The Book of Deer may be the oldest surviving manuscript produced in Scotland (although Book of Kells; Ceanannus Mór), and is notable for having originated in what is now considered a Lowland area. There are seven Scottish Gaelic texts written in blank spaces surrounding the main items. These marginalia include an account of the founding of the Monastery at Deer by Saint Columba and St Drostan, records of five land grants to the monastery, and a record of an immunity from payment of certain dues granted to the monastery. The Gaelic texts were written by as many five different hands. These represent the earliest surviving use of Gaelic in Scotland and are important for the light they shed on the development of Gaelic in Scotland. The manuscript derives its name from the columban Monastery of Deer, mentioned in the Gaelic texts and the Latin Charter of King David I and gets its name from six Gaelic "notes." The Gaelic used in the notes is Middle Gaelic, also called Middle Irish, which was the form of Gaelic common to Ireland and parts of Scotland from, roughly, 900 to 1200 A.D. Only two women are mentioned in the Gaelic notes in the Book of Deer, one of them twice: Ete ingen Gille-Míchél.
The book contains in latin, chiefly the Vulgate version, portions of the three synoptic Gospels and the whole of the Gospel of John, together with later extraneous marginal notes in Galeic recording transactions in Church property. The Book of Deer lists more than half a dozen patrons from the 10th and 11th century. Some are called Mormaers, and some are called Toisechs. All are Moravians named in sources either as King of Scotland or just Mormaer. Between the ninth and twelfth centuries there are frequent references to the Culdees (Keledei) as the typical monastic clergy of the kingdom.
Kings/Mormaers of Moray Findláech mac Ruaidri before 1014- 1020) Máel Coluim mac Máil Brigti 1020- 1029 Gilla Coemgáin mac Máil Brigti 1029- 1032 Mac Bethad mac Findláich (MacBeth) 1032- 1057 Lulach mac Gillai Coemgáin 1057- 1058 Máel Snechtai mac Lulaich 1058- 1078/ 1085 ? Áengus ?- 1130 William fitz Duncan 1130s- 1147 Annexed to Kingdom of Scotland
Deer & Script
Fortriu (Moray) is the name for an ancient Pictish kingdom located around Moray and Easter Ross in northern Scotland apart from the continental Pictavium during a Roman Franconia period. Relocating Fortriu north of the Mounth increases the importance of the Vikings, MacBeth, Mormaerdom; juxta Middle Irish or Modern Gaelic, was a lordship in High Medieval Scotland that was destroyed by King David I of Scotland in 1130; Moray a is more than a mere Mormaerdom. It did not have the same territory as the modern district of Moray, the territory of which has contracted to a small territory around Elgin. This medieval lordship was in fact centered both the lower Spey valley and around Inverness and the northern parts of the Great Glen, and probably originally included Buchan and Mar, as well as Ross.
By the early 7th century there was a unified Pictish kingdom north of a line from the Clyde to the Forth rivers. Both Scandinavian and Irish sources style the ruler of Moray before the 12th century not merely as King, but as "King of Scotland". Not every historian views the Kingdom of Alba as the product of any kind of Dalriadan conquest, viewing the kingdom's origin as rooted in that of Pictland. The Kingdom of Fortriu is traditionally seen as a Kingdom centered on central Scotland, equivalent to the Kingdom of the Southern Picts.
By the early 7th century there was a unified Pictish kingdom north of a line from the Clyde to the Forth rivers. The Annals of Ulster (s.a. 866) tells us that the Gallaib Erenn & Alban (i.e. the Vikings of Ireland and Alba) went to Fortriu and "raided all the lands of the Picts," while Scandinavian sources shed some more light on the earlier rulers of Moray. The Heimskringla tells us that, somewhere between 889 and 892, Thorstein the Red, allied with Sigurd, conquered Caithness and Sutherland, and killed a Scottish Jarl named Mael Brigte. This is confirmed by both the Orkneyinga Saga and Landnaˇmabak. The latter names another Scottish Jarl, called Mael Duin.