who had supported the cult of Saint Andrew. A number of later traditions associating earlier Pictish kings named Nechtan with the monastic foundation at Abernethy may have confused them with this Nechtan. Nechtan's ecclesiastical reforms are seen as having led to closer links between Pictland and Northumbria, with notable results in artistic forms. His expulsion of Ionan clerics, rather than being a submission to Rome and Northumbria, probably marks the coming of age of an independent Pictish church, which nonetheless remained close to Iona and to Ireland. In addition, it speaks to a very considerable degree of royal control over the church in Pictland, which appears to have been contentious in the ninth century. Notes References and further reading Clancy, Thomas Owen, "Nechtan son of Derile" in M. Lynch (ed.) The Oxford Companion to Scottish History. Oxford & New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Clancy, Thomas Owen, "Philosopher-King : Nechtan mac Der-Ilei." Scottish Historical Review vol. 83, no. 2, pp. 125–149. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004. ISSN 0036-9241 Henderson, Isabel, "Primus inter Pares: the St Andrews Sarcophagus and Pictish Sculpture" in Sally M. Foster (ed.), The St Andrews Sarcophagus: A Pictish masterpiece and its international connections. Four Courts, Dublin, 1998. MacLean, Douglas, "The Northumbrian Perspective" in Foster (1998). Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí, Early Medieval Ireland: 400–1200. Longman, London, 1995. Woolf, Alex, "Pictish matriliny reconsidered." Innes Review vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 147–167. ISSN 0020-157X Woolf, Alex, "AU 729.2 and the last years of Nechtan mac Der-Ilei" in The Scottish Historical Review, Volume 85, Number 1. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. ISSN 0036-9241 Woolf, Alex, "Ungus (Onuist), son of Uurgust" in Lynch (2001). Yorke, Barbara, The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c. 600–800. London: Longman, 2006. Grigg, Julianna, The Philosopher King and the Pictish Nation, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2015. External links Annals of Ulster, part 1 at CELT, translation. Annals of Tigernach at CELT, translation in progress. Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Continuation of Bede (pdf), at CCEL, translated by A.M. Sellar. Nechtan Nechtan Pictish monarchs 8th-century Scottish monarchs