| Notes |
- He died in 877 at Inverdorat, the Black Cove, Angus, Scotland, killed in action against the Danes.
He gained the title of King Constantine of Alba. He gained the title of King Constantine of the Picts and Scots. He succeeded to the title of King Constantine I of Scotland in 863.
Most of his reign was spent in beating off Viking assults or attempting to extend his authority southwards. Although he ordered the murder of King Artgal (his brother in law and the refugee ruler of Strathclyde) in 871, sometimes he bought peace with his enemies by paying tribute. King of the Scots and Picts for 14 years and was killed in a battle with the Danes at Inverdovat. He has an extensive biographical entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.
Dictionary of National Biography
Constantine I d. 879, son of Kenneth Macalpine, king of Scotland or Alba, the country north of the Forth and Clyde, whose chief seat was Scone, succeeded his uncle Donald in 863. His reign was one of the first when the attacks of the Normans attained a formidable height, threatening the destruction of the Celtic and Saxon kingdoms. Two years after his accession Olaf the White, king of Dublin, wanted the country of the Picts, and occupied it from the Kalends of January to the feast of St. Patrick, ie. 17 March. According to the Pictish Chronicle, Olaf was slain by Constantine when on a raid in the following year, but the Annals of Ulster relate that he destroyed Alrhyth (Dumbarton), after a four months' siege, in 870, and retired in 871 to Dublin with two hundred ships and a great body of men, Anglo-Britons and Picts. After this he disappears from the Irish annals, so that his death may possibly have been antedated by some years in the account of the Pictish Chronicle. Ivar, another of the Norse Vikings of Dublin, who had fought along with Olaf, died about the same time, but Scotland was still exposed to incursions from other leaders of the same race. Thorstein the Red, a son of Olaf, by Audur, the wealthy daughter of Ketill Flatnore, attacked the northern districts, and, according to the Icelandic Landnamabok, conquered Katanes and Suderland, Ross and Norway, and more than half Scotland. But his kingdom, which, perhaps, was acquiesced in by Constantine, who had slight hold of the northern parts, was brief, and he was slain by the men of Alba by a stratagem or treachery in 875. In the South Halfdane the Danish leader who led the northern of the two bands (Guthrum, Alfred's opponent commanded the other), into which the formerly united host of that people was divided, ravaged the east coast of Britain, laid waste Northumbria, and destroyed the Picts (of Galloway?) and the people of Strathclyde.
Two years later another band of Danes, the Irish Dubhgall, or Black Strangers, having been driven from Ireland by the Fingall, or White Strangers, made a sudden descent on Scotland by way of the Clyde and, penetrating into the interior, defeated the Scots at Dollar, from which they passed to Inverdovat, in the parish of Forgan in Fife, where Constantine was slain (877). Tradition points to the long black cave, near Crail, as the scene of his death.
Sources:
Robertson's Scotland under her Early Kings
Skene's Celtic Scotland.
Contributor: Æ. M. [Aeneas James George Mackay]
Published: 1887
CausantÃn or ConstantÃn mac Cináeda (in Modern Gaelic, Còiseam mac Choinnich; died 877) was a king of the Picts. He is often known as Constantine I, in reference to his place in modern lists of kings of Scots, though contemporary sources described CausantÃn only as a Pictish king. A son of Cináed mac AilpÃn ("Kenneth MacAlpin"), he succeeded his uncle Domnall mac AilpÃn as Pictish king following the latter's death on 13 April 862. It is likely that CausantÃn's (Constantine I) reign witnessed increased activity by Vikings, based in Ireland and Northumbria, in northern Britain and he died fighting one such invasion.
Sources
Very few records of ninth century events in northern Britain survive. The main local source from the period is the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba, a list of kings from Cináed mac AilpÃn (died 858) to Cináed mac MaÃl Coluim (died 995). The list survives in the Poppleton Manuscript, a thirteenth century compilation. Originally simply a list of kings with reign lengths, the other details contained in the Poppleton Manuscript version were added from the tenth century onwards. In addition to this, later king lists survive. The earliest genealogical records of the descendants of Cináed mac AilpÃn may date from the end of the tenth century, but their value lies more in their context, and the information they provide about the interests of those for whom they were compiled, than in the unreliable claims they contain. The Pictish king-lists originally ended with this CausantÃn, who was reckoned the seventieth and last king of the Picts.
