Public-domain ebook
by W. F. Skene
Language: en6,376 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: History - European·History - Ancient
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #71258.
William Forbes Skene’s first volume of Celtic Scotland sets out to rebuild the early history of the land now called Scotland by discarding the fanciful narratives of medieval chroniclers such as John of Fordun and Hector Boece. In the opening pages Skene explains that he will rely only on “the most reliable authorities,” extracting facts from Roman writers, Ptolemy’s geography, and the sparse annals that survive, while rejecting the “spurious matter of supposititious authors.” The work is organized as a detailed chronology, beginning with Roman incursions into the Firths of Forth and Clyde, moving through the formation and collapse of the Roman province, and then tracing the succession of kingdoms, Pictish, Dalriadan, Brittonic, and Anglian, through a dense series of battles, reigns, and ethnological observations. The extensive table of contents and chapter headings reveal a scholarly ambition to map physical features, tribal movements, and linguistic shifts across centuries of Celtic antiquity.
Skene writes in a nineteenth‑century scholarly voice, marked by exhaustive footnotes, formal diction, and a commitment to rigorous source criticism. His prose is dense, often cataloguing dates and events in rapid succession, reflecting the Victorian era’s confidence in systematic historical reconstruction. Readers who relish meticulous archival research, enjoy the interplay of archaeology, linguistics, and early medieval politics, or have a particular interest in the formation of Scottish identity will find this volume rewarding. It appeals especially to historians, students of Celtic studies, and enthusiasts of detailed early‑British chronologies who appreciate a work that prioritises evidential precision over narrative flourish.
The opening · free to read
The principal aim of the Author in this first volume of Celtic Scotland has been to endeavour to ascertain the true facts of the early civil history. For this purpose the narratives of her early historians afford no available basis. The artificially-constructed system of history first brought into shape by John of Fordun, and elaborated in the more classical text of Hector Boece, must, for the Celtic period of our history, be entirely rejected. To attempt to found a consecutive historical narrative on the scattered notices in the Roman writers and in the Chronicles, which consist merely of lists of kings with the length of their respective reigns, and notices of a few isolated battles, would be merely to produce an unsatisfactory and unreadable book. On the other hand, a succession of general views of the early periods of its history, founded upon a superficial and uncritical use of authorities, or the too readily accepted conclusions of more painstaking writers, however lively and graphic they may be, might furnish very pleasant reading, but would be worthless as a work of authority.
The first thing to be done is to lay a sound foundation by ascertaining, as far as possible, the true facts of the early history, so far as they can be fairly extracted from the more trustworthy authorities. There is, unfortunately, no more difficult task than to substitute the correct ‘sumpsimus’ for the long-cherished and accepted ‘mumpsimus’ of popular historians. All that the Author has attempted in this volume is to show what the most reliable authorities do really tell us of the early annals of the country, divested of the spurious matter of supposititious authors, the fictitious narratives of our early historians, and the rash assumptions of later writers which have been imported into it.
The Author is glad to take this opportunity of acknowledging the valuable assistance which his excellent publisher, Mr. David Douglas, has freely and ungrudgingly given him in carefully revising the proof-sheets. They could have been submitted to no more intelligent supervision.
EDINBURGH, 20 INVERLEITH ROW, 1st May 1876.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
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