An early use of the word can be found in the
Nomina Provinciarum Omnium (Names of All the Provinces), which dates to about AD 312. This is a short list of the names and provinces of the Roman Empire. At the end of this list is a brief list of tribes deemed to be a growing threat to the Empire, which included the
Scoti, as a new term for the Irish. There is also a reference to the word in
St Prosper's chronicle of AD 431 where he describes
Pope Celestine sending
St Palladius to Ireland to preach "
ad Scotti in Christum" ("to the Scots who believed in Christ"). Thereafter, periodic raids by Scoti are reported by several later 4th and early 5th century Latin writers, namely
Pacatus,
Ammianus Marcellinus,
Claudian and the
Chronica Gallica of 452. Two references to Scoti have been identified in Greek literature (as Σκόττοι), in the works of
Epiphanius, Bishop of
Salamis, writing in the 370s. The fragmentary evidence suggests an intensification of Scoti raiding from the early 360s, culminating in the
barbarian conspiracy of 367–368, and continuing up to and beyond the
end of Roman rule c. 410. The location and frequency of attacks by Scoti remain unclear, as do the origin and identity of the
Gaelic population-groups who participated in these raids. By the 5th century, the Gaelic or
Scottish kingdom of
Dál Riata had emerged in the area of modern Scotland that is now
Argyll. Although this kingdom was destroyed and subjugated by the
Pictish kingdom of the 8th century under
Angus I, the convergence of
Pictish and Gaelic languages over several centuries resulted in the
English labelling Pictland under
Constantine II as
Scottish in the early 10th century, first attested in AD 920, viewing the Picts as speaking a
Gaelic tongue. The growing influence of the English and
Scots languages from the 12th century with the introduction of Norman-French knights and southerly expansion of Scotland's borders by
David I saw the terms
Scot,
Scottish and
Scotland also begin to be used commonly by natives of that country. ==Etymology==