Pictish Mystic · Lore · Picts
Nechtan Son of Der-Ilei: The Easter Letter from Jarrow
In the early 700s a Pictish king sent messengers south to a Northumbrian monastery. He asked how Easter should be dated, how monks should cut their hair, and for builders who could raise a stone church. Bede lived in that monastery, and he copied the abbot's long reply into his Ecclesiastical History. The king was Nechtan son of Der-Ilei, Bede's Naiton, and the letter, the expulsion of the Iona clergy that followed, and his fall into prison and civil war make him one of the best-recorded of all Pictish kings.
History (The King and His Family)
The Irish annals record the death in 706 of Bruide son of Der-Ilei, king of the Picts from about 697 (AU 706). His brother Nechtan was king by 713 (AU 713); Clancy narrows his accession to between 709 and 713. In Gaelic his name is Nechtan; Bede writes Naiton, and Abbot Ceolfrith's letter Naitan.
The same name is carved in stone. Simon Rodway (2020) compares Bede's Naiton with NEHHTON on the Lunnasting ogham stone in Shetland, NECTON at Mains of Afforsk in Aberdeenshire and NEITANO on a cross-slab from Peebles, "surely all forms of the same name".
Der-Ilei survives only in the genitive ("son of Der-Ilei"). Thomas Owen Clancy (2004) argues it was the name of the brothers' mother, with Der- meaning "daughter", and that their father was Dargart son of Finguine, whose death is noted in AU 686, of Cenél Comgaill in Dál Riata. On this reading Nechtan was part Gael.
His reign was not peaceful. The annals record a slaughter of the Picts by the English in Mag Manonn in 711, and in 713 the killing of Ciniod son of Der-Ilei and the fettering of Talorc son of Drostan by his brother, King Nechtan (AU 711, 713). Clancy reads Talorc as another son of Der-Ilei, by a different father.
History (The Letter from Jarrow, Bede V.21)
Bede says that Naiton, king of the Picts, after long reading in church writings, renounced the error of keeping Easter at the wrong time. He sent messengers to Ceolfrith, abbot of the monastery of the apostles Peter and Paul at the mouth of the Wear and at Jarrow near the Tyne, asking for a letter to answer those who kept Easter wrongly, and for guidance on the tonsure.
He also asked for architects to build a church "after the Roman manner" (in Bede's Latin, of stone), promising to dedicate it to St Peter, prince of the apostles.
Ceolfrith's reply, which Bede gives in full, is long and learned. It quotes "a certain worldly writer" (Plato) that the world would be happiest "if either kings were philosophers, or philosophers were kings". It sets out the reckoning of Easter, and attacks the tonsure used by the Iona monks as the tonsure "which Simon Magus is said to have used". It notes that Adomnán of Iona had accepted the Roman Easter but could not bring the monks of Iona with him.
The letter was read before the king and many learned men and interpreted into his own language. Bede says Nechtan rose, knelt and gave thanks, and declared that he and his people would keep this Easter for ever. The nineteen-year Easter cycles were sent "throughout all the provinces of the Picts to be transcribed, learned and observed", the old 84-year cycles were suppressed, and all clergy and monks were given the crown tonsure.
Bede places the exchange around 710. Clancy notes that it passed through Bede's own monastery while he lived there, so his portrait of the king deserves to be taken seriously.
History (Iona, 716 and 717)
In 716, Bede says (V.22), the English monk Egbert brought the monks of Iona to the Roman Easter and tonsure under Abbot Dúnchad. The annals agree: "Easter is changed in the monastery of Ia" (AU 716). Egbert stayed thirteen years and died on Easter Day 729 (Bede V.22; AU 729).
A year after Iona changed, the annals record the "expulsion of the community of Ia" across Dorsum Britanniae by King Nechtan (AU 717). Dorsum Britanniae, the Ridge of Britain, is Druim Alban, the mountain spine between Pictland and the Gaelic west.
A churchman called Brec of Fortriu died in 725 (AU 725), probably a bishop in Nechtan's kingdom.
History (Monastery, Prison and War, 724 to 732)
In 724 the Annals of Tigernach record Nechtan's entry into the clergy, and "Drust reigned afterwards". In 725 Simul son of Drust was fettered, and in 726 Nechtan son of Der-Ilei "was put in fetters by King Drust" (AU 725, 726). The same year, says Tigernach, Drust was driven out and Elpin reigned.
In 728 came the battle of Monid Croib, Moncrieffe Hill, "between the Picts themselves", where Óengus was victor over King Elpin, and a second battle near Castellum Credi, where Elpin fled (AU 728). Tigernach adds that Nechtan took the kingship.
In 729 the battle of Monith Carno near Loch Loogdae was fought between the host of Nechtan and the army of Óengus. Nechtan's "exactors" were killed: Biceot son of Moneit and his son, Finguine son of Drostan, Feroth son of Finguine, "and many others", and Óengus's side triumphed. The same year Óengus defeated and killed King Drust at Druim Dergg Blathuug (AU 729).
