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Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval by History Hit. I'm Dr Cat Jarman and the Medieval period

saw the rise of so many of the modern countries of Europe that we recognise today,

usually from smaller groups or entities to more established and centralised kingdoms.

Scotland is no different and that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode.

And I'm really delighted to be joined today by Dr Adrian Maldenardo, who is a research

fellow at the National Museums Scotland. And you have written a book that's out very very soon

called The Crucible on Nations Scotland from Viking Age to Medieval Kingdom. First of all,

congratulations and welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Cat. I'm genuinely excited to be here.

Fantastic. Now just before we started recording, we talked a little bit about your job and about

the actual full title and who sponsored that. And I think our listeners do really need to know

that because it sounds like a very Scottish thing to me. Be happy to. So the official job title was

Glen Morngy Research Fellow and that is Glen Morngy the Distiller. They're a Scottish whiskey company

but they've always had a sort of close link to the early medieval past in that this great

big stone, pickedish carved stone that presents itself to you when you walk into early people

in the National Museum is the Hilton of Cat Bullstone. And that happens to be on the Glen Morngy

estate near Tain. And around the time of the excavations at the monastery of Part Mahomak,

...