The Celtic Cross in Knock, Ireland.

Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages.^[1] "Celtic Christianity" has been conceived of with differing levels of specificity: some writers have thought of it as a distinct "Celtic Church" uniting the Celtic peoples and distinguishing them from the "Roman" Catholic Church, while others classify it as simply a set of distinctive practices occurring in those areas.^[2] Scholars now reject the former notion, but note that there were certain traditions and practices used in both the Irish and British churches but not in the wider Christian world.^[3] These include a distinctive system for determining the dating of Easter, a style of monastic tonsure, a unique system of penance, and the popularity of going into "exile for Christ".^[3] Additionally, there were other practices that developed in certain parts of the Celtic world, but which are not known to have spread beyond a particular region. Rituals associated with Celtic Christianity are now almost completely lost, though two books, the Bobbio and the Stowe Missals, contain the Irish Ordinary of a daily Mass in late, Romanized form.

The term "Celtic Church" is deprecated by many historians as it implies a unified and identifiable entity entirely separate from the mainstream of Western Christendom.^[4] Others prefer the term "Insular Christianity".^[5] As Patrick Wormald explained, “One of the common misconceptions is that there was a ‘Roman Church’ to which the ‘Celtic’ was nationally opposed.”^[6] Celtic-speaking areas were part of Latin Christendom as a whole at a time in which there was significant regional variation of liturgy and structure with a general collective veneration of the Bishop of Rome that was no less intense in Celtic areas.^[7]

Nonetheless, it is possible to talk about the development and spread of distinctive traditions, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries. Some elements may have been introduced to Ireland by the Briton St. Patrick, later others spread from Ireland to Britain with the Irish mission system of Saint Columba. The histories of the Irish, Welsh, Scots, Breton, Cornish, and Manx Churches diverge significantly after the eighth century (resulting in a great difference between even rival Irish traditions).^[8]

Definition[link]

"Celtic Christianity" has been conceived of in different ways at different times. Some ideas are fairly consistent. Above all, Celtic Christianity is seen as being inherently distinct from – and generally opposed to – the Catholic Church.^[9] Other common claims are that Celtic Christianity denied the authority of the Pope, was less authoritarian than the Catholic Church, more spiritual, friendlier to women, more connected with nature, and more comfortable dealing with the ancient Celtic religion.^[9] One view, which gained substantial scholarly traction in the 19th century, was that there was a "Celtic Church", a significantly organized Christian body or denomination uniting the Celtic peoples and separating them from the "Roman" church of continental Europe.^[10] Others have been content to speak of "Celtic Christianity" as consisting of certain traditions and beliefs intrinsic to the Celts.^[11]

However, modern scholars have identified issues with all of these claims, and find the term "Celtic Christianity" problematic in and of itself.^[1] The idea of a "Celtic Church" is roundly rejected by modern scholars due to the lack of substantiating evidence.^[11] Indeed, there were distinct Irish and British church traditions, each with their own practices, and there was significant local variation even within the individual Irish and British spheres.^[12] While there were some traditions known to have been common to both the Irish and British churches, these were relatively few. Even these commonalities did not exist due to the "Celticity" of the regions, but due to other historical and geographical factors.^[10] Additionally, the Christians of Ireland and Britain were not "anti-Roman"; the authority of Rome and the papacy were venerated as strongly in Celtic areas as they were in any other region of Europe.^[13] Caitlin Corning further notes that the "Irish and British were no more pro-women, pro-environment, or even more spiritual than the rest of the Church."^[9]

Corning notes that scholars have identified three major strands of thought that have influenced the popular conceptions of Celtic Christianity. The first arose in the English Reformation, when the Church of England declared itself separate from the Catholic Church. Protestant writers of this time popularized the idea of an indigenous British Christianity that opposed the foreign "Roman" church and was purer (and proto-Protestant) in thought. The English church, they claimed, was not forming a new institution, but casting off the shackles of Rome and returning to its true roots as the indigenous national church of Britain.^[14] Ideas of Celtic Christianity were further influenced by the Romantic movement of the 18th century, in particular Romantic notions of the noble savage and the intrinsic qualities of the "Celtic race". The Romantics idealized the Celts as a primitive, bucolic people who were far more poetic, spiritual, and freer of rationalism than their neighbors. The Celts were seen as having an inner spiritual nature that shined through even after their form of Christianity had been destroyed by the authoritarian and rational Rome.^[15] In the 20th and 21st centuries, these ideas were combined with appeals by certain modern churches and neo-pagan and New Age groups seeking to recover something of ancient spirituality that is felt to be missing from the modern world. For these groups Celtic Christianity becomes a cipher for whatever is lost in the modern religious experience. Corning notes that these notions say more about modern desires than about the reality of Christianity in the Early Middle Ages, however.^[16]

History[link]

Britain[link]

Christianity reached Britain by the third century of the Christian era, the first recorded martyrs in Britain being St. Alban and Aaron and Julius, citizens of Carlisle, during the reign of Diocletian. Gildas dated the faith's arrival to the latter part of the reign of Tiberius.

