is the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, a list of kings from Cináed mac Ailpín to Cináed mac Maíl Coluim (died 995). The list survives in the Poppleton Manuscript, a thirteenth century compilation. Originally simply a list of kings with reign lengths, the other details contained in the Poppleton Manuscript version were added in the tenth and twelfth centuries.^[1] In addition to this, later king lists survive.^[2] The earliest genealogical records of the descendants of Cináed mac Ailpín may date from the end of the tenth century, but their value lies more in their context, and the information they provide about the interests of those for whom they were compiled, than in the unreliable claims they contain.^[3]

For narrative history the principal sources are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Irish annals. The evidence from charters created in the Kingdom of England provides occasional insight into events in northern Britain.^[4] While Scandinavian sagas describe events in 10th century Britain, their value as sources of historical narrative, rather than documents of social history, is disputed.^[5] Mainland European sources rarely concern themselves with affairs in Britain, and even less commonly with events in northern Britain, but the life of Saint Cathróe of Metz, a work of hagiography written in Germany at the end of the tenth century, provides plausible details of the Saint's early life in north Britain.^[6]

While the sources for north-eastern Britain, the lands of the kingdom of Northumbria and the former Pictland, are limited and late, those for the areas on the Irish Sea and Atlantic coasts—the modern regions of north-west England and all of northern and western Scotland—are non-existent, and archaeology and toponymy are of primary importance.^[7]

Early - CKA - DA - PoB - FM - Irish annals - genealogies

Late - Fordun - Wyntoun - Boece

[edit] Vikings in northern Britain

Cut and paste from C II

Main article: Origins of the Kingdom of Alba

The dominant kingdom in eastern Scotland before the Viking Age was the northern Pictish kingdom of Fortriu on the shores of the Moray Firth. By the ninth century, the Gaels of Dál Riata were subject to the kings of Fortriu of the family of Constantín mac Fergusa. Constantín's family dominated Fortriu after 789 and perhaps, if Constantín was a kinsman of Óengus mac Fergusa, from around 730. The dominance of Fortriu came to an end in 839 with a defeat by Viking armies reported by the Annals of Ulster in which the king of Fortriu Eogán mac Óengusa and his brother Bran, Constantín's nephews, together with the king of Dál Riata, Áed mac Boanta, "and others almost innumerable" were killed.^[8] These deaths led to a period of instability lasting a decade as several families attempted to establish their dominance in Pictland. By around 848 Cináed mac Ailpín had emerged as the winner.^[9]

Later national myth made Cináed mac Ailpín the creator of the kingdom of Scotland, the founding of which was dated from 843, the year in which he was said to have destroyed the Picts and inaugurated a new era. The historical record for ninth century Scotland is meagre, but the Irish annals and the tenth century Chronicle of the Kings of Alba agree that Cináed was a Pictish king, and call him "king of the Picts" at his death. The same style is used of Cináed's brother Domnall and sons Constantín and Áed.^[10]

The kingdom ruled by Cináed's descendants—older works used the name House of Alpin to describe them but descent from Cináed was the defining factor, Irish sources referring to Clann Cináeda meic Ailpín^[11]—lay to the south of the previously dominant kingdom of Fortriu, centred in the lands around the River Tay. The extent of Cináed's nameless kingdom is uncertain, but it certainly extended from the Firth of Forth in the south to the Mounth in the north. Whether it extended beyond the mountainous spine of north Britain—Druim Alban—is unclear. The core of the kingdom was similar to the old counties of Mearns, Forfar, Perth, Fife, and Kinross. Among the chief ecclesiastical centres named in the records are Dunkeld, probably seat of the bishop of the kingdom, and Cell Rígmonaid (modern St Andrews).^[12]

Cináed's son Constantín died in 876, probably killed fighting against a Viking army which had come north from Northumbria in 874. According to the king lists, he was counted the 70th and last king of the Picts in later times.^[13]

[edit] Kinadius

[edit] Cináed

[edit] Kyned

[edit] Kenneth

[edit] King of Scots?

