Campaign to Return Scotland's Birth Certificate

'Scotland's Birth Certificate' describes the earliest surviving record of the country's existence. This ancient document which is 1,000 years old is being held in the national library of France, where it has been since the 17th century.



A campaign has been launched top return this unique piece of Scotland's past returned to Scotland. MSP Margo MacDonald and archaeologist and presenter of the BBC's 'The History of Scotland' Neil Oliver, are actively joining the campaign.

The Manuscript contains the very first mention of the country Albanium - the Latinised version of the Gaelic name for Scotland. The rare text is a list of the 12 Kings of the House of Appin - Scotland's first Royal Family. And charts the particularly bloody decade of Scotland's history from the reign of Kenneth MacAlpin to Kenneth II, who died in 995. It explains how Scotland was unified under the Alpin family.

Translations of the text reveal a very bloody account of each of the Kings and their achievements. Of Kenneth I it says "He attacked Saxonia six times; and burnt down Dunbar and captured Melrose", but that he died of a "tumour" in the palace of Fortevoit. The authors also wrote of their intollerance of what was considered failure of King Aed, who ruled from 877 to 878, it was written: "The shortness of his rule has left nothing memorable to history; but he was killed in the town of Nrurim".

We at ScotClans will be avidly following this campaign and are extremely keen to read a translation of this document in full.