Christianisation intensified with the legalization of the Christian religion under Constantine in the early 4th century and its promotion by subsequent Christian emperors, but in 407 the Empire withdrew its legions from the province to defend Italy from Visigothic attacks in which the city of Rome would be sacked in 410. The legions did not permanently return to Britain, Roman tax and army influence ended on the isle and, with the decline of Roman imperial political influence, Insular Christianity retained distinct traditions and practices through the era of Church Councils. Clerics such as Germanus of Auxerre accused some British bishops of the heresy of Pelagianism and sought their removal from office.

According to hagiographies written some centuries later, Illtud and his pupils David, Gildas, Paul Aurelian, Samson and Deiniol from the next generation, were leading figures in sixth-century Britain. Some of them were also active in Brittany. Others who influenced the development of British Christianity include Dubricius, Cadoc, Petroc, Piran, Ia and Kentigern (also known as Mungo).

A monastery-centred establishment seems to have grown up in sixth-century Britain, though our knowledge of this period there is limited. There may have been interaction with Ireland at this time, perhaps partly brought about by a very severe plague in Ireland in 548/9,^[17] only a few years after the extreme weather events of 535–536. However, Bede speaks of "the monastery of Bangor, in which, it is said, there was so great a number of monks, that the monastery being divided into seven parts, with a superior set over each, none of those parts contained less than three hundred men, who all lived by the labour of their hands."

Saint John, evangelist portrait from the Book of Mulling, Irish, late 8th century

At the end of the 6th century, the face of Christianity in Britain was forever changed by the Gregorian mission. In this endeavour, Pope Gregory I sent a group of clerics headed by the monk Augustine to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and to establish new churches and dioceses in their territory. Gregory intended for Augustine to become the metropolitan archbishop over all of southern Britain, including over the bishops already serving among the Britons. Augustine met British bishops in a series of conferences in which he attempted to assert his authority and persuade them to abandon certain customs that conflicted with Roman practice. However, these conferences failed to reach any agreement.

The only surviving account of Augustine's meetings with the British clergy is that in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum of the Northumbrian writer Bede. According to Bede, some bishops and other representatives of the nearest province of the Britons met Augustine at a location at the border of the Kingdom of Kent, which was thereafter known as Augustine's Oak. Augustine tried to convince the delegates to join his proselytizing efforts, and to reform certain of their customs, particularly their Easter computus. Though impressed with the newcomer, the Britons asserted that they could not agree to his demands without conferring with their people. They then withdrew until a fuller assembly could be arranged.^[18]

Bede relates an anecdote that the British bishops consulted a wise hermit as to how to respond to Augustine when he arrived for the second council. The hermit replied that they should make the decision based on Augustine's own conduct. If he should rise to greet them at the council, they would know him as a humble servant of Christ and should submit to him, but if he arrogantly kept his seat, they should reject him. As it happened, Augustine did not rise at the council, causing outrage. Augustine offered to allow the Britons to maintain most of their customs if they made three concessions: they should adopt the Roman method of calculating Easter's date, reform their baptismal rite, and join the missionary efforts among the Saxons. The Britons rejected all of these, and, adds Bede, refused to recognize Augustine's authority over them.^[18] Bede reports that Augustine is said to have then delivered a prophecy that the British church's failure to proselytize the Saxons would bring them war and death at their hands. He gives the Battle of Chester, at which many British clergy were said to have been killed by the pagan King Æthelfrith of Northumbria, as the fulfillment of this prophecy.^[19][20][21]

Thereafter, "Celtic" customs were often seen as conflicting with the Roman customs adopted in most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The most significant contention was over the Easter dating, which of all the points of disagreement would have produced the most obvious signs of disunity for observers.^[22] Under the two systems Easter did not generally coincide, and as such it would be matter of course for Christians following one system to be solemnly observing Lent while others were celebrating the feast of the Resurrection. Indeed, this is noted as occurring in the household of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whose kingdom had been evangelized by both Irish and Roman missionaries.^[23] The other custom that consistently drew the ire of adherents to Roman custom was the Celtic tonsure. There is no indication that Augustine himself raised this issue, but it does appear in several other sources, which invariably connect it to the Celtic dating for Easter. John Edward Lloyd suggests that the primary reason for the British bishops' rejection of Augustine, and especially his call for them to join his missionary effort, may have been his claim to sovereignty over them.^[24] It may have been difficult for them to accept the supremacy of a see so deeply entwined with the power of Anglo-Saxon Kent.^[24]

