Iona, Tara, and Soissons: The Origin of the Royal Anointing Ritual

A long book could easily be written on the various scholarly attempts to interpret the pre-history of Pippin's unction at Soissons in November or December 751. Something like this was intended to start with but I finally determined instead to present my own views on the matter as best I could. This decision was not lightly taken because it meant the analysis of two very different types of societies and sources — continental Germanic and insular Celtic. The former have been studied and criticized over many generations so that a wide consensus now exists as to their significance, social relevance and possible range of meaning; the latter have been sadly neglected and it is only in recent times that the primary research of historians like Binchy, Byrne, Bannerman, Hughes and O Corrain (guides of exemplary scholarship whose books I have constantly mined) has eased the task of interpretation for their less erudite collegues. Numerous problems remain, however, and considerably more work still needs to be done on those I have studied in this book.