Conceiving a nation. Scotland to ad 900 by Gilbert M�rkus (review)

Abstract

Reviews 103 volume is a great pleasure to read. I have a single desire for improvement: the otherwise legible, elegant font is inconsistent in rendering lower-case italic ‘a’, which in some places appears proportionately together with its partners (see p. 86), yet elsewhere manifests an unusually low, squat counter (as at p. 138). This is perhaps a niggling criticism. However, one’s eye meets with that letter-form repeatedly. References Boll, Sheila. 2002. Foster-kin in conflict. Fosterage as a character motivation in medieval Irish literature. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge. Ní Bhaoill, Róise. 2010. Ulster Gaelic voices. Bailiúchán Wilhelm Doegen 1931. Béal Feirste: Ultach. Ó Corráin, Donnchadh. 1979. Onomata. Ériu 30: 165–180. ———. 2017. Clavis litterarum Hibernensium. Medieval Irish books & texts (c. 400—c. 1600). Turnhout: Brepols. Ó hInnse, Séamus. 1943. Fosterage in early and mediaeval Ireland. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University College Dublin. O’Rahilly, Thomas F. (ed.). 1926. Dánta grádha. An anthology of Irish love poetry (a.d. 1350–1750)2 . Cork: Cork University Press. ———. 1946. Early Irish history and mythology. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Parkes, Peter. 2006. Celtic fosterage. Adoptive kinship and clientage in northwest Europe. Comparative studies in society and history 48: 359–395. Smit, Johannes Wilhelmus. 1971. Studies in the language and style of Columba the Younger (Columbanus). Amsterdam : Hakkert. Tolstoy, Nikolai. 2009. The oldest British prose literature. The compilation of the four branches of the Mabinogi. Lewiston , NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Walker, G. S. M. (ed. & trans.). 1957. Sancti Columbani opera. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Gilbert Márkus, Conceiving a nation. Scotland to ad 900. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017. ISBN 978–0–7486–7898–3. xiv + 295 pages. £70 (hardback) / £19.99 (paperback /e-book). Patrick Wadden Belmont Abbey College The early medieval history of northern Britain, with its legacy of Roman borders, the presence of several different peoples (Picts, Gaels, Britons, Anglo-Saxons, and Scandinavians ), and shortage of surviving textual sources, presents unique questions and obstacles for the modern scholar. In this engaging book, Gilbert Márkus deals with these in a conPatrick Wadden [patrickwadden@​ bac​ .edu] is Associate Professor of History at Belmont Abbey College, North Carolina. His interests focus on the political and cultural links that existed between the different part of the Gaelic world and on the place of the Gaels in the broader Insular and European worlds of the Middle Ages. 104 North American journal of Celtic Studies fident and compelling way. The result is a work that manages to be both informative and sophisticated and that will be of interest to students and more advanced scholars alike. As the first volume of the New History of Scotland, this book replaces Alfred Smyth’s Warlords and holy men of 1984. Recent decades have witnessed innovative changes in our approaches to medieval sources that emphasize the dangers and difficulties of reading texts written in later periods as sources for earlier events. Simultaneously, revolutions in our understanding of such crucial concepts as frontiers and ethnicity have fundamentally altered our view of early societies. Informed by these recent historiographical trends (vii–ix), Márkus provides a thorough overview of the period, while also attempting to reframe certain debates. After a brief preface, the book consists of six chapters. The first, sub-titled ‘Trade, culture and empire in the early centuries’, deals with the earliest recorded history of what is now Scotland through to the end of the Roman period. The author demonstrates an impressive breadth of knowledge in setting events in northern Britain not only in the context of events farther south on the island, but also in relation to developments elsewhere, particularly other frontier zones. He also uses archaeological and epigraphical evidence well to augment the scant historical records of the period. Gone is the image of the ‘Celtic fringe’ of Europe and, in its stead, we are presented with the image of northern Britain as already in contact with the rest of Europe before the arrival of the Romans. The next chapter, on the development of sub-Roman kingdoms, deals with the emergence of the polities familiar to students of early medieval northern Britain, including Dál...