Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland

Anderson critically analyses the evidence available from regnal lists and Irish annals of the 6th to 9th centuries, to shed new light on the kingdoms of DalRiata and the Picts. This reedition includes a new introduction and a bibliography of recent scholarship by Nicholas Evans.

The kingdoms of the Picts and Dal Riata, by the time of their union in the ninth century, formed the nucleus of medieval Scotland. This book by Marjorie O. Anderson remains the most significant study of the regnal lists and irish annals as sources of evidence for these kingships and early Scottish history in general. It analyses these texts in turn, identifying inter-relationships between surviving copies in order to establish the probably contents and dates of earlier ancestral versions. It then compares the results in detail, to produce a chronological history of the kingdoms of Dal Riata and the Picts from the sixth to ninth centuries AD. The book also contains an important collection of early texts, making these original sources available to the public. This is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand the early history of Scotland. This edition includes a new introduction, and a bibliography on Marjorie O. Anderson and recent scholarship by Nicholas Evans, honorary research fellow at the University of Glasgow.