A sense of the independent apostolic succession of the British church endured in the Norman era as the claim that Christianity in Britain had been founded by Saint Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury and that King Arthur, supposedly buried in Glastonbury Abbey, had been the sole upholder of the faith after the fall of Rome. The legend that Jesus himself visited Britain is referred to in "And did those feet in ancient time", by William Blake in 1804, and in the hymn "Jerusalem", with music written by C. Hubert H. Parry in 1916. Such ideas were used by mediaeval anti-Roman movements such as the Lollards and followers of John Wyclif.^[25]

Ireland[link]

St. Patrick, Apostle to the Irish

By the early fifth century the religion had spread to Ireland, which had never been part of the Roman Empire. The highly successful 5th-century mission of Saint Patrick established churches in conjunction with civitates like his own in Armagh; small enclosures in which groups of Christians, often of both sexes and including the married, lived together, served in various roles and ministered to the local population.^[26]

Irish society had no history of literacy until the introduction of Christianity, yet within a few generations of the arrival of the first missionaries the monastic and clerical class of the isle had become fully integrated with the culture of Latin letters. Besides Latin, Irish ecclesiastics developed a written form of Old Irish. During the late 5th and 6th centuries true monasteries became the most important centres: in Patrick's own see of Armagh the change seems to have happened before the end of the 5th century, thereafter the bishop was the abbot also.^[27] Finnian of Clonard is said to have trained the Twelve Apostles of Ireland at Clonard Abbey.

In the sixth and seventh centuries, Irish monks established monastic institutions in parts of modern-day Scotland (especially Columba, also known as Colmcille or, in Old Irish, Colum Cille), and on the continent, particularly in Gaul (especially Columbanus). Monks from Iona under St. Aidan founded the See of Lindisfarne in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria in 635, whence Celtic practice heavily influenced northern England.

The achievements of insular art, in illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells, high crosses, and metalwork like the Ardagh Chalice remain very well known, and in the case of manuscript decoration had a profound influence on Western medieval art.^[28] The manuscripts were certainly produced by and for monasteries, and the evidence suggests that metalwork was produced in both monastic and royal workshops, perhaps as well as secular commercial ones.^[29] Irish monks also founded monasteries across the continent, exerting influence greater than many more ancient continental centres.^[30] The first issuance of a papal privilege granting a monastery freedom from episcopal oversight was that of Pope Honorius I to Bobbio Abbey, one of Columbanus's institutions.^[31]

At least in Ireland, the monastic system became increasingly secularised from the 8th century, as close ties between ruling families and monasteries became apparent. The major monasteries were now wealthy in land and had political importance. On occasion they made war either upon each other or took part in secular wars - a battle in 764 is supposed to have killed 200 from Durrow Abbey when they were defeated by Clonmacnoise.^[32] From early periods the kin nature of many monasteries had meant that some married men were part of the community, supplying labour and with some rights, including in the election of abbots (but obliged to abstain from sex during fasting periods). Some abbacies passed from father to son, and then even grandsons.^[33] A revival of the ascetic tradition came in the second half of the century, with the culdee or "clients (vassals) of God" movement founding new monasteries detached from family groupings.^[34]

Others who influenced the development of Christianity in Ireland include Brigid and Moluag.

Unification[link]

Saxon connections with the greater Latin West led to papal preferment and brought the Celtic-speaking peoples into closer contact with the orthodoxy of the councils. The customs and traditions particular to Insular Christianity became a matter of dispute, especially the matter of the proper calculation of Easter. Synods were held in Ireland, Gaul, and England (e.g. the Synod of Whitby) but a degree of variation continued in Britain after the Ionan church accepted the Roman date.

The Easter question was settled at various times in different places. The following dates are derived from Haddan and Stubbs: South Ireland, 626-8; North Ireland, 692; Northumbria (converted by Celtic missions), 664; East Devon and Somerset, the Celts under Wessex, 705; the Picts, 710; Iona, 716-8; Strathclyde, 721; North Wales, 768; South Wales, 777. Cornwall held out the longest of any, perhaps even, in parts, to the time of Bishop Aedwulf of Crediton (909).^[35]

A uniquely Irish penitential system was eventually adopted as a universal practice of the Church by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.

