Who were the Celts?
The Celts were a group of peoples that occupied lands stretching from the British
Isles to Gallatia. The Celts had many dealings with other cultures that bordered
the lands occupied by these peoples, and even though there is no written record
of the Celts stemming from their own documents, we can piece together a fair
picture of them from archeological evidence as well as historical accounts from
other cultures.
The first historical recorded encounter of a people displaying the cultural
traits associated with the Celts comes from northern Italy around 400 BC, when
a previously unkown group of barbarians came down from the Alps and displaced
the Etruscans from the fertile Po valley, a displacment that helped to push
the Etruscans from history's limelight. The next encounter with the Celts came
with the still young Roman Empire, directly to the south of the Po. The Romans
in fact had sent three envoys to the beseiged Etruscans to study this new force.
We know from Livy's The Early History of Rome that this first encounter with
Rome was quite civilized:
[The Celts told the Roman envoys that] this was indeed the first time they had
heard of them, but they assumed the Romans must be a courageous people because
it was to them that the [Etruscans] had turned to in their hour of need. And
since the Romans had tried to help with an embassy and not with arms, they themselves
would not reject the offer of peace, provided the [Etruscans] ceded part of
their seperfluous agricultural land; that was what they, the Celts, wanted....
If it were not given, they would launch an attack before the Romans' eyes, so
that the Romans could report back how superior the Gauls were in battle to all
others....The Romans then asked whether it was right to demand land from its
owners on pain of war, indeed what were the Celts going in Etruria in the first
place? The latter defiantly retorted that their right lay in their arms: To
the brave belong all things.
The Roman envoys then preceded to break their good faith and helped the Etruscans
in their fight; in fact, one of the envoys, Quintas Fabius killed one of the
Celtic tribal leaders. The Celts then sent their own envoys to Rome in protest
and demand the Romans hand over all members of the Fabian family, to which all
three of the original Roman envoys belonged, be given over to the Celts, a move
completely in line with current Roman protocol. This of course presented problems
for the Roman senate, since the Fabian family was quite powerful in Rome. Indeed,
Livy says that:
The party structure would allow no resolution to be made against such noblemanm
as justice would have required. The Senate...therefore passed examination of
the Celts' request to the popular assembly, in which power and influence naturally
counted for more. So it happened that those who ought to have been punished
were instead appointed for the coming year military tribunes with consular powers
(the highest that could be granted).
The Celts saw this as a mortal insult and a host marched south to Rome. The
Celts tore through the countryside and several battalions of Roman soilders
to lay seige to the Capitol of the Roman Empire. Seven months of seige led to
negotiations wherby the Celts promised to leave their seige for a tribute of
one thousand pounds of gold, which the historian Pliny tells was very difficult
for the entire city to muster. When the gold was being weighed, the Romans claimed
the Celts were cheating with faulty weights. It was then that the Celts' leader,
Brennus, threw his sword into the balance and and uttered the words vae victis
"woe to the Defeated". Rome never withstood another more humiliating
defeat and the Celts made an initial step of magnificent proportions into history.
Other Roman historians tell us more of the Celts. Diodorus notes that:
Their aspect is terrifying...They are very tall in stature, with ripling muscles
under clear white skin. Their hair is blond, but not naturally so: they bleach
it, to this day, artificially, washing it in lime and combing it back from their
foreheaads. They look like wood-demons, their hair thick and shaggy like a horse's
mane. Some of them are cleanshaven, but others - especially those of high rank,
shave their cheeks but leave a moustache that covers the whole mouth and, when
they eat and drink, acts like a sieve, trapping particles of food...The way
they dress is astonishing: they wear brightly coloured and embroidered shirts,
with trousers called bracae and cloaks fastened at the shoulder with a brooch,
heavy in winter, light in summer. These cloaks are striped or checkered in design,
with the seperate checks close together and in various colours.
[The Celts] wear bronze helmets with figures picked out on them, even horns,
which made them look even taller than they already are...while others cover
themselves with breast-armour made out of chains. But most content themselves
with the weapons nature gave them: they go naked into battle...Weird, discordant
horns were sounded, [they shouted in chorus with their] deep and harsh voices,
they beat their swords rythmically against their shields.
Diodorus also describes how the Celts cut off their enemies' heads and nailed
them over the doors of their huts, as Diodorus states:
In exactly the same way as hunters do with their skulls of the animals they
have slain...they preserved the heads of their most high-ranking victims in
cedar oil, keeping them carefully in wooden boxes.
Celtic family life. The basic unit of Celtic life was the clan, a sort of extended family. The term "family" is a bit misleading, for by all accounts the Celts practiced a peculiar form of child rearing; they didn't rear them, they farmed them out. Children were actually raised by foster parents. The foster father was often the brother of the birth-mother. Got it?
Clans were bound together very loosely with other clans into tribes, each of which had its own social structure and customs, and possibly its own local gods.
