New Dark Age Britain Book
ste...@baldar.clark.net
I've just acquired an excellent new reference:
"A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain; England,
Scotland and Wales c. 500- c. 1050 " by Ann Williams, Alfred P.
Smyth and D. P. Kirby. 1991, published by Seaby Ltd., London.
Included are charts for Kings of Northumbria, West Saxons, Deira
and Bernicia, Danes, Dal Riata, the Scots, Earls of Orkney,
and the Welsh kingdoms. There are biographical paragraphs about
a great many dark age folk, which often contain information
on their ancestry which does not appear in the charts. I'll
be glad to do look-ups for anyone; I would never have been able
to sort out all those "Aelfgifus" without this book!
One of the most surprising features of this book is a large
chart for the Kings of the Strathclyde Britons, going back to
Ceretic/Coroticus. The last name on the chart is Eochaid
(deposed 889), son of Rhun and a daughter of Kenneth mac Alpin.
Does anyone know of any descents from the Strathclyde Britons, or
is this a totally extinct lineage?
Nancy Lauer
suppose to trace their ancestry back to Kenneth MacAlpin. Do know how
correct it is and haven't tried to verify any of the info.
Let me know if you are interested.
Nancy
Jared Olar
> One of the most surprising features of this book is a large
> chart for the Kings of the Strathclyde Britons, going back to
> Ceretic/Coroticus. The last name on the chart is Eochaid
> (deposed 889), son of Rhun and a daughter of Kenneth mac Alpin.
> Does anyone know of any descents from the Strathclyde Britons, or
> is this a totally extinct lineage?
>
Anthony Richard Wagner in PEDIGREE AND PROGRESS mentioned a descent from
the Strathclydian kings to the Irish O'Melaghlin line, but cites no
source for that remark. I posted a question about this a little while
ago, but I guess nobody here could help me, since I got no replies
concerning it.
Jared Olar
ol...@eagle.uis.edu
Jared Olar
Sounds interesting to me. I might be able to help you verify or disprove
the pedigree, as I've done a little research of my own in early Scottish
history and genealogy.
Jared Olar
ol...@eagle.uis.edu
Nancy Lauer
I appreciate the offer -- the line goes like this:
IdaI , King of Bernicia m. Bearnach
Ethelric, King of Bernicia
Ethelfrith, King of Bernicia m. Acha of Diera
Eanfrith, King of Bernicia m. a princess of the Picts
Domnall m. sister of Talotcan, King of the Picts
Garnard, King of the Picts
Spondana m. Eochaid II, King of the Scots
Eochald, III
Aodh
Eochaid, IV, King of the Scots m. Urgusia or Fergusa
Alpine, King of Kintrye, Crowned King of the Scots 844
Kenneth I, MacAlpine
Constantine I
Donald IV
Malcolm I
Kenneth II
Malcolm II
Bethoc <Beatrice> m. Crinan, the Thane
Duncan I, King of Scotland m. Sibyl of Northumberland
Malculm III, King of Scotland m. Margaret of England
David I, King of Scotland m. Maud, of Northumberland
Henry, Prince of Scotland m. Ada/Adelaide de Warren
Margaret of Scotland m. Alan, Load of Galloway
Devorgilla of Galloway m. John de Balliol in 1233
Alianora m. Sir john Comyn, Load of Badenock, c. 1279/83
John Comyn m. Joan de Valence
William Comyn ---
My husband's MacCubbin line is supposed to descend from William Comyn.
Any help you can provide to prove or disprove the above is most welcome and
appreciated.
Thanks,
Nancy
Jared Olar
> Jared,
>
> I appreciate the offer -- the line goes like this:
>
> Ida I , King of Bernicia m. Bearnach
The Venerable Bede said that King Ida began to reign in 547 A.D. As for
the name of Ida's wife and descendants, Searle's ANGLO-SAXON KINGS, BISHOPS,
AND NOBLES confirms the Bernician pedigree you show here.
> Ethelric, King of Bernicia
> Ethelfrith, King of Bernicia m. Acha of Diera
> Eanfrith, King of Bernicia m. a princess of the Picts
> Domnall m. sister of Talorcan, King of the Picts
> Garnard, King of the Picts
The Pictish pedigree you have here is quite correct. Eanfrith fled to
the Picts, where he married an Pictish heiress and sired at least two
children, King Talorg or Talorcan, and a daughter who married a
certain man named Domhnall, thereby becoming the mother of King
Garnard or Gartnaich mac Domhnall. Hector Munro Chadwick has a lot of great
stuff in EARLY SCOTLAND. He and/or others suggest that Domhnall is none
other than the Scottish king *Domhnall Breac*, which is chronologically
plausible but, I fear, unverifiable.