Pan-Celtic traditions[link]

Caitlin Corning identifies four customs that were common to both the Irish and British churches but not used elsewhere in the Christian world.^[36]

Easter calculation[link]

The Irish and British churches shared a computus, or method of dating Easter, that was distinct from the system used on the Continent. This is an example of the conservatism, even archaism of Celtic Christianity.^[37] Calculating the proper date of Easter was (and is) a complicated process involving a lunisolar calendar. Various tables were produced in antiquity that attempted to calculate Easter for a series of years. Insular Christianity used a calculation table (Celtic-84) that was similar to one approved by Saint Jerome. However, by the sixth and seventh centuries it had become obsolete and had been replaced by those of Victorius of Aquitaine and, more accurately, those of Dionysius Exiguus. As the Celtic world established renewed contact with the Continent it became aware of the divergence; the first clash over the matter came in Gaul in 602, when Columbanus resisted pressure from the local bishops to conform. Most groups, like the southern Irish, accepted the updated tables with relatively little difficulty, with the last significant objectors being the monks from the monastery of Iona and its many satellite institutions.^[38] For example, the southern Irish accepted the common Easter calculation at the Synod of Mag Léne around 630, as did the northern Irish at the Council of Birr around 697, and Northumbria with the Synod of Whitby in 664. Nonetheless, in 716 Iona converted its practice.

Monastic tonsure[link]

The "Roman" tonsure, in the shape of a crown, differing from the Irish tradition, which is unclear but involved shaving the hair from ear to ear in some fashion

All monks of the period, and apparently most or all clergy, kept a distinct tonsure, or method of cutting one's hair, to distinguish their social identity as men of the cloth. In Ireland men otherwise wore longish hair, and a shaved head was worn by slaves.^[39]

The prevailing "Roman" custom was to shave a circle at the top of the head, leaving a halo of hair or corona; this was eventually associated with the imagery of Christ's Crown of Thorns.^[40] The early material referring to the Celtic tonsure emphasizes its distinctiveness from the Roman alternative and invariably connects its use to the Celtic dating of Easter.^[41] Those preferring the Roman tonsure considered the Celtic custom extremely unorthodox, and associated it with the form of tonsure worn by the heresiarch Simon Magus.^[42]

According to The Catholic Encyclopedia British monks shaved their heads in front of a line drawn from ear to ear. This was nicknamed tonsura magorum ("Magus" was accepted as equivalent to druid, and to this day the Magoi of Matthew 2, are druidhean in the Scottish Gaelic Bible). Later, the Roman party jeered at it as the tonsura Simonis Magi, in contradistinction to their "tonsure of St. Peter".^[43] This appears in a 672 letter from Saint Aldhelm to King Geraint of Dumnonia, but it may have been circulating since the Synod of Whitby.^[43] The tonsure is also mentioned in a passage, probably of the 7th century but attributed wrongly to Gildas;^[44] "Britones toti mundo contrarii, moribus Romanis inimici, non solum in misa sed in tonsura etiam" ("Britons are contrary to the whole world, enemies of Roman customs, not only in the Mass but also in regard to the tonsure").

The exact shape of the Irish tonsure is unclear from the early sources, although they agree that the hair was in some way shorn over the head from ear to ear.^[45] In 1639 James Ussher suggested a semi-circular shape, rounded in the front and culminating at a line between the ears.^[46] This suggestion was accepted by many subsequent writers, but in 1703, Jean Mabillon put forth a new hypothesis, claiming that the entire forehead was shaven back to the ears. Mabillon's version was widely accepted, but contradicts the early sources.^[47] In 2003 Daniel McCarthy suggested a triangular shape, with one side between the ears and a vertex towards the front of the head.^[45] The Collectio canonum Hibernensis cites the authority of Saint Patrick as indicating that the custom originated with the swineherd of Lóegaire mac Néill, the king who opposed Patrick.^[48]

Penitentials[link]

In Ireland a distinctive form of penance developed, where confession was made privately to a priest, under the seal of secrecy, and where penance was given privately and ordinarily performed privately as well.^[49] Certain handbooks were made, called “penitentials”, designed as a guide for confessors and as a means of regularising the penance given for each particular sin.