Main article: Origins of the Kingdom of Alba

The Cináed of myth, conqueror of the Picts and founder of the Kingdom of Alba, was born in the centuries after the real Cináed died. In the reign of Cináed mac Máil Coluim, when the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba was compiled, the annalist wrote:

“

So Kinadius son of Alpinus, first of the Scots, ruled this Pictland prosperously for 16 years. Pictland was named after the Picts, whom, as we have said, Kinadius destroyed. ... Two years before he came to Pictland, he had received the kingdom of Dál Riata.

”

In the 15th century Andrew of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, a history in verse, added little to the account in the Chronicle:

“

Quhen Alpyne this kyng was dede, He left a sowne wes cal'd Kyned, Dowchty man he wes and stout, All the Peychtis he put out. Gret bataylis than dyd he, To pwt in freedom his cuntre!

”

When humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote his history Rerum Scoticarum Historia in the 1570s, a great deal of lurid detail had been added to the story. Buchanan included an account of how Cináed's father had been murdered by the Picts, and a detailed, and entirely unsupported, account of how Cináed avenged him and conquered the Picts. Buchanan was not as credulous as many, and he did not include the tale of MacAlpin's Treason, a story from Giraldus Cambrensis, who reused a tale of Saxon treachery at a feast in Geoffrey of Monmouth's inventive Historia Regum Britanniae.

Later 19th century historians such as William Forbes Skene brought new standards of accuracy to early Scottish history, while Celticists such as Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer cast a critical eye over Welsh and Irish sources. As a result, much of the misleading and vivid detail was removed from the scholarly series of events, even if it remained in the popular accounts. Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Cináed was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother. Other Gaels, such as Caustantín and Óengus, the sons of Fergus, were identified among the Pictish king lists, as were Angles such as Talorcen son of Eanfrith, and Britons such as Bridei son of Beli.^[14]

Modern historians would reject parts of the Cináed produced by Skene and subsequent historians, while accepting others. Medievalist Alex Woolf, interviewed by The Scotsman in 2004, is quoted as saying:

“

The myth of Kenneth conquering the Picts - it’s about 1210, 1220 that that’s first talked about. There’s actually no hint at all that he was a Scot. ... If you look at contemporary sources there are four other Pictish kings after him. So he’s the fifth last of the Pictish kings rather than the first Scottish king."[15]

”

Many other historians could be quoted in terms similar to Woolf.^[16]

[edit] Background

Cináed's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata. Among the genealogies contained in the Middle Irish Rawlinson B.502 manuscript, dating from around 1130, is the supposed descent of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda. Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but some historians accept Cináed's descent from the Cenél nGabrain of Dál Riata. The manuscript provides the following ancestry for Cináed:

... Cináed mac Ailpín son of Eochaid son of Áed Find son of Domangart son of Domnall Brecc son of Eochaid Buide son of Áedán son of Gabrán son of Domangart son of Fergus Mór ...^[17]

Leaving aside the shadowy kings before Áedán son of Gabrán, the genealogy is certainly flawed insofar as Áed Find, who died c. 778, could not reasonably be the son of Domangart, who was killed c. 673. The conventional account would insert two generations between Áed Find and Domangart: Eochaid mac Echdach, father of Áed Find, who died c. 733, and his father Eochaid.

Although later traditions provided details of his reign and death, Cináed's father Alpín is not listed as among the kings in the Duan Albanach, which provides the following sequence of kings leading up to Cináed:

Naoi m-bliadhna Cusaintin chain,	The nine years of Causantín the fair;,
a naoi Aongusa ar Albain,	The nine of Aongus over Alba;
cethre bliadhna Aodha áin,	The four years of Aodh the noble;
is a tri déug Eoghanáin.	And the thirteen of Eoghanán.
Tríocha bliadhain Cionaoith chruaidh,	The thirty years of Cionaoth the hardy,

It is supposed that these kings are the Caustantín son of Fergus and his brother Óengus, who have already been mentioned, Óengus's son Eóganán, as well as the obscure Áed mac Boanta, but this sequence is considered doubtful if the list is intended to represent kings of Dál Riata, as it should if Cináed were king there.^[18]

The idea that Cináed was a Gael is not entirely rejected, but modern historiography distinguishes between Cináed as a Gael by culture, and perhaps in ancestry, and Cináed as a king of Gaelic Dál Riata. Cináed could well have been the first sort of Gael. Kings of the Picts before him, from Bridei son of Der-Ilei, his brother Nechtan as well as Óengus son of Fergus and his presumed descendants were all at least partly Gaelicised.^[19] The idea that the Gaelic names of Pictish kings in Irish annals represented translations of Pictish ones was challenged by the discovery of the inscription Custantin filius Fircus(sa), the latinised name of the Pictish king Caustantín son of Fergus, on the Dupplin Cross.^[20] Other evidence, such as that furnished by place-names, suggests the spread of Gaelic culture through Pictland in the centuries before Cináed. For example, Atholl, a name used in the Annals of Ulster for the year 739, has been thought to be "New Ireland".

