AU 729.2 and the last years of Nechtan mac DerIlei

In a recent article in this journal Professor Thomas Clancy alluded in passing to an alternative translation of an entry in the Annals of Ulster concerning the latter part of the career of Nechtan mac Der-Ilei which I had suggested to him.¹ Having been 'flushed out' in this fashion I feel obliged to make the alternative translation public and to discuss briefly some of its implications. The passage in question is as follows:

Bellum Monith Carno iuxta Stagnum Loogd¸e inter hostem Nectain 7 excercitum Oengusa 7 exactatores Nectain ceciderunt; hoc est: Biceot m. Moneit 7 filius eius, Finguine m. Drostain, Feroth m. Finnguine 7 quidam multi, 7 familia Oengussa triumphauit.²

This is translated by Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill, following earlier editors, as:

The battle of Monid Carno near Loch Laegde between the hosts of Nectan and the army of Aengus, and Nectan's exactors fell i.e. Biceot son of Monet, and his son, Finnguine son of Drostan, Feroth son of Finnguine, and many others; and the adherents of Aengus were triumphant.³

A. O. Anderson, in his gargantuan Early Sources of Scottish Histor y, represented the same passage thus:

The battle of Monith-Carno, near lake Loogdae, [took place] between the army of Nechtan and the army of Angus; and Nechtan's tax gatherers fell, namely Biceot, son of Moneit, and his son; Finguine, son of Drostan; Feroth, son of Finguine, and many others: and the family of Angus triumphed.⁴

The passage has been interpreted as marking the end of a second brief reign by King Nechtan following his re-emergence from the monastery to which he had apparently been consigned in 724, or the prison where he had been sent by his successor, Drust, two years later.⁵ It has also been taken as clear evidence that the apparent alliance between Nechtan and 'Oengus' (the future Pictish king Onuist son of Urguist) that had led to Nechtan's restoration to the kingship had broken down.⁶

Our understanding of this entry depends very heavily on our understanding of two words, hostem and exact[at]ores.⁷ In all the published translations the first word has been rendered as 'army' and the second, though left untranslated by Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill, has been interpreted by most commentators as meaning something like tax-or trib-ute-gatherers. One cautious note was sounded by Marjorie Anderson who, after following the traditional interpretation in the main text of her Kings and Kingship, added a footnote which reads:

It is fair to point out the ambiguities in AU. Hostis could be "enemy" (though inimicus is the word we should expected) and exactores could be "expellers". These interpretations would produce a totally different story.⁸

Indeed; and it is the purpose of the present note to argue that these alternative interpretations are the more credible. The word hostis is practically unknown elsewhere in the Irish chronicles.⁹ The only other usage I have been able to identify occurs in the Annals of Tigernach, under the year corresponding to AU 685, which contain the following passage, a citation from Bede's Chronica Maiora:

Gisulphus dux gentis Long[o]bardorum Bene<u>en(n)ti Campaníam ighne, gladio et ca<pt>iuitate uastau[it], cumque non esset qui eius impetuí resisteret, apostolic<u>s papa Iohan[n]és, qui Sergio success<s>erat, mís[s]is ad e[u]m sacerdotibus ac dona<ri>is perpluri<mis>, uniuers<o>s redemi<t> captí<u>os atque ho[s]tes domum redire feci<t>. Cui success[s]it al(i)ius Iohannes, qui inter multa operum illustrium fecit oratorium sancte Dei genitricis, opere pulcher<rim>ó intra e(x)cl<e>siam beatí <a>pos<to>lí Petri.¹⁰

Bede produced Chronica Maiora ca 725 so that this usage is almost exactly contemporary with the events described in AU 729.2. Here the meaning of hostes is clearly 'enemy' and this meaning occurs with regularity throughout Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica.¹¹ The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources cites multiple, though not exhaustive, examples of hostis as 'enemy', but only one example, from a letter of Alcuin, of its use for 'army'.¹² The word occurs once in the Adomnán's life of Saint Columba, interestingly in the account of Oswald's victory over Caedualla.¹³

It is of course curious that hostis appears nowhere else in the early medieval Irish chronicle-record, and this in itself may suggest that the entry for AU 729.2 may not have originated within the Iona Chronicle, although this must remain conjecture.¹⁴ Marjorie Anderson's suggestion that inimicus was the more normal word for 'enemy' in this context does not appear to be born out by the evidence. This word also appear to be used only once in the chronicle-record at AU 1063.3 in the notice of the death of three Irish dynasts.¹⁵ It seems fair to conclude that in AU 729.2 it is likely was that hostem was intended as the accusative singular of hostis--'enemy'. The first part of the entry, reading Bellum Monith Carno iuxta Stagnum Loogde inter hostem Nectain 7 excercitum Oengusa, should thus be translated: '[t]he Battle of Monith Carno, by Loch Loogde, between the enemy of Nechtan and the army of Oengus'.

The problematic word in the second part of the sentence is less easy to interpret. Exactatores appear to be a hapax legomenon. It is usually taken to be an error for exactores, a noun deriving from the verb exigere which can mean (as we have seen) either 'expeller', or an 'exacter' (either of a penalty or of revenue or dues). Neither exactator nor exactor appears elsewhere in the Irish chronicle-record nor in the Historia Ecclesiastica. The word exactor, however, does appear thirteen times in the Vulgate. In Exodus it is the word used for 'slave drivers' during the Egyptian captiv-ity,¹⁶ and once, at XX.xxv:

Si pecuniam mutuam dederis populo meo pauperi qui habitat tecum, non urgebis eum quasi exactor, nec usuris opprimes.

Here the traditional translation is 'money-lender', but a more general sense of 'oppressor' could be read into the phrase.¹⁷ This reading is born out by subsequent uses of the word, particularly in Job, Isaiah and Zacha-riah.¹⁸ In Luke the word is used for a gaoler.¹⁹ Without other early Insular comparanda the Vulgate reading is probably the best indicator of what this word would have meant to the author of our text. Rather than exercise ourselves over whether we should read exact[at]ores as 'expellers' or 'tax gatherers', we are able to cut the Gordian knot with reference to the Vulgate and translate the second portion of the sentence, 7 exactatores Nectain ceciderunt; hoc est: Biceot m. Moneit 7 filius eius, Finguine m. Drostain, Feroth m. Finnguine 7 quidam multi, 7 familia Oengussa triumphauit, as follows; 'and the oppressors of Nechtan were slain; that is: Biceot son of Monet, Finguine son of Drostan, Feroth son of Finguine and many others, and the familia of Oengus triumphed'.

The implications of this reading of the text are that Nechtan mac Der-Ilei's second reign did not end with a rebellion by Oengus/Onuist in 729 but continued until his own death in 732,²⁰ still placing him on the throne while Bede put the finishing touches to his Historia Ecclesiastica.