In antiquity, penance had been a public ritual. Penitents were divided into a separate part of the church during liturgical worship, and they came to mass wearing sackcloth and ashes in a process known as exomologesis that often involved some form of general confession.^[50] There is evidence that this public penance was preceded by a private confession to a bishop or priest (sacerdos), and it seems that, for some sins, private penance was allowed instead.^[51] Nonetheless, penance and reconciliation was prevailingly a public rite (sometimes unrepeatable), which included absolution at its conclusion.^[52]

The Irish penitential practice spread throughout the continent, where the form of public penance had fallen into disuse. Saint Columbanus was credited with introducing the medicamenta paentitentiae, the “medicines of penance”, to Gaul at a time when they had come to be neglected.^[53] Though the process met some resistance, by 1215 the practice had become established as the norm, with the Fourth Lateran Council establishing a canonical statute requiring confession at a minimum of once per year.

Peregrinatio[link]

A final distinctive tradition common across the Celtic world was the popularity of peregrinatio pro Christo, or "exile for Christ". The term peregrinatio is Latin, and referred to the state of living or sojourning away from one's homeland in Roman law. It was later used by the Church Fathers, in particular Saint Augustine of Hippo, who wrote that Christians should live a life of peregrinatio in the material world while awaiting the Kingdom of God. Augustine's version of peregrinatio spread widely throughout the Christian church, but it took two additional unique meanings in Celtic countries.^[54]

In the first sense, the Celtic penitentials prescribed permanent or temporary peregrinatio as penance for certain infractions. Additionally, there was a tradition of undertaking a voluntary peregrinatio pro Christo, in which individuals permanently left their homes and put themselves entirely in God's hands. In the Irish tradition there were two types of such peregrinatio, the "lesser" peregrinatio, involving leaving one's home area but not the island, and the "superior" peregrinatio, which meant leaving Ireland for good. Most peregrini or exiles of this type were seeking personal spiritual fulfillment, but many became involved in missionary endeavors. The Briton Saint Patrick became the evangelist of Ireland during what he called his peregrinatio there, while Saint Samson left his home to ultimately become bishop in Brittany. The Irishmen Columba and Columbanus similarly founded highly important religious communities after leaving their homes.^[54]

Other Irish and British traditions[link]

A number of other distinctive traditions and practices existed (or are taken to have existed) in Britain or Ireland, but are not known to have been in use across the entire Celtic-speaking region. Different writers and commenters have identified different traditions as representative of Celtic Christianity.^[55]

Monasticism[link]

A focus on monasticism – the sequestered life of monks and nuns – is often given as an example of Celtic Christian practice. Moreover, the claim is made that the true ecclesiastical power in the Celtic world lay in the hands of abbots of monasteries, rather than the bishops of dioceses.^[9][56] It is certain that the ideal of monasticism was universally esteemed in Celtic Christianity.^[57] This was especially true in Ireland and areas evangelized by Irish missionaries, where monasteries and their abbots came to be vested with a great deal of ecclesiastical and secular power. Following the growth of the monastic movement in the 6th centuries, abbots controlled not only individual monasteries, but also expansive estates and the secular communities that tended them.^[58] As monastics, abbots were not necessarily ordained (i.e. they were not necessarily priests or bishops). They were usually descended from one of the many Irish royal families, and the founding regulations of the abbey sometimes specified that the abbacy should if possible be kept within one family lineage.^[59]

This focus on the monastery has led some scholars, most notably Kathleen Hughes, to argue that the monastic system came to be the dominant ecclesiastical structure in the Irish church, essentially replacing the earlier episcopal structure of the type found in most of the rest of the Christian world.^[60] According to Hughes, the paruchia, or network of monasteries attached to an abbey, replaced the diocese as the chief administrative unit of the church, and the position of abbot largely replaced that of bishop in authority and prominence.^[61] According to this model, bishops were still needed, since certain sacramental functions were reserved only for the ordained, but they had little authority in the ecclesiastical structure.^[62]

However, more recent scholarship, particularly the work of Donnchadh Ó Corráin and Richard Sharpe, has offered a more nuanced view of the interrelationships between the monastic system and the traditional church structures.^[60] Sharpe argues that there is no evidence that the paruchia overrode the diocese, or that the abbot replaced the bishop;^[57] bishops still exercised ultimate spiritual authority and remained in charge of the diocesan clergy.^[60] But either way, the monastic ideal was regarded as the utmost expression of the Christian life.^[57]

The focus on powerful abbots and monasteries was limited to the Irish church, however; it was not universal across the Celtic world. The British church employed an episcopal structure corresponding closely to the model used elsewhere in the Christian world.^[9][56]

Rule of Columbanus[link]

The monasteries of the Irish missions, and many at home, adopted the Rule of Saint Columbanus, which was stricter than the Rule of Saint Benedict, the main alternative in the West. In particular there was more fasting and an emphasis on corporal punishment. For some generations monks trained by Irish missionaries continued to use the Rule and to found new monasteries using it, but most converted to the Benedictine Rule over the 8th and 9th centuries.^[63]

Again, however, the Rule of Columbanus was used exclusively in monasteries in the Irish sphere of influence; it was not followed in British monasteries.