[edit] Reign

Compared with the many questions on his origins, Cináed's ascent to power and subsequent reign can be dealt with simply. Cináed's rise can be placed in the context of the recent end of the previous dynasty, which had dominated Fortriu for two or four generations. This followed the death of king Eógan son of Óengus of Fortriu, his brother Bran, Áed mac Boanta "and others almost innumerable" in battle against the Vikings in 839. The resulting succession crisis seems, if the Pictish Chronicle king-lists have any validity, to have resulted in at least four would-be kings warring for supreme power.

Cináed's reign is dated from 843, it was probably not until 848 that he defeated the last of his rivals for power. The Pictish Chronicle claims that he was king in Dál Riata for two years before becoming Pictish king in 843, but this is not generally accepted. In 849, Cináed had relics of Columba, which may have included the Monymusk Reliquary, transferred from Iona to Dunkeld. Other that these bare facts, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba reports that he invaded Saxonia six times, captured Melrose and burnt Dunbar, and also that Vikings laid waste to Pictland, reaching far into the interior.^[21] The Annals of the Four Masters, not generally a good source on Scottish matters, do make mention of Cináed, although what should be made of the report is unclear:

Gofraid mac Fergusa, chief of Airgíalla, went to Alba, to strengthen the Dal Riata, at the request of Cináed mac Ailpín.^[22]

Cináed died from a tumour on 13 February, 858 at the palace of Cinnbelachoir, perhaps near Scone. The annals report the death as that of the "king of the Picts", not the "king of Alba". The title "king of Alba" is not used until the time of Cináed's grandsons, Domnall and Causantín. The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland quote a verse lamenting Cináed's death:

Because Cináed with many troops lives no longer
there is weeping in every house;
there is no king of his worth under heaven
as far as the borders of Rome.^[23]

Cináed left at least two sons, Causantín and Áed, who were later kings, and at least two daughters. One daughter married Run, king of Strathclyde, Eochaid being the result of this marriage. Cináed's daughter Máel Muire married two important Irish kings of the Uí Néill. Her first husband was Áed Finnliath of the Cenél nEógain. Niall Glúndub, ancestor of the O'Neill, was the son of this marriage. Her second husband was Flann Sinna of Clann Cholmáin. As the wife and mother of kings, when Máel Muire died in 913, her death was reported by the Annals of Ulster, an unusual thing for the misogynistic chronicles of the age.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

For primary sources see under External links below.

[edit] External links

• Annals of Ulster, part 1, at CELT (translated)
• Annals of Tigernach, at CELT (no translation presently available)
• Annals of the Four Masters, part 1, at CELT (translated)
• Duan Albanach, at CELT (translated)
• Genealogies from Rawlinson B.502, at CELT (no translation presently available)
• The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba
• The Pictish Chronicle
• Scotland Royalty

[edit] Further reading

For background on Early Historic Scotland, Sally Foster's, Picts, Gaels and Scots (revised edition, 2005) offers a broad and accessible introduction, while Leslie Alcock's Society of Antiquaries of Scotland monograph Kings and Warriors, Craftsmen and Priests in Northern Britain AD 550–750 (2003) offers more detail. No recent history of Early Historic Scotland is available; Alex Woolf's Pictland to Alba: Scotland, 789–1070, in the New Edinburgh History of Scotland series, is to be published in 2007. The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (2001) contains valuable articles by expert contributors, but is very poorly organised.

For a well-researched, fictional interpretation of Kenneth's life, see the book Kenneth by Nigel Tranter.

[edit] See also

• Scotland in the Early Middle Ages
• Scotland in the High Middle Ages
• MacAlpin's Treason