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Conall mac Taidg (died c. 807) (Conall son of Tadc) was a king of the Picts from 785 until 789. Very little is recorded of Conall. He is mentioned twice by the Irish annals, the most reliable source for the history of northern Britain in the years around 800. He also appears in later king lists.
The Chronicle of Ireland survives only in later manuscripts. Of these, the Annals of Ulster contain two reports of Conall. The first, dated to 789, records "a battle between the Picts, in which Conall son of Tadc was defeated and escaped; and Constantín was victor". Constantín here is Caustantín mac Fergusa (d. 820), king of Fortriu. The second, in 807, reports "the killing of Conall son of Tadc, by Conall son of Aedacán in Cenn Tíre". Cenn Tíre is the Old Irish language form of Kintyre and Conall son of Aedacán is usually called Conall mac Áedáin.
Later evidence is provided by king lists and by Irish historical writings. The earliest of these may have been compiled during the ninth century, but none survives a manuscript of that date. A list of synchronisms--i.e., a series of known, datable events used to align Irish lists of kings to Scottish ones—was attributed to an Irish writer called Flann Mainistrech (Flann of Monasterboice) (d. 1056) in the eleventh century and provides another list of kings. Two manuscripts of Flann's work state that there were "sixteen kings in Scotland" between the death of Áed Allán (d. 743) and the death of Áed Findliath (d. 789). These sixteen begin with Dúngal mac Selbaig and end with Kenneth MacAlpin. Two kings named Conall, "Conall Coem, and another Conall, his brother", are said to have reigned between Domnall mac Caustantín and his father, Caustantín mac Fergusa, the same king of Fortriu who had defeated Conall in 789. The Duan Albanach , dated on internal evidence to rather later in the eleventh century, follows this by having Domnall followed by two Conalls and then Caustantín. It is generally assumed that the Duan and Flann aim to report the succession of kings in Dál Riata.
Conall is not included in any surviving genealogical material, but this is typical for the period. The Poppleton Manuscript Pictish king list includes a king named Canaul son of Tarla'a, son of Tang in some versions but simply omitted from others. This Canaul has generally been identified with Conall. The lists assign a reign of five years to this king who precedes Caustantín mac Fergusa.
Interpretations of the shadowy Conall mac Taidg are determined largely by the shifting views of historians with regard to Caustantín mac Fergusa and the later origins of the Kingdom of Alba, a subject where the consensus may have changed twice in the last few decades having previously been stable since the time of William Forbes Skene. Skene made Conall a king of the Picts, later reinterpretations made him first a king of the Picts, then, following his expulsion by Caustantín, a king in Dál Riata. Recent reinterpretations make him a king in Argyll throughout, but not necessarily the chief king.
Causantín mac Cináeda was a king of the Picts. He is often known as Constantine I in reference to his place in modern lists of Scottish monarchs, but contemporary sources described Causantín only as a Pictish king. A son of Cináed mac Ailpín, he succeeded his uncle Domnall mac Ailpín as Pictish king following the latter's death on 13 April 862. It is likely that Causantín's reign witnessed increased activity by Vikings, based in Ireland, Northumbria and northern Britain. He died fighting one such invasion.
Causantín mac Áeda was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was situated in modern-day Northern Scotland.
Kenneth MacAlpin or Kenneth I was King of Dál Riada (841–850), and King of the Picts (843–858) of likely Gaelic origin. He inherited the throne of Dál Riada from his father Alpín mac Echdach, founder of the Alpínid dynasty. Kenneth I conquered the kingdom of the Picts in 843–850 and began a campaign to seize all of Scotland and assimilate the Picts, for which he was posthumously nicknamed An Ferbasach. He fought the Britons of the Kingdom of Strathclyde and the invading Vikings from Scandinavia. Forteviot became the capital of his kingdom and Kenneth relocated relics, including the Stone of Scone from an abandoned abbey on Iona, to his new domain.