Baptism[link]

Bede implies that in the time of Augustine of Canterbury, British churches used a baptismal rite that was in some way at variance with the Roman practice. According to Bede, the British Christians' failure to "complete" the sacrament of Baptism was one of the three specific issues with British practice that Augustine could not overlook.^[64] There is no indication as to how the baptism was "incomplete" according to the Roman custom. It may be that there was some difference in the confirmation rite, or that there was no confirmation at all.^[24] At any rate, it is unlikely to have caused as much discord as the Easter controversy or the tonsure, as no other source mentions it.^[24] As such there is no evidence that heterodox baptism figured into the practice of the Irish church.^[9][56]

Contemporary Celtic Christianity[link]

A self-identification with and use of "Celtic Christianity" is widespread in countries such as Ireland, both among participants in established churches and independent groups.^[65] The Celtic Church List (http://celticchurchlist.community.officelive.com/default.aspx) provides an online directory of Celtic churches across the United States and in many other countries, including Brazil, Uruguay and Australia.^[66]

Reform[link]

The lengthy reform process of assimilating the Celtic churches into the European mainstream was caused in part by the slow reform of the Papacy itself over many years, but it quickened after the Gregorian Reforms (1150–80). In Britain the Synod of Whitby is considered important, and in Ireland the Synod of Rathbreasail in 1111 established modern dioceses.

See also[link]

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Primary sources[link]

• Adomnan, Life of Columba, ed. A. O. and M. O. Anderson, 2nd edition (Oxford Medieval Texts, 1991)
• Annales Cambriae, ed. Rev. John Williams ab Ithel (London : Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1860)
• Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Angelorum, in Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896)
• Cummian, De controversia paschali and De ratione conputandi, eds. Maura Walsh and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988), pp. 93–5.
• Gildas, De Excidio Brittaniae, ed. J. A. Giles, Six Old English Chronicles (London, 1848)
• Historia Brittonum, ed. J. A. Giles, Six Old English Chronicles (London, 1848)
• Medieval Handbooks of Penance, eds. J. T. McNeill and H. M. Gamer (New York: Columba University Press, 1939)
• Patrick (Saint), Confessio, ed. and trans. John Skinner (Image, 1998)
• Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine), The Lives of the British Saints,(1907) scanned by Google (alphabetized)

Secondary sources[link]

• Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003).
• Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization (Anchor, 1996). ISBN 0-385-41849-3
• Charles-Edwards. T. M. Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge, 2000).
• Corning, Caitlin (2006). The Celtic and Roman Traditions: Conflict and Consensus in the Early Medieval Church. Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7299-0. 
• Cróinín, Dáibhí Ó. Early Medieval Ireland: 400-1200 (London, 1995).
• Davies, Wendy. "The Myth of the Celtic Church", in The Early Church in Wales and the West, Oxbow Monograph, no. 16, edited by Nancy Edwards and Alan Lane, 12-21. (Oxford: Oxbow, 1992).
• Herren, Michael W.; Brown, Shirley Ann (2002). Christ in Celtic Christianity. Boydell Press. ISBN 0-85115-889-7. 
• Hughes, Kathleen (1981). The Celtic Church: Is This a Valid Concept? O'Donnell lectures in Celtic Studies, University of Oxford 1975. 1. pp. 1–20. 
• Hughes, Kathleen (1966). The Church in Early Irish Society. London. ISBN 1-59740-067-X. 
• Hughes, Kathleen (2005). "The Church in Early Irish Society: 400–800". In Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí. A New History of Ireland: Prehistoric and Early Ireland. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-922665-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqOOkVrofcC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.  Google Books link 2
• Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. 
• Lloyd, John Edward (1912). A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest. Longmans, Green, and Co.. http://books.google.com/?id=NYwNAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Lloyd+history+of+Wales#v=onepage&q=. Retrieved May 17, 2010. 
• McCarthy, Daniel (2003). "On the Shape of the Insular Tonsure". Celtica 24: 140–167. http://www.celt.dias.ie/publications/celtica/c24/c24-140-167.pdf. Retrieved June 18, 2009. 
• Nordenfalk, Carl. Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Painting: Book illumination in the British Isles 600–800. New York: George Braziller, 1977.
• Pächt, Otto. Book Illumination in the Middle Ages (trans fr German), 1986, Harvey Miller Publishers, London, ISBN 0-19-921060-8
• Ryan, John. Irish Monasticism, Origins and Early Development, Talbot Press, Dublin, 1931
• Sharpe, Richard. ‘Some problems concerning the organization of the Church in early medieval Ireland’, Peritia 3 (1984).
• Wormald, Patrick. The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and its Historian, ed. Stephen Baxter (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006).
• Yorke, Barbara (2006). The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c. 600–800. London: Pearson/Longman. ISBN 0-582-77292-3. 
• Youngs, Susan, ed. (1989). 'The Work of Angels', Masterpieces of Celtic Metalwork, 6th–9th centuries AD. London: British Museum Press. ISBN 0-7141-0554-6. 

