Tim Clarkson's Blog

A new edition of my study of Saint Columba has been published by Birlinn Books of Edinburgh.

Since the first edition appeared more than 10 years ago, a substantial amount of new scholarship has appeared, especially from the archaeological side. An update of the book therefore seemed timely, and I spent the second half of 2023 on the task.

The book’s original structure has been retained, with chapter headings remaining the same as in the first edition. New information has been added wherever a...

Back in April, my latest book was published by Birlinn of Edinburgh under their ‘John Donald’ imprint. It looks at the history of the Isle of Man in the early medieval period and beyond, covering a span of more than 800 years from the fifth century to the thirteenth. A substantial part of the book deals with the Viking Age and with the strong Norse influence that can still be felt in the present-day Manx landscape.

As with most of my previous books, the main focus is on political history – king...

Test your knowledge of the Picts with this new brain-teaser devised by Dr Neil McGuigan.

The Great Pictish Quiz

Also try this quiz from last year:

Scotland in the Early Middle Ages

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Neil McGuigan is a historian and author, specialising in early medieval Northern Britain. Find him on Twitter at @neilmcguigan
His biography of King Máel Coluim III (‘Malcolm Canmore’) was published last week by Birlinn Books of Edinburgh:
Máel Coluim III, ‘Canmore’: The World of an Eleventh-...

Gordon Noble and Nicholas Evans, The King in the North: the Pictish Realms of Fortriu and Ce. Birlinn: Edinburgh, 2019, xiv +209 pp. £14.99 pbk. ISBN 978 1 78027 551 2 

Much progress has been made in the past 30 years to bring the Picts into the mainstream of early medieval European history, yet they are still often regarded as enigmatic and puzzling. This is perhaps understandable, given that – for many people – the most vivid evidence of the Pictish contribution to Scotland’s past is a uniq...

Ten years have passed since the publication of my book The Men Of The North: The Britons Of Southern Scotland. It has since been reprinted a number of times, becoming unavailable for only brief intervals between reprints. For an author, this is an encouraging situation to be in, and I am grateful to my publishers (Birlinn of Edinburgh) for keeping the book ticking over throughout the decade. I am also grateful for the many positive comments from readers and reviewers, all of which have encoura...

This new book by renowned philologist Andrew Breeze is a collection of thirteen studies on battles fought in various parts of early medieval Britain. Employing his deep knowledge of place-names and primary sources, Professor Breeze proposes for each battle a geographical context that either supports or challenges previous scholarship. Most of the thirteen chapters are updated or reworked versions of articles previously published in academic journals. Although the author’s conclusions will be fa...

The period 400 to 600 AD was a time when Christianity, the religion of the last Roman emperors, was gaining ground in many parts of Britain at the expense of home-grown pagan beliefs. The spread of Christianity brought an ecclesiastical infrastructure of churches, monasteries, priests and bishops. It also initiated a stonecarving tradition in which crosses and Latin inscriptions were incised on memorials to the dead. Some of the finest examples of this type of sculpture come from Southern...

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Described by one reviewer as “a major landmark in Pictish studies” and by another as “a stunning achievement”, this detailed report on the archaeological excavations at Portmahomack is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about the Picts. It is particularly useful for what it reveals of Pictish Christianity, giving insights into the daily lives of monks who inhabited this site in Easter Ross more than a thousand years ago. Published in 2016 by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,...

Sculptured portrait of a Roman lady, believed to be Julia Domna.

Anyone who seeks to discover Scotland’s early history through textual sources written more than a thousand years ago soon realises that ‘fake news’ isn’t a modern phenomenon. It has always served a useful purpose for its creators, as much in the first millennium AD as in our own era of digital communication and social media. Recognising false information for what it is, rather than taking it at face value, is likewise as much of...

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My biography of St Columba, first published in 2012, now has a re-designed cover. I received half a dozen free copies of the new version last week and am very pleased with how it looks.

The publishers – Birlinn of Edinburgh – have moved the book from their academic imprint ‘John Donald’ to their main stable. Two of my other books – The Picts: A History and The Makers Of Scotland – made the same migration some years ago. It means a slightly reduced size (the John Donald format tends to be lar...