The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. The name Picti appears in written records as an exonym from the late third century AD. They are assumed to have been descendants of the Caledonii and other northern Iron Age tribes. Their territory is referred to as "Pictland" by modern historians. Initially made up of several chiefdoms, it came to be dominated by the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu from the seventh century. During this Verturian hegemony, Picti was adopted as an endonym. This lasted around 160 years until the Pictish kingdom merged with that of Dál Riata to form the Kingdom of Alba, ruled by the House of Alpin. The concept of "Pictish kingship" continued for a few decades until it was abandoned during the reign of Caustantín mac Áeda.
Dál Riata or Dál Riada was a Gaelic kingdom that encompassed the western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. At its height in the 6th and 7th centuries, it covered what is now Argyll in Scotland and part of County Antrim in Northern Ireland. After a period of expansion, Dál Riata eventually became associated with the Gaelic Kingdom of Alba.
Óengus mac Fergusa was king of the Picts from 820 until 834. In Scottish historiography, he is associated with the veneration of Saint Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland, although this has not been proven.
Causantín or Constantín mac Fergusa was king of the Picts, in modern Scotland, from 789 until 820. He was until the Victorian era sometimes counted as Constantine I of Scotland; the title is now generally given to Causantín mac Cináeda. He is credited with having founded the church at Dunkeld which later received relics of St Columba from Iona.
Áed Find, or Áed mac Echdach, was king of Dál Riata. Áed was the son of Eochaid mac Echdach, a descendant of Domnall Brecc in the main line of Cenél nGabráin kings.
The House of Alpin, also known as the Alpínid dynasty, Clann Chináeda, and Clann Chinaeda meic Ailpín, was the kin-group which ruled in Pictland, possibly Dál Riata, and then the kingdom of Alba from the advent of Kenneth MacAlpin in the 840s until the death of Malcolm II in 1034.
Óengus son of Fergus was king of the Picts from 732 until his death in 761. His reign can be reconstructed in some detail from a variety of sources. The unprecedented territorial gains he made from coast to coast, and the legacy he left, mean Óengus can be considered the first king of what would become Scotland.
Fortriu was a Pictish kingdom recorded between the 4th and 10th centuries. It was traditionally believed to be located in and around Strathearn in central Scotland, but is more likely to have been based in the north, in the Moray and Easter Ross area. Fortriu is a term used by historians as it is not known what name its people used to refer to their polity. Historians also sometimes use the name synonymously with Pictland in general.
Uuen son of Onuist, commonly referred to by the hypocoristic Eóganán, was king of the Picts between AD 837–839.
Ciniod, Cináed or Cinadhon, son of Uuredech, was king of the Picts from 763 until 775.
The origins of the Kingdom of Alba pertain to the origins of the Kingdom of Alba, or the Gaelic Kingdom of Scotland, either as a mythological event or a historical process, during the Early Middle Ages.
Áed mac Boanta is believed to have been a king of Dál Riata.
Domnall mac Caustantín is thought to have been king of Dál Riata in the early ninth century.
Conall mac Áedáin was a king in Scotland in the years around 800. It is thought that he was a king, or sub-king, in Dál Riata.
The House of Óengus is a proposed dynasty that may have ruled as Kings of the Picts and possibly of all of northern Great Britain, for approximately a century from the 730s to the 830s AD. Their first ruler of Pictland was the great Óengus I of the Picts, who may be the figure carved into the St Andrews Sarcophagus pictured on the right.
The Battle of 839, also known as the Disaster of 839 or the Picts’ Last Stand, was fought in 839 between the Vikings and the Picts and Gaels. It was a decisive victory for the Vikings in which Uuen, the king of the Picts, his brother Bran and Aed son of Boanta, King of Dál Riata, were all killed. Their deaths led to the rise of Kenneth I and the formation of the Kingdom of Scotland, as well as the disappearance of Pictish identity. It has therefore been described as "one of the most decisive and important battles in British history."