Further reading[link]

• Cahill, Thomas (1996). How the Irish Saved Civilization. Anchor Books. ISBN 0-385-41849-3. 
• Corning, Caitlin (2006). The Celtic and Roman Traditions: Conflict and Consensus in the Early Medieval Church. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7299-0. 
• Mayr-Harting, Henry. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edition (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1991).

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For the famous art forger of the same name, see Tom Keating. For the American football player of the same name, see Tom Keating (American football).

Fr. Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. (born 7th March 1923) is a Trappist monk (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance) and priest, known as one of architects of the Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer, that emerged from St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts, in 1975. He was born in New York City, and attended Deerfield Academy, Yale University, and Fordham University, graduating in December 1943. He is a founder of the Centering Prayer movement and of Contemplative Outreach, Ltd.

Life[link]

Keating entered the Cistercian Order in Valley Falls, Rhode Island, in January, 1944. He was appointed Superior of St. Benedict's Monastery, Snowmass, Colorado, in 1958, and was elected abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts, in 1961. He returned to Snowmass after retiring as abbot of Spencer in 1981, where he established a program of ten-day intensive retreats in the practice of Centering Prayer, a contemporary form of the Christian contemplative tradition.

He is one of three architects of Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer, that emerged from St. Joseph's Abbey in 1975. William Meninger and Basil Pennington, also Cistercian monks, were the other architects. When the concept was first proposed by Father Keating, Fr. William Meninger started teaching a method based on the 14th century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing. Fr. Meninger referred to this as the Prayer of the Cloud and taught it to priests at the retreat house. Fr. Basil Pennington gave the first retreat to a lay audience in Connecticut where the participants suggested the term Centering Prayer. Since Thomas Merton had been known to use the term prior to this, it has been suggested the phrase may have originated from him.

In 1984, Fr. Thomas Keating along with Gustave Reininger and Edward Bednar, co-founded Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., an international, ecumenical spiritual network that teaches the practice of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina, a method of prayer drawn from the Christian contemplative tradition. Contemplative Outreach provides a support system for those on the contemplative path through a wide variety of resources, workshops, and retreats.

Fr. Keating also helped found the Snowmass Interreligious Conference in 1982 and is a past president of the Temple of Understanding and of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue among other interreligious activities.

Fr. Keating currently lives at St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, as does Fr. William Meninger.^[1]

Bibliography[link]

Books[link]