> Spondana m. Eochaid II, King of the Scots
In Hector Boece's CHRONICLE OF SCOTLAND (written in the 1500's A.D. and
full of a humongous gob of legend and fiction) says that a Scottish king
named "Eugenius" married a Pictish princess named "Spondana, daughter of
Garnardus, King of the Picts." I do not know if any earlier sources
provide the name Spondana or the name of Eochaidh/Eugenius'
father-in-law. I've seen a more recent hypothesis which proposes a
different ancestry for Eochaidh's wife. Whoever her father really
was--and Gartnaich mac Domhnall seems chronologically acceptable--we know
she was Pictish, because she and Eochaidh had a son named ALPIN, a
Pictish name--and this Alpin ruled over both his father's people (Scots)
and his mother's people (Picts).
> Eochaid III
> Aodh
Also called Aedh, "Aedh Fionn"--the White.
> Eochaid IV, King of the Scots m. Urgusia or Fergusa
This is the traditional name of Eochaidh's Pictish wife. Again, because
Alpin is a Picitish name, and Kenneth MacAlpin successfully asserted a
right to the Pictish throne, we know that his mother must have been
Pictish. Hector Boece says she was named "Fergusiana, sister of Hungus,
King of the Picts." This means she was daughter of a man named Uirguist or
Fergus, since King Hungus or Aenghus was the son of a Uirguist or
Fergus. (It has been suggested that Fergus the same as Aedh Fionn's
brother of the same name, but again, that is not verifiable.)
> Alpine, King of Kintyre, Crowned King of the Scots 844
> Kenneth I MacAlpine
> Constantine I
> Donald IV
> Malcolm I
> Kenneth II
> Malcolm II
> Bethoc <Beatrice> m. Crinan, the Thane
> Duncan I, King of Scotland m. Sibyl of Northumberland
> Malculm III, King of Scotland m. Margaret of England
> David I, King of Scotland m. Maud, of Northumberland
> Henry, Prince of Scotland m. Ada/Adelaide de Warren
> Margaret of Scotland m. Alan, Load of Galloway
> Devorgilla of Galloway m. John de Balliol in 1233
> Alianora m. Sir john Comyn, Load of Badenock, c. 1279/83
> John Comyn m. Joan de Valence
> William Comyn ---
>
> My husband's MacCubbin line is supposed to descend from William Comyn.
>
> Any help you can provide to prove or disprove the above is most welcome and
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Nancy
>
The remainder of the pedigree looks pretty accurate (though I don't have
my records in front of me--I'm relying on memory).
Other books you might find interesting:
Anderson's EARLY SOURCES OF SCOTTISH HISTORY.
William F. Skene's CELTIC SCOTLAND, and CHRONICLES OF THE PICTS,
CHRONICLES OF THE SCOTS, AND OTHER EARLY MEMORIALS OF SCOTTISH HISTORY.
There are also many more recent monographs and histories, but memory (and
time) fails me.
Jared Olar
ol...@eagle.uis.edu
Don Widener
At 06:24 PM 4/15/96 EST, you wrote:
>On my husband's side, I have the MacCubbin family and a chart that is
>suppose to trace their ancestry back to Kenneth MacAlpin. Do know how
>correct it is and haven't tried to verify any of the info.
If you can get back to Kenneth MacAlpin, it's no problem to get back another
12 generations, to Fergus MacErc. I'd be interested to see where your line
goes _after_ Kenneth.
Regards,
Don
Opinions welcome. Dissenting ones are the most interesting
* Don Widener <dwid...@airmail.net>
* or <dwid...@server-f.iadfw.net>
* Researching:
* W I D E N E R : M A R T I N : O S B O R N : W E A V E R
* S M I T H : B A K E R : W A T S O N : S O U T H G A T E
* ...and many others
* Genealogy Web Page: http://web2.airmail.net/dwidener/
Web Page Web Page: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/2125/webpage.htm
"It is better to debate a question without settling it than
to settle a question without debating it."
-Joseph Joubert
Nathaniel Lane Taylor
> On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, Nancy Lauer wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > David I, King of Scotland m. Maud, of Northumberland
> > Henry, Prince of Scotland m. Ada/Adelaide de Warren
> > Margaret of Scotland m. Alan, Load of Galloway
> > Devorgilla of Galloway m. John de Balliol in 1233
> > Alianora m. Sir john Comyn, Load of Badenock, c. 1279/83
> > John Comyn m. Joan de Valence
> > William Comyn ---
> >
> > My husband's MacCubbin line is supposed to descend from William Comyn.