Housing. The Celts lived in huts of arched timber with walls of wicker and roofs of thatch. The huts were generally gathered in loose hamlets. In several places each tribe had its own coinage system.
Farming. The Celts were farmers when they weren't fighting. One of the interesting innovations that they brought to Britain was the iron plough. Earlier ploughs had been awkward affairs, basically a stick with a pointed end harnessed behind two oxen. They were suitable only for ploughing the light upland soils. The heavier iron ploughs constituted an agricultural revolution all by themselves, for they made it possible for the first time to cultivate the rich valley and lowland soils. They came with a price, though. It generally required a team of eight oxen to pull the plough, so to avoid the difficulty of turning that large a team, Celtic fields tended to be long and narrow, a pattern that can still be seen in some parts of the country today.
The lot of women. Celtic lands were owned communally, and wealth seems to have been based largely on the size of cattle herd owned. The lot of women was a good deal better than in most societies of that time. They were technically equal to men, owned property, and could choose their own husbands. They could also be war leaders, as Boudicca (Boadicea) later proved.
Language. There was a written Celtic language, but it developed well into Christian times, so for much of Celtic history they relied on oral transmission of culture, primarily through the efforts of bards and poets. These arts were tremendously important to the Celts, and much of what we know of their traditions comes to us today through the old tales and poems that were handed down for generations before eventually being written down.
Druids. Another area where oral traditions were important was in the training of Druids. There has been a lot of nonsense written about Druids, but they were a curious lot; a sort of super-class of priests, political advisors, teachers, healers, and arbitrators. They had their own universities, where traditional knowledge was passed on by rote. They had the right to speak ahead of the king in council, and may have held more authority than the king. They acted as ambassadors in time of war, they composed verse and upheld the law. They were a sort of glue holding together Celtic culture.
Religion. From what we know of the Celts from Roman commentators, who are, remember, witnesses with an axe to grind, they held many of their religious ceremonies in woodland groves and near sacred water, such as wells and springs. The Romans speak of human sacrifice as being a part of Celtic religion. One thing we do know, the Celts revered human heads.
Celtic warriors would cut off the heads of their enemies in battle and display them as trophies. They mounted heads in doorposts and hung them from their belts. This might seem barbaric to us, but to the Celt the seat of spiritual power was the head, so by taking the head of a vanquished foe they were appropriating that power for themselves. It was a kind of bloody religious observance.
The Celts at War. The Celts loved war. If one wasn't happening they'd be sure to start one. They were scrappers from the word go. They arrayed themselves as fiercely as possible, sometimes charging into battle fully naked, dyed blue from head to toe, and screaming like banshees to terrify their enemies.
They took tremendous pride in their appearance in battle, if we can judge by the elaborately embellished weapons and paraphernalia they used. Golden shields and breastplates shared pride of place with ornamented helmets and trumpets.
The Celts were great users of light chariots in warfare. From this chariot, drawn by two horses, they would throw spears at an enemy before dismounting to have a go with heavy slashing swords. They also had a habit of dragging families and baggage along to their battles, forming a great milling mass of encumbrances, which sometimes cost them a victory, as Queen Boudicca would later discover to her dismay.
As mentioned, they beheaded their opponents in battle and it was considered a sign of prowess and social standing to have a goodly number of heads to display.
The main problem with the Celts was that they couldn't stop fighting among themselves long enough to put up a unified front. Each tribe was out for itself, and in the long run this cost them control of Britain
This stylized dragon brooch is closely patterned after one of a pair of chain-linked
Celtic fibulas found in Hungary, dating from 400-300 B.C. 2 1/4 inches long
Interlaced Dragon Pendant
The dragon was a known creature of power among the ancients. It is interwoven
in the Celtic or Viking style
Celtic Design
Celtic cultures are becoming more differentiated in modern scholarship as more
archeological evidence is uncovered and new methodologies applied to the material
culture of these peoples. Within the continuum of artistic objects made throughout
a long chronological period, a great variety of motifs were added, or dropped,
from the Celtic visual vocabulary.
Shape-shifting and triplism Punning and metamorphosis Each Celtic culture deserves
its own careful examination to uncover the richness of their artistic world.
These few design analyses were created to introduce some of the visual concepts
that engaged the Celtic artists. A few unifying themes characterize much, though
not all, of
Celtic arts. Visual punning and metamorphosis are common: the eye is tricked
into seeing a number of animals or faces if the object is turned or the patterns
allowed to dissolve and reform themselves into different configurations. Geometry
and numbers are the bedrock of Celtic art. The circle and the number 3 are particularly
significant. Underlying all of this art is a deep appreciation of the potential
for natural forms--leaves, animals, and faces--to shape the Celtic aesthetic.
Repeating geometrical patterns Intricate alternating patterns
Variations of the swirl pattern Design of the Turoe Stone
Celtic Battersea Shield, from the Thames at Battersea, London, about the the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth (colorized
Celtic Desborough Mirror, from Desborough, Northamptonshire, First Century C.E.
(colorized)