The Picts
A History

I have to commend the author for putting together a chronological, narrative(ish) history of the Picts. I've learned a fair amount about them as an amateur with an interest in the period, but this is the first book I've found that attempts to lay out Pictish history in sequence. The book seems aimed......more

The matrilineal succession of the Picts – unique in Europe – is a curiosity indeed. Bede accounts for it by saying the Picts came from Scythia without their womenfolk, and were given wives by the Irish on condition they adopted kingly succession through the female line. Matriliny, of course, does no......more

Tim Clarkson’s work on the the Picts is a terrifically executed history. It’s comprehensive and detailed, yet concise. Considering that serious studies of the Picts as a historic, rather than mythical, people did not take off until the 1950s, what has been pieced together about their culture, their......more

Too many names, too many dates. No good for someone like me who has no memory for unadorned facts and an inability to remember proper nouns. I wanted a sense of who the Picts were, how they differed culturally from their contemporaries, how they lived, what they believed. None the wiser on any of th......more

Anyone interested in the history of the Picts should stay away from this book. The first red flag is that this text has no footnotes. That is a huge problem with anything claiming to be a contribution to the study of history. Without footnotes, we have to just take his word for it, and folks I hate......more