Fortriu

The people of Fortriu left no surviving indigenous writings[2] and the name they used to describe themselves is unrecorded.[3] They were first documented in the late 4th century by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who referred to them in Latin as the Verturiones (or Vecturiones).[4] The Latin root verturio has been connected etymologically by John Rhys with the later Welsh word gwerthyr, meaning "fortress",[5] suggesting that both came from a Common Brittonic root vertera, and implying that the group's name meant "Fortress People".[6] Mallory & Adams saw the name as representing tu(:)rjones, derived from Indo European tur meaning "mighty", with the intensive prefix *wer.[7] A reconstructed form in the Pictish language would be something like *Uerteru.[8]

A connected Old Irish form of the name appears from the 6th to the 10th centuries in the Annals of Ulster and later sources, which contain repeated references to rex Fortrenn, ("the King of Fortriu"), la firu Fortrenn ("the men of Fortriu") and Maigh Fortrenn ("the plain of Fortriu"), alongside references to battles occurring i Fortrinn ("in Fortriu").[9] These are examples of a common pattern of Goidelic languages rendering with an f what in Brittonic languages is U/V, W or Gw.[10] The word Fortriu is a modern reconstruction of a nominative form for this word that has survived only in these genitive and dative cases.[11] Anglo-Saxon sources, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 6th century to Bede in the 8th century, refer to the group using the Old English form of the name Wærteras.[12]

Modern scholars writing in English usually refer to the Kingdom using the name Fortriu and the adjective Verturian, and use the name the Wærteras to refer to the people as an ethnic group.[1]

Fortriu is first recorded by the Roman author Ammianus Marcellinus, who writing in ca. 392 used the Latin name Verturiones to describe one of the two gentes or "peoples" of the Picts who took part in the Barbarian Conspiracy of 367-368.[13] Although alongside the Dicalydones they are clearly described as Pictish, at this time this may just have been a pejorative Roman word for unromanised Britons.[1] The Verturiones were probably based like their successors around the Moray Firth.[14] It is not clear what relationship they had to the earlier peoples documented in the same area, such as the Vacomagi and Decantae surveyed under Agricola in the 1st century and listed in Ptolemy's Geography, but archeological discoveries at Birnie near Elgin indicate that Rome had remained in diplomatic contact with the area throughout the 2nd century.[1]

The Verturiones may have emerged as part of a pattern seen in other Roman frontier zones such as Germany, where areas beyond the border saw population groups amalgamating into fewer but larger political units.[15]

As well as the two Pictish groupings, the conspiracy of 367-368 included Scotti from Ireland; Attacotti whose origins are uncertain but likely to have been somewhere within the British Isles; and Franks and Saxons from across the North Sea; suggesting high levels of intercommunication between the Verturiones and the peoples of Ireland and continental Europe.[16] The conspiracy may have been caused by a decline in the level if subsidies given to barbarian tribes by the emperor Valentinian.[17] The fact that Fullofaudes, the leader of the northern Roman troops, was captured rather than killed suggests that the Pictish invaders may have been motivated mainly by extracting treasure.[18]

After the 4th century Fortriu is not explicitly mentioned in documentary sources until 664, but there are indications that Fortriu's later power may have been foreshadowed in the late 6th century.[19] Adomnan's Life of Columba describes the stronghold of the Pictish king Bridei son of Maelchon, who ruled from 554 to 584, as being by the River Ness, in or near to the heartland of Fortriu.[19] Bridei is depicted by Adomnan as overlord of a regulus or "underking" of Orkney, and was separately described by the Northumbrian historian Bede as rex potentissimus or "very powerful king".[19]

By the end of the 7th century Fortriu had established a dominant position over most or all of the Picts, one of the most significant developments in the history of Early Medieval Scotland.[20] The status of Fortriu as a powerful over-kingdom can be seen from the reign of Bridei son of Beli,[21] who was the first king to be explicitly described as "King of Fortriu" in contemporary chronicles,[22] and whose victory over Ecgfrith of Northumbria at the Battle of Dun Nechtain in 685 extended Fortriu's power southward, replacing Northumbrian rule north of the Forth.[21] Bridei had possibly been a sub-king of the Northumbrians at the start of his reign in 671, but began to extend his power with a siege of Dunottar in 680 and an attack on the Orkneys in 681.[23] As the influence of the kings of Fortriu grew they promoted the idea of the Picts as a single people with a single king,[24] playing a key role in uniting the Picts and establishing a self-conscious Pictish identity.[1]

A series of campaigns under Onuist son of Uurguist between 731 and 741 saw this power extended further with the invasion and conquest of the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata, located in the area of modern-day Argyll.[21]

A period of instability in Fortriu following the death of Elphin son of Wrad in 780 saw four rulers in quick succession – three from the family of Onuist son of Uurguist – and allowed Dál Riata to reassert its independence.[25] The succession of Constantín son of Uurguist to the kingship of Fortriu in 789 was challenged by the Dál Riatan king Conall mac Taidg, but Constantín proved to be strong leader and reigned through to his death in 820.[25]

