Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/94

Ixxxvi PEEFACE. The first account probably belongs to a period prior to the Scottish conquest, while the little king- dom of Dalriada on the west coast was independent of the kingdom of the Picts, and these seven pro- vinces belonged to the latter kingdom only. They formed the territory which was termed by the old Irish writers Cruiihintuaith, and by the Latin chroniclers Pictavia. The second account probably belongs to a period after the Scottish conquest, when the country form- ing the centre of the Pictish kingdom, of which Scone, in the district of Gowrie, was the chief seat, was more immediately subjected by them ; when Cathanesia had been taken possession of by the Norwegian Earls of Orkney ; and Arregaithel united to the rest of the Idngdom. In the twelfth century, the territory forming the later kingdom of Scotland presented itself as consisting of the following provinces : — South of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, the districts were comprised under the two designations of Lao- donia on the east, and Gallowedia on the west. North of the Firths, lay a district bounded by the Firth of Forth on the south, Drumalbau on the west, and the Spey on the north, which first acquired the name of Albania, and afterwards that of Scotia, when that name was first applied to any part of Scotland. It was usually termed in docu- ments of that period Albania, qucB modo dicitur Scotia. North of it, beyond the Spey, lay the dis-