Alasdair Ross - The Kings of Alba c.1000 - c.1130

THE KINGS OF ALBA, c.1000c.1130

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
John Donald, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

Reprinted 2017

ISBN: 978 1 788853 67 5

Copyright Alasdair Ross 2011

The right of Alasdair Ross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

The publishers gratefully acknowledge the support of The Strathmartine Trust towards the publication of this book

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

Typeset by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd
Printed and bound in Britain by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow

Entries in the Irish Gaelic Annals for the period between 1000 and 1130 indicate the wide range of hardships suffered by communities bordering the Atlantic Ocean.

The first references to people holding the rank of mormaer occur in the Irish Gaelic Annals during the tenth century.

The eleventh-century collection now commonly referred to as Leges inter Brettos et Scotos (Laws among Britons and Scots) affords a unique opportunity to view how social status was considered in Alba because it calculates individual honour prices in cows.

This book is the product of many fruitful discussions amongst my peers and it will be immediately obvious that I owe a great many debts to a great many people. Thanks are also due to my colleagues at Stirling who read the book in draft format and I owe a number of suggestions to their insights, even though they continue to profess dismay about my peculiar obsession (their words) with units of land assessment. Any mistakes that remain are mine alone.

Thanks are also due to the Strathmartine Trust whose financial support paid for the illustrations in this book.

Finally, thanks are also due to my extended family: Moira and Alastair, Fiona and Roisin, and Doris and Heinrich. The latter two always offer a pleasant escape and Altbier in Dsseldorf and they never complain that I always seem to appear on their doorstep accompanied by a portable computer (and their daughter). Lastly, special thanks and love to Sonja.

I have wherever possible followed the guidelines as supplied for Scottish sources in the List of Abbreviated Titles of the Printed Sources of Scottish History to 1560, supplement to the Scottish Historical Review, October 1963.

In accordance with current historical practice the names of the kings of Scotia before the reign of King David I (11241153) have been Gaelicised.