Field Visit
Date March 1990
Event ID 1112693
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1112693
The origin and nature of the Boot (or Moot) Hill at Scone is unclear, but it may be no more than a scarped natural mound; it is now surmounted by the Mote Church and Stormont Mausoleum (NO12NW 9.13). It has been suggested that it be identified as the castellum Credi which is mentioned in the Annals of Tigernach as the site of a battle between Pictish factions in 728. There is no evidence of any defensive structure on the Moot Hill and the attribution is perhaps unlikely, but there can be little doubt that the Moot Hill was the meeting-place, probably in 906, between Constantine II and Bishop Cellach 'in colle Credulitatis prope regalie civitati Scoan', at which date Scone is clearly recognised as the chief royal centre of the Kingdom.
Already by the 9th century, the hill may have become a symbolic sacred spot as its use as a ceremonial mount for the inauguration of several of the Scottish Kings, and as a place specifically resorted to for royal assembly, is documented in historical and later sources. In origin, the hill perhaps fulfilled the role of a folk-moot, a place of popular assembly, or court, as defined by Barrow and Alcock.
In an 11th-century source it is recorded that Kenneth, son of Alpin (about 848), 'was the first King from among the Gaels that assumed the Kingdom of Scone'. This has been taken to suggest that Kenneth secured Scone as his dynastic seat but need not exclude the possibility that Scone was an earlier Pictish centre of some significance.
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS) March 1990.
Reg Reg Scot; A O Anderson 1922; M O Anderson 1980; G W S Barrow 1981; L Alcock 1988.