>
> The remainder of the pedigree looks pretty accurate...
I'm not sure of the last link here, William Comyn as a son of John Comyn.
John III "the Red" Comyn, lord of Badenoch (murdered by Robert the Bruce
in 1306), and Joan of Valence (a descendant of Isabella of
Angouleme and Louis the Fat of France) and had three children commonly
given in the pedigrees: John IV Comyn (d. 1334); Joan Comyn (d. 1326), m.
David de Strathbolgie, earl of Atholl; and Elizabeth Comyn (d. 1372), m.
Sir Richard Talbot. For pedigrees of the various Comyn branches at this
time see Bruce McAndrew, "A Century of Comyn Arms" _Double Tressure_
(?1986), 35-48. [the year may not be right, but it's somewhere in there].
I've been looking for further information on the family of John the Red
Comyn and Joan of Valence because there is another daughter attributed to
them in some sources. I haven't seen attributions of other sons. If
anyone can give any further information about sources for this particular
link in the Comyn chain, I'd be grateful.
Nat Taylor
Stewart Baldwin
>On Mon, 15 Apr 1996, Nancy Lauer wrote:
>> Jared,
>>
>> I appreciate the offer -- the line goes like this:
<considerable snipping>
>> Eanfrith, King of Bernicia m. a princess of the Picts
>> Domnall m. sister of Talorcan, King of the Picts
>> Garnard, King of the Picts
>The Pictish pedigree you have here is quite correct. Eanfrith fled to
>the Picts, where he married an Pictish heiress and sired at least two
>children, King Talorg or Talorcan, and a daughter who married a
>certain man named Domhnall, thereby becoming the mother of King
There is no proof of a daughter who married Domnall. See the more
detailed comments below.
>Garnard or Gartnaich mac Domhnall. Hector Munro Chadwick has a lot of great
>stuff in EARLY SCOTLAND. He and/or others suggest that Domhnall is none
>other than the Scottish king *Domhnall Breac*, which is chronologically
>plausible but, I fear, unverifiable.
>> Spondana m. Eochaid II, King of the Scots
Ditto for this marriage. See below.
>In Hector Boece's CHRONICLE OF SCOTLAND (written in the 1500's A.D. and
>full of a humongous gob of legend and fiction) says that a Scottish king
>named "Eugenius" married a Pictish princess named "Spondana, daughter of
>Garnardus, King of the Picts." I do not know if any earlier sources
>provide the name Spondana or the name of Eochaidh/Eugenius'
>father-in-law. I've seen a more recent hypothesis which proposes a
>different ancestry for Eochaidh's wife. Whoever her father really
>was--and Gartnaich mac Domhnall seems chronologically acceptable--we know
>she was Pictish, because she and Eochaidh had a son named ALPIN, a
>Pictish name--and this Alpin ruled over both his father's people (Scots)
>and his mother's people (Picts).
>> Eochaid III
>> Aodh
>Also called Aedh, "Aedh Fionn"--the White.
>> Eochaid IV, King of the Scots m. Urgusia or Fergusa
Ditto for this marriage. See below.
>This is the traditional name of Eochaidh's Pictish wife. Again, because
>Alpin is a Picitish name, and Kenneth MacAlpin successfully asserted a
>right to the Pictish throne, we know that his mother must have been
>Pictish. Hector Boece says she was named "Fergusiana, sister of Hungus,
>King of the Picts." This means she was daughter of a man named Uirguist or
>Fergus, since King Hungus or Aenghus was the son of a Uirguist or
>Fergus. (It has been suggested that Fergus the same as Aedh Fionn's
>brother of the same name, but again, that is not verifiable.)
Since Angus and his brother Constantine, sons of Fergus, kings of the
Picts, were also kings of the Scots (i.e., Dal Riata), it is
reasonable to suppose that their father was Fergus, king of Dal Riata,
and this seems to be commonly accepted by recent authors on the
subject (e.g., Anderson, Miller, Hudson, etc.).
