Túathalán

Túathalán († 747) was a Gaelic or Scoto-Pictish abbot of Cennrigmonaid. He is known only from his obituary in the "Annals of Ulster". Cennrigmonaid, literally "head of the king's pastureland", is a site associated with later St. Andrews, and indeed is probably that site's former name. Túathalán is the first cleric associated with a church establishment there, and in fact, Túathalán's obituary constitutes our first source for both the existence of a church there and for the existence of the location itself. The church was likely founded around the beginning of the 8th century, probably by Óengus I mac Fergusa, King of the Picts, although King Nechtan mac Der-Ile may also have been responsible. Túathalán may therefore have been the first ever abbot of the location. There was probably a Hexham connection. The latter was a monastic establishment whose writings show a good deal of knowledge about the Picts, and who share a dedication to St. Andrew, although Túathalán's name is Gaelic, not English.

References

*Anderson, Alan Orr, "Scottish Annals from English Chroniclers: AD 500–1286", (London, 1908), republished, Marjorie Anderson (ed.) (Stamford, 1991)
* Forsyth, Kathryn, "Evidence of a Lost Pictish source in the "Historia Regum Anglorum" of Symeon of Durham", in Simon Taylor (ed.) "Kings, Clerics, and Chronicles in Scotland, 500-1297: Essays in Honour of Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson on the Occasion of Her Ninetieth Birthday", (Dublin, 2000), pp. 19-32; Appendix by John Koch, pp. 33-4
*Woolf, Alex, "Onuist son of Uurguist:Tyrannus Carnifex or a David for the Picts", in David Hill & Margaret Worthington (eds.), "Æthelbald and Off, Two Eighth-Century Kings of Mercia: Papers from a Conference held in Manchester in 2000", (Manchester, 2005), pp. 35-42.

###@@@KEY@@@###