Nechtan died in 732 (Annals of Tigernach). The kingship passed to Óengus son of Fergus, in Pictish spelling Onuist son of Uurguist.
Bede, finishing his History in 731, wrote that "the Picts also at this time are at peace with the English nation, and rejoice in being united in peace and truth with the whole Catholic Church" (V.23).
Legend (Stories Around the King)
The Pictish king-lists carry a foundation story for Abernethy: a king Nechtan received the kingship of all the Pictish provinces through the prayers of St Brigit, and in return gave Abernethy to God and Brigit (Evans 2010). In the lists that story belongs to an earlier Nechtan, and later tellers may have blended the different Nechtans together. It is a church tradition, not a record of this reign.
Ceolfrith's letter tells its own story: that the Iona tonsure came from Simon Magus, the sorcerer of the Book of Acts. This was argument, not history, and the letter itself says only that Simon "is said to have used" it.
Debate (Questions Still Open)
- When was the letter written? Bede puts it at 710. Clancy shows it must fall between 709 and 716; A. A. M. Duncan argued for about 713 to 714 and David Kirby for 715 to 716.
- Why expel Iona's clergy in 717, a year after Iona itself accepted the Roman Easter? It may be linked to the Easter and tonsure dispute, or it may be unrelated. Clancy (2004) says it "cannot have been an act of Pictish nationalism", since Nechtan was himself part Gael.
- What kind of king? Kathleen Hughes (1970) saw him as "the very first real Christian Pictish king" (Clancy's summary); Clancy calls him a "philosopher-king", echoing Ceolfrith's letter.
- Mother or father? Opinion has long leaned towards Der-Ilei being a woman (Marjorie Anderson accepted it, with caution). Clancy adds the evidence of the father's name, Dargart, though he does not rule out a man's name entirely; Katherine Forsyth (2019–20) also reads Der- as "daughter". Bede (I.1) says the Picts chose kings from the female line when succession was in doubt. Clancy notes that from the 690s to 729 the Pictish kings did inherit through the female line, while not arguing for "matriliny" as a system, following Alex Woolf's "Pictish matriliny reconsidered".
- Where was the St Peter church? Restenneth near Forfar had land called Egglespeder, "Peter's church", in the twelfth century, but Historic Environment Scotland dates its earliest masonry, the base of the tower, to about 1100. Peterkirks at Rosemarkie, Duffus and elsewhere have also been suggested (Barbara Yorke). Abernethy's tradition points to Brigit, not Peter. No site is proven.
- Did Nechtan lose in 729? Alex Woolf (2006) argues that in the Monith Carno entry hostem means "enemy", not "army", and exactores means "oppressors", so Óengus defeated Nechtan's enemies and Nechtan may still have been king when he died in 732. Monith Carno is sometimes placed at Cairn o' Mount.
- Isabel Henderson (1998) raised the possibility that the St Andrews Sarcophagus was made for Nechtan, though it is more often linked to Óengus.
- Nicholas Evans (2010) reports Marjorie Anderson's finding that the two main groups of Pictish king-lists share a written source up to Nechtan's reign in the 720s.
Pretani and Cruithin
The Irish annals that tell Nechtan's story knew the Picts as Cruithni, and some entries call Pictish kings rí Cruithnech, "king of the Cruithni" (for Bridei son of Beli, AU 693), while Nechtan is "rex Pictorum", king of the Picts (Evans 2022). Cruithni comes from the same old root as the Pretani of the Greek writers and the name of the Cruthin of Ulster. Nechtan's own family, through his father, reached back to Dál Riata, a kingdom with lands on both sides of the North Channel: one more thread of shared ancestry across the sea.
Sources
- Bede, Ecclesiastical History V.21–23 and I.1 (trans. J. A. Giles, Fordham Medieval Sourcebook
- Latin text, The Latin Library)
- Annals of Ulster, trans. W. M. Hennessy (1887), with years corrected by one (Hennessy's years run one behind for this period)
- Annals of Tigernach, as cited by Clancy
- T. O. Clancy, "Philosopher-King: Nechtan mac Der-Ilei", Scottish Historical Review 83 (2004)
- A. Woolf, "AU 729.2 and the last years of Nechtan mac Der-Ilei", Scottish Historical Review 85 (2006)
- S. Rodway, "The Ogham Inscriptions of Scotland and Brittonic Pictish", Journal of Celtic Linguistics 21 (2020)
- K. Forsyth, "Protecting a Pict?", PSAS 149 (2019–20)
- N. Evans, "Ideology, Literacy, and Matriliny" (2010)
- N. Evans, "Picti: from Roman name to internal identity", Journal of Medieval History 48 (2022)
- K. Hughes, Jarrow Lecture (1970), as cited by Clancy
- I. Henderson, "Primus inter Pares" (1998)
- B. Yorke, The Conversion of Britain (2006)
- Historic Environment Scotland, Restenneth Priory
- Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches, Restenneth
History, legend and scholarly debate are marked separately in the headings above.
First shared on X @dalriada36963.
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