>> Alpine, King of Kintyre, Crowned King of the Scots 844
>> Kenneth I MacAlpine
None of the Pictish princesses named above rests on any good
authority, and the contemporary and near contemporary records do not
have a single example of a Pictish princess being named, or any
relationship involving Pictish women being explicitly stated (unless
you want to count Eochaid, son of Run and maternal grandson of Kenneth
Mac Alpin as a king of the Picts succeeding according to Pictish
matrilineal custom). In general, the father's names are known for
Pictish kings, and there are even a few cases where the father can be
identified with a reasonable degree of certainty. (Plus several
Pictish kings whose father had the same name as someone else known in
the records, but without proof one way or the other whether it was the
same man - for example, the sixth century Pictish king Brude, who may
or may not have been a son of Maelgwn, king of Gwynedd.)
Although no Pictish relationships through females are explicitly
stated in the early records, there is one case where such a
relationship can be deduced with a high degree of probability, and
that is given by the following table.
Aethelfrith, d. 616
king of Northumbria
_________________|________________________
| | |
(Pictish md. Eanfrith d. 633 Oswald d. 641 Oswy d. 670
princess)| k. Bernicia k. Northumbria k. Northumbria
|................... |
| | |
Talorcan daughter md. Beli of Ecgfrith d. 685
k. Picts | Strathclyde k. Northumbria
653-657 | killed by his
Brude cousin Brude at
k. Picts Nechtansmere
671-693
The key piece of information here is that the "Historia Brittonum"
(which is not contemporary, but is only about 150 years after the
fact) refers to Brude and Ecgfrith as cousins ("fratruelis"). This
piece if data, combined with Talorcan's status as king of the Picts,
along with what is known about matrilineal succession (which was
probably practiced by the Picts), makes the above table probable,
though not certain (the dotted line being the weakest part).
It would be really nice if enough evidence survived to reconstruct a
genealogy for the Pictish kings (especially given their unusual
succession laws, which are not fully understood), but no known
evidence exists to do this. However, that hasn't stopped people from
conjecturing such genealogies. Here are a few attempts by well known
scholars in the area.
Anderson, M. O., "Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland" (Edinburgh,
1973).
Jackson, A, "The Symbol Stones of Scotland" (Orkney, 1987) [I have
not seen this book, but I understand that it contains conjectural
Pictish genealogies.]
Kirby, D. P., "... peruniversas Pictorum provincias", in Gerald
Bonner, ed., "Famulus Christi: Essays in Commeration of the
Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede (London,
1976), pp. 287-324.
Miller, M., "Eanfrith's Pictish son", in "Northern History", vol. 14
(1978), pp. 47-66.
Miller, M., "The Last Century of Pictish Succession", in "Scottish
Studies", vol. 23 (1979), pp. 39-67.
Miller, M., "Matriliny by Treaty: The Pictish foundation legend", in
Whitelock et al, ed., "Ireland in Early Medieval Europe: Studies in
memory of Kathleen Hughes" (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 133-161.
It should be kept in mind that the above attempts are CONJECTURES
(apologies for shouting, but I wanted to make sure it was clear), as
the above authors freely admit, and should not be regarded as proven,
or even probable.
Stewart Baldwin
940...@iona.sms.ed.ac.uk
>940...@IONA.SMS.ED.AC.UK wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 16 Apr 1996 Jared Olar wrote:
>>
>>>Beg to differ Mike, but the Latinisation "Eugenius," while normally
>>>implying "Eoghan," was used in the medieval Latin chronicles, and by
>>>Fordun, to represent kings whose names in Gaelic sources are forms of
>>>"Eochaidh."
>>
>>Give me an example, and I will happily eat my words. (My brain has been
>>addled by Old English, Old Irish, and Middle Welsh sources of late - I
>>have not read Latin, or Fordun for that matter for quite some time!)
>
>Try checking out the article "Eugenius" in the "Dictionary of National
>Biography", which supports Jared's position on this issue.
Checked. Words are great with mustard! I suppose that with the lack of a
convenient Latin form of Eochaid lots of crazy things happened with the
orthography when things were transmitted, and over time, it transmorgified
into Eugenius. Eugenius is, however, a good latin rendition of Eoganan,
Eogan, Owen, Ywen. DNB seems to suggest that Eoganan and Eochaid are the
same name, which is, however, quite wrong.
Cheers,
Mike Davidson
Dept. of History
University of Edinburgh
940...@iona.sms.ed.ac.uk
>Either way, I am curious about Boece's authority for the name
>"Spondana." Was it merely one of his many inventions, or was it rather
>one of his many otherwise unknown but perhaps authentic (though garbled)
>traditions? Are there any earlier notices of ANY Scottish or Pictish
>woman having such a name?
I will check the indices to the _Corpus Genealogiarum Hibernie_, and the
_Ban-Senchus_ the next time I get the chance. We might find an IRISH women
with that name.