Tag: Scotia

Scotia was originally a Roman name for Ireland, inhabited by the people they called Scoti or Scotii. Use of the name shifted in the Middle Ages to designate the part of the island of Great Britain lying north of the Firth of Forth, the Kingdom of Alba. By the later Middle Ages it had become the fixed Latin term for what in English is called Scotland.
The name of Scotland is derived from the Latin Scoti, the term applied to Gaels. The origin of the word Scoti (or Scotti) is uncertain. It is found in Latin texts from the fourth century describing a tribe which sailed from Ireland to raid Roman Britain. It came to be applied to all the Gaels. It is not believed that any Gaelic groups called themselves Scoti in ancient times, except when writing in Latin. Old Irish documents use the term Scot (plural Scuit) going back as far as the 9th century, for example in the glossary of Cormac úa Cuilennáin.
Oman derives it from Scuit; a man cut off, suggesting that a Scuit was not a Gael as such but…