| 翻訳と辞書 |
| Scotland in the Early Middle Ages ： ウィキペディア英語版 |
Scotland in the Early Middle Ages
Scotland in the early Middle Ages, between the end of Roman authority in southern and central Britain from around 400 and the rise of the kingdom of Alba in 900, was divided into a series of kingdoms. Of these the four most important to emerge were the Picts, the Scots of Dál Riata, the Britons of Alt Clut and the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia. After the arrival of the Vikings in the late 8th century, Scandinavian rulers and colonies were established along parts of the coasts and in the islands. In the 9th century the Scots and Picts were combined under the House of Alpin to form a single kingdom which formed the basis of the kingdom of Scotland.
Scotland has an extensive coastline and large areas of difficult terrain and poor agricultural land. In this period more land became marginal due to climate change. This resulted in relatively light settlement, particularly in the interior and Highlands. Northern Britain lacked urban centres and settlements were based on farmsteads and around fortified positions such as brochs, with mixed-farming largely based on self-sufficiency. In this period, changes in settlement and colonisation meant that the Pictish and Brythonic languages began to be subsumed by Gaelic, English, and, at the end of the period, by Old Norse. Life expectancy was relatively low, leading to a young population, with a ruling aristocracy, freemen, and relatively large numbers of slaves. Kingship was multi-layered, with different kings surrounded by their war bands that made up the most important elements of armed forces, who engaged in both low-level raiding and occasional longer-range, major campaigns.
One key event during the period was the expansion of Christianity from the margins of Scotland, becoming the religion of many inhabitants. Initially influenced by the Celtic tradition originating from what is now Ireland, by the end of the era it had become integrated into the organisational structures of the Catholic Church. This period produced some highly distinctive monumental and ornamental art, culminating in the development of the Insular art style, common across Britain and Ireland. The most impressive structures included nucleated hill forts and, after the introduction of Christianity, churches and monasteries. The period also saw the beginnings of Scottish literature in British, Old English, Gaelic and Latin languages.
==Sources==
As the first half of the period is largely prehistoric, archaeology plays an important part in studies of early Medieval Scotland. There are no significant contemporary internal sources for the Picts, although evidence has been gleaned from lists of kings, annals preserved in Wales and Ireland and from sources written down much later, which may draw on oral traditions or earlier sources. From the 7th century there is documentary evidence from Latin sources including the lives of saints, such as Adomnán's, ''Life of St. Columba'' and Bede's ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People''. Archaeological sources include settlements, art, and surviving everyday objects.〔L. R. Laing, ''The Archaeology of Celtic Britain and Ireland, c. AD 400–1200'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), ISBN 0-521-54740-7, pp. 14–15.〕 Other aids to understanding in this period include onomastics (the study of names) – divided into toponymy (place-names), showing the movement of languages, and the sequence in which different languages were spoken in an area, and anthroponymy (personal names), which can offer clues to relationships and origins.〔C. Kay, C. Hough and I. Wotherspoon, eds, ''Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science'' (Amsterdamn: John Benjamins, 1975), ISBN 1-58811-515-1, p. 215.〕
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
■ウィキペディアで「Scotland in the Early Middle Ages」の詳細全文を読む
スポンサード リンク
| 翻訳と辞書 : 翻訳のためのインターネットリソース |
Copyright(C) kotoba.ne.jp 1997-2016. All Rights Reserved.
|
|