Kingdom of Alba

The Kingdom of Alba was the name historians give to the Kingdom of Scotland between the death of Donald II in 900 and the death of Alexander III in 1286. Its core lay between the Firth of Forth and the River Spey, and it grew out of the merger of the Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riata with the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu. The name Alba is a convenience: the kingdom's people were Pictish-Gaels and later Scoto-Normans, and the Gaelic term Righachd na h-Alba simply means Kingdom of Scotland. In the tenth century Alba absorbed Fortriu and Lothian, while Moray in the north remained outside royal control until the early thirteenth century. The crown's authority was rebuilt by David I, who introduced Norman-style feudalism, founded burghs and reformed the church. Later kings extended royal power into the west and north, but the dynasty was left vulnerable when Alexander III died without a direct heir in 1286. The succession crisis that followed invited Edward I of England to intervene, triggering the First War of Scottish Independence. Alba therefore marks the formative period in which a Pictish-Gaelic kingship became the medieval Kingdom of Scotland.