The dominance of Fortriu by the House of Uurguist, which had lasted for over fifty years and for much of that period had also extended to Gaelic Dál Riata and the Britons of Strathclyde, came to a sudden and dramatic end with a decisive defeat by Vikings in 839.[26] The Annals of Ulster record the deaths in the battle of the king of Fortriu Wen son of Onuist and his brother Bran son of Onuist, together with the king of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta – suggesting Dál Riata was still under Pictish control – and "others almost innumerable".[27] The fact that so many were slain, including the kings of both Fortriu and Dál Riata, suggests that Wen had had time to gather his forces, and that this was the culmination of a campaign rather than a fortuitous raid.[27] This was one of the most important and decisive battles in British history and although its location is uncertain it probably took place in the heartland of Fortriu on the shores of the Moray Firth.[27]

Traditionally the kingdom has been seen as centred on central Scotland, equivalent to the Kingdom of the Southern Picts, with a heartland perhaps in Strathearn. Over the last century or so this has become a scholarly consensus.[28] However, new research by Alex Woolf seems to have destroyed this consensus, if not the idea itself. As Woolf has pointed out, the only basis for it had been that a battle had taken place in Strathearn in which the Men of Fortriu had taken part. This is an unconvincing reason on its own, because there are two Strathearns – one in the south, and one in the north – and, moreover, every battle has to be fought outside the territory of one of the combatants. By contrast, a northern recension of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes it clear that Fortriu was north of the Mounth (i.e., the eastern Grampians), in the area visited by Columba.[29] The long poem known as The Prophecy of Berchán, written perhaps in the 12th century, but purporting to be a prophecy made in the Early Middle Ages, says that Dub, King of Scotland was killed in the Plain of Fortriu.[30] Another source, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, indicates that King Dub was killed at Forres, a location in Moray.[31] Additions to the Chronicle of Melrose confirm that Dub was killed by the men of Moray at Forres.[32]

Sueno's Stone, located in Forres. This large post-Pictish monument marks some kind of military triumph.

The Prophecy of Berchán states that "Mac Bethad, the glorious king of Fortriu, will take [Scotland]."[33] As Macbeth, King of Scotland may have been Mormaer of Moray before he became King of Scots, it is possible that Fortriu was understood to be interchangeable with Moray in the High Middle Ages. Fortriu is also mentioned as one of the seven ancient Pictish kingdoms in the 13th-century source known as De Situ Albanie.

There can be little or no doubt then that Fortriu centred on northern Scotland. Other Pictish scholars, such as James E. Fraser are now taking it for granted that Fortriu was in the north of Scotland, centred on Moray and Easter Ross, where most early Pictish monuments are located.[1] Hence, it is in these areas that the united kingdom of the Picts originated, perhaps acquiring southern Pictland after the expulsion of the Northumbrians by King Bridei III of the Picts at the Battle of Dun Nechtain in 685 CE.

Relocating Fortriu north of the Mounth increases the importance of the Vikings. The Viking impact on the north was greater than in the south, and in the north, the Vikings actually conquered and made permanent territorial gains. The creation of Alba or the Kingdom of Scotland from Pictland, traditionally associated with a conquest by Kenneth MacAlpin (Old Irish: Cináed mac Ailpín) in 843, can perhaps be better understood in this context.

• Province of Moray

• Anderson, Alan Orr, Early Sources of Scottish History: AD 500-1286, 2 Vols, (Edinburgh, 1922)
• Evans, Nicholas (2019). "A historical introduction to the northern Picts". In Noble, Gordon; Evans, Nicholas (eds.). The King in the North: The Pictish realms of Fortriu and Ce. Collected essays written as part of the University of Aberdeen's Northern Picts project. Edinburgh: Birlinn. pp. 10–38. ISBN 9781780275512.
• Foster, Sally M. (2014). Picts, Scots and Gaels — Early Historic Scotland. Edinburgh: Birlinn. ISBN 9781780271910.
• Fraser, James (2009). From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748612321.
• Hudson, Benjamin T., Kings of Celtic Scotland, (Westport, 1994)
• Noble, Gordon; Evans, Nicholas (2022). The Picts: Scourge of Rome, Rulers of the North. Edinburgh: Birlinn. ISBN 9781780277783.
• Watson, William J. (2004) [1926]. Taylor, Simon (ed.). The Celtic Placenames of Scotland. Edinburgh: Birlinn. ISBN 9781841583235.
• Woolf, Alex (2001). "The Verturian Hegemony: A Mirror in the North". In Brown, Michelle P.; Farr, Carol Ann (eds.). Mercia: an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe. Leicester: Leicester University Press. pp. 106–112. ISBN 9780826477651.
• Woolf, Alex (October 2006). "Dén Nechtain, Fortriu and the Geography of the Picts". Scottish Historical Review. 85 (2): 182–201. doi:10.3366/shr.2007.0029. ISSN 0036-9241.
• Woolf, Alex (2007). From Pictland to Alba 789–1070. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748612345.