For narrative history the principal sources are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Irish annals. While Scandinavian sagas describe events in 9th century Britain, their value as sources of historical narrative, rather than documents of social history, is disputed. If the sources for north-eastern Britain, the lands of the kingdom of Northumbria and the former Pictland, are limited and late, those for the areas on the Irish Sea and Atlantic coasts-the modern regions of north-west England and all of northern and western Scotland-are non-existent, and archaeology and toponymy are of primary importance.
Languages and names
Writing a century before CausantÃn was born, Bede recorded five languages in Britain. Latin, the common language of the church, Old English, the language of the Angles and Saxons, Irish, spoken on the western coasts of Britain and in Ireland, Brythonic, ancestor of the Welsh language, spoken in large parts of western Britain, and Pictish, spoken in northern Britain. By the ninth century a sixth language, Old Norse, had arrived with the Vikings.
AmlaÃb and Ãmar
Viking activity in northern Britain appears to have reached a peak during CausantÃn's reign. Viking armies were led by a small group of men who may have been kinsmen. Among those noted by the Irish annals, the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are Ãvarr-Ãmar in Irish sources-who was active from East Anglia to Ireland, Halfdán-Albdann in Irish, Healfdene in Old English- and AmlaÃb or Óláfr. As well as these leaders, various others related to them appear in the surviving record.
Viking activity in Britain increased in 865 when the Great Heathen Army, probably a part of the forces which had been active in Francia, landed in East Anglia. The following year, having obtained tribute from the East Anglian King Edmund, the Great Army moved north, seizing York, chief city of the Northumbrians.[9] The Great Army defeated an attack on York by the two rivals for the Northumbrian throne, Osberht and Ælla, who had put aside their differences in the face of a common enemy. Both would-be kings were killed in the failed assault, probably on 21 March 867. Following this, the leaders of the Great Army are said to have installed one Ecgberht as king of the Northumbrians. Their next target was Mercia where King Burgred, aided by his brother-in-law King Æthelred of Wessex, drove them off.
While the kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria were under attack, other Viking armies were active in the far north. AmlaÃb and Auisle (Ãsl or AuðgÃsl), said to be his brother, brought an army to Fortriu and obtained tribute and hostages in 866. Historians disagree as to whether the army returned to Ireland in 866, 867 or even in 869. Late sources of uncertain reliability state that Auisle was killed by AmlaÃb in 867 in a dispute over AmlaÃb's wife, the daughter of Cináed. It is unclear whether, if accurate, this woman should be identified as a daughter of Cináed mac AilpÃn, and thus CausantÃn's sister, or as a daughter of Cináed mac Conaing, king of Brega. While AmlaÃb and Auisle were in north Britain, the Annals of Ulster record that Ãed Findliath, High King of Ireland, took advantage of their absence to destroy the longphorts along the northern coasts of Ireland. Ãed Findliath was married to CausantÃn's sister Máel Muire. She later married Ãed's successor Flann Sinna. Her death is recorded in 913.
In 870, AmlaÃb and Ãvarr attacked Dumbarton Rock, where the River Leven meets the River Clyde, the chief place of the kingdom of Alt Clut, south-western neighbour of Pictland. The siege lasted four months before the fortress fell to the Vikings who returned to Ireland with many prisoners, "Angles, Britons and Picts", in 871. Archaeological evidence suggests that Dumbarton Rock was largely abandoned and that Govan replaced it as the chief place of the kingdom of Strathclyde, as Alt Clut was later known. King Artgal of Alt Clut did not long survive these events, being killed "at the instigation" of CausantÃn son of Cináed two years later. Artgal's son and successor Run was married to a sister of CausantÃn.
AmlaÃb disappears from Irish annals after his return to Ireland in 871. According to the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba he was killed by CausantÃn either in 871 or 872 when he returned to Pictland to collect further tribute. His ally Ãvarr died in 873.
Last days of the Pictish kingdom
In 875, the Chronicle and the Annals of Ulster again report a Viking army in Pictland. A battle, fought near Dollar, was a heavy defeat for the Picts; the Annals of Ulster say that "a great slaughter of the Picts resulted". Although there is agreement that CausantÃn was killed fighting Vikings in 877, it is not clear where this happened. Some believe he was beheaded on a Fife beach, following a battle at Fife Ness, near Crail. William Forbes Skene read the Chronicle as placing CausantÃn's death at Inverdovat (by Newport-on-Tay), which appears to match the Prophecy of Berchán. The account in the Chronicle of Melrose names the place as the "Black Cave" and John of Fordun calls it the "Black Den". CausantÃn was buried on Iona.
Aftermath
CausantÃn's son Domnall and his descendants represented the main line of the kings of Alba and later Scotland.
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836 - 877 (41 years)
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