The Picts were a group of peoples in northern Britain, 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.
Celtic Christianity is a form of Christianity that was common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages. Some writers have described a distinct Celtic Church uniting the Celtic peoples and distinguishing them from adherents of the Roman Church, while others classify Celtic Christianity as a set of distinctive practices occurring in those areas. Varying scholars reject the former notion, but note that there were certain traditions and practices present in both the Irish and British churches that were not seen in the wider Christian world.
Whithorn, is a royal burgh in the historic county of Wigtownshire in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Wigtown. The town was the location of the first recorded Christian church in Scotland, Candida Casa 'White/Shining House', built by Saint Ninian about 397.
The Bishop of Galloway, also called the Bishop of Whithorn, is the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Galloway, said to have been founded by Saint Ninian in the mid-5th century. The subsequent Anglo-Saxon bishopric was founded in the late 7th century or early 8th century, and the first known bishop was one Pehthelm, "shield of the Picts". According to Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical tradition, the bishopric was founded by Saint Ninian, a later corruption of the British name Uinniau or Irish Finian; although there is no contemporary evidence, it is quite likely that there had been a British or Hiberno-British bishopric before the Anglo-Saxon takeover. After Heathored, no bishop is known until the apparent resurrection of the diocese in the reign of King Fergus of Galloway. The bishops remained, uniquely for Scottish bishops, the suffragans of the Archbishop of York until 1359 when the pope released the bishopric from requiring metropolitan assent. James I formalised the admission of the diocese into the Scottish church on 26 August 1430 and just as all Scottish sees, Whithorn was to be accountable directly to the pope. The diocese was placed under the metropolitan jurisdiction of St Andrews on 17 August 1472 and then moved to the province of Glasgow on 9 January 1492. The diocese disappeared during the Scottish Reformation, but was recreated by the Catholic Church in 1878 with its cathedra at Dumfries, although it is now based at Ayr.
Finnian of Movilla was an Irish Christian missionary. His feast day is 10 September.
Candida Casa was the name given to the church established by St Ninian in Whithorn, Galloway, southern Scotland, in the mid fifth century AD. The name derives from Latin: casa and candidus/candida, referring possibly to the stone used to construct it, or the whitewash used to paint it.
Acca of Hexham was an early medieval Northumbrian prelate, serving as bishop of Hexham from 709 until 732, and subsequently commemorated as a Christian saint.
The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a series of expeditions in the 6th and 7th centuries by Gaelic missionaries originating from Ireland that spread Celtic Christianity in Scotland, Wales, England and Merovingian France. Celtic Christianity spread first within Ireland. Since the 8th and 9th centuries, these early missions were called 'Celtic Christianity'.
Christianity in medieval Scotland includes all aspects of Christianity in the modern borders of Scotland in the Middle Ages. Christianity was probably introduced to what is now Lowland Scotland by Roman soldiers stationed in the north of the province of Britannia. After the collapse of Roman authority in the fifth century, Christianity is presumed to have survived among the British enclaves in the south of what is now Scotland, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced. Scotland was largely converted by Irish missions associated with figures such as St Columba, from the fifth to the seventh centuries. These missions founded monastic institutions and collegiate churches that served large areas. Scholars have identified a distinctive form of Celtic Christianity, in which abbots were more significant than bishops, attitudes to clerical celibacy were more relaxed and there were significant differences in practice with Roman Christianity, particularly the form of tonsure and the method of calculating Easter, although most of these issues had been resolved by the mid-seventh century. After the reconversion of Scandinavian Scotland in the tenth century, Christianity under papal authority was the dominant religion of the kingdom.
Whithorn Priory was a medieval Scottish monastery that also served as a cathedral, located at 6 Bruce Street in Whithorn, Wigtownshire, Dumfries and Galloway.
Thomas Owen Clancy is an American academic and historian who specializes in medieval Celtic literature, especially that of Scotland. He did his undergraduate work at New York University, and his Ph.D at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently at the University of Glasgow, where he was appointed Professor of Celtic in 2005.
The monastery of Rosnat was an important center of the early Celtic Christianity. Scholars differ as to its actual location. Two locations much discussed are Ninian's Candida Casa at Whithorn in Scotland, and Ty Gwyn overlooking Whitesands Bay (Pembrokeshire).
Saint Ternan is venerated as the "Bishop of the Picts". Not much is known of his life. Different historians place him either at the mid-fifth century or the latter part of the sixth. Those who place him in the earlier period, associate him with Palladius.
There is archaeological evidence of insular monasticism as early as the mid 5th century, influenced by establishments in Gaul such as the monastery of Martin of Tours at Marmoutier, the abbey established by Honoratus at Lérins; the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel; and that of Germanus at Auxerre. Many Irish monks studied at Candida Casa near Whithorn in what is now Galloway in Scotland.
Mochrum is a coastal civil and Church of Scotland parish situated to the east of Luce Bay on the Machars peninsula and 8 miles (13 km) southwest of Wigtown and in the historical county of Wigtownshire in Galloway, Scotland. It covers 22,000 acres (8,900 ha) and is approximately 10 miles (16 km) in length and 5 miles (8.0 km) in breadth. The parish contains the eponymous village of Mochrum, as well as Port William and the clachan of Elrig.
Pehthelm was the first historical bishop of the episcopal see of Candida Casa at Whithorn. He was consecrated in 730 or 731 and served until his demise. His name is also spelled as Pecthelm, Pechthelm, and sometimes as Wehthelm.
Beadwulf was the last Bishop of Candida Casa to be consecrated by the Northumbrian Archbishop of York. He appears in four years of the chronicles and nowhere else. Nothing else is known of him, and his sole historical significance is that he was a bishop of the short-lived Northumbrian See of Candida Casa at Whithorn.
The Vita Sancti Niniani or simply Vita Niniani is a Latin language Christian hagiography written in northern England in the mid-12th century. Using two earlier Anglo-Latin sources, it was written by Ailred of Rievaulx seemingly at the request of a Bishop of Galloway. It is loosely based on the career of the early British churchman Uinniau or Finnian, whose name through textual misreadings was rendered "Ninian" by high medieval English and Anglo-Norman writers, subsequently producing a distinct cult. Saint Ninian was thus an "unhistorical doppelganger" of someone else. The Vita tells "Ninian's" life-story, and relates ten miracles, six during the saint's lifetime and four posthumous.
The Miracula Nynie Episcopi is an anonymously written 8th-century hagiographic work describing miracles attributed to Saint Ninian. It is considered a non-historical work, and copies are not widely extant.
The Christianisation of Scotland was the process by which Christianity spread in what is now Scotland, which took place principally between the fifth and tenth centuries.