• Crisis of Faith (1979) ISBN 0-932506-05-4
• Finding Grace at the Center (1979) ISBN 0-932506-00-3
• Heart of the World (1981) ISBN 0-8245-0014-8
• And the Word Was Made Flesh (1982) ISBN 0-8245-0505-0
• Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel (1986) ISBN 0-8264-0696-3
• The Mystery of Christ: The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience (1987) ISBN 0-8264-0697-1
• Heart of the World: Spiritual Catechism (1988) ISBN 0-8245-0903-X
• Mystery of Christ (1988) ISBN 0-916349-41-1
• Awakenings (1990) ISBN 0-8245-1044-5
• Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality: A Pathway to Growth and Healing, by Philip St Romain, illus. Intro. by Thomas Keating (1991) ISBN 0-8245-1062-3
• Reawakenings (1991) ISBN 0-8245-1149-2
• Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation (1992) ISBN 0-8264-0698-X
• Intimacy with God (1994) ISBN 0-8245-1588-9
• Loving Search for God: Contemplative Prayer and "The Cloud of Unknowing,", with William A. Meninger (1994) ISBN 0-8264-0682-3
• Crisis of Faith, Crisis of Love (1995) ISBN 0-8264-0805-2
• Active Meditations for Contemplative Prayer (1997) ISBN 0-8264-1061-8
• The Kingdom of God is Like... (1997) ISBN 0-8245-1659-1
• Centering Prayer in Daily Life and Ministry, co-edited with Gustave Reininger (1998) ISBN 0-8264-1041-3
• The Diversity of Centering Prayer (1998) ISBN 0-8264-1115-0
• The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation (Wit Lectures) (1999) ISBN 0-8091-3882-4
• Journey to the Center: A Lenten Passage (1999) ISBN 0-8245-1895-0
• The Better Part: Stages of Contemplative Living (2000) ISBN 0-8264-1229-7
• Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit (2000) ISBN 1-930051-21-2
• St. Therese of Lisieux: A Transformation in Christ (2000) ISBN 1-930051-20-4
• Divine Indwelling: Centering Prayer and Its Development, with George F. Cairns, Thomas R. Ward, Sarah A. Butler, Fitzpatrick-Hopler (2001) ISBN 1-930051-79-4
• Sundays at the Magic Monastery: Homilies from the Trappists of St. Benedict's Monastery with William Meninger, Joseph Boyle, and Theophane Boyd (2002) ISBN 1-59056-033-7
• Transformation of Suffering: Reflections on September 11 and the Wedding Feast at Cana in Galilee (2002) ISBN 1-59056-036-1
• The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. : Sacred Scripture, and Other Spiritual Writings (2003) ISBN 0-8264-1515-6
• Foundations for Centering Prayer and the Christian Contemplative Life: Open Mind, Open Heart, Invitation to Love, Mystery of Christ (2003) ISBN 0-8264-1397-8
• Manifesting God (2005) ISBN 1-59056-085-X
• Active Prayer: On Retreat with Father Thomas Keating (2005) ISBN 0-8264-1783-3
• Centering Prayer: On Retreat with Father Thomas Keating (2005) ISBN 0-8264-1780-9
• Lectio Divina: On Retreat with Father Thomas Keating (2005) ISBN 0-8264-1782-5
• Welcoming Prayer: On Retreat with Father Thomas Keating (2005) ISBN 0-8264-1781-7
• "Divine Therapy and Addiction: Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps" (2009) ISBN 978-1-59056-144-7

Audio/Video[link]

• Contemplative Prayer (Audio, 1995) ISBN 1-56455-324-8
• The Contemplative Journey (Audio, 1997) ISBN 1-56455-537-2
• The Contemplative Journey, Vol. 2 (Audio, 1997) ISBN 1-56455-538-0
• Searching for God in America (Video, 1997)
• The Contemplative Journey (Audio CD) (2005) ISBN 1-59179-335-1
• Contemplative Prayer: Traditional Christian Meditations for Opening to Divine Union (Audio CD) (2005) ISBN 1-59179-306-8

Translations[link]

• El Centro Del Mundo (1993) ISBN 950-512-235-7
• Invitacion a Amar, trans. Mercedes Cesar & Maria E. Steffens (1998) ISBN 0-8264-1093-6
• Misterio de Cristo ed. Maria E. Steffens (1999) ISBN 0-8264-1173-8
• Mente Abierta, Corazon Abierto trans. Ilse Reissner (2001) ISBN 0-8264-1341-2
• Poziv na ljubav (2002) - Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• Otvorena svijest otvoreno srce - Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• Kristovo otajstvo - liturgija kao duhovno iskustvo (2003) - Zagreb (Croatia)
• Nyitott tudat, nyitott szív (2006) - Budapest

Secondary source[link]

• The three spirits of the dark night of sense: A contemporary laywoman's experience (John of the Cross, Saint, Thomas Keating, Michael Washburn), by Debra J. Harmon . (Dissertation, Loyola University of Chicago, 2005) ISBN

References[link]

External links[link]

• Contemplative Outreach
• Summary of Invitation to Love
• ONE: The Movie Participation in ONE: The Movie
• Thomas Keatings' books
• St. Benedict's Monastery
• Works by or about Thomas Keating in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Interview with Thomas Keating on his life and Centering Prayer by ReadTheSpirit.com

Celtae redirects here. For the band see Celtae (band).

Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples:

  core Hallstatt territory, by the 6th century BC

  maximal Celtic expansion, by 275 BC

  Lusitanian area of Iberia where Celtic presence is uncertain

  the "six Celtic nations" which retained significant numbers of Celtic speakers into the Early Modern period

  areas where Celtic languages remain widely spoken today

The Celts (usually pronounced  /ˈkɛlts/ but sometimes /ˈsɛlts/, see pronunciation of Celtic) or Kelts were an ethno-linguistic group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Medieval Europe who spoke Celtic languages and had a similar culture.^[1]

The earliest archaeological culture that may justifiably be considered as Proto-Celtic is the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe from the last quarter of the second millennium BC.^[2] Their fully Celtic^[2] descendants in central Europe were the people of the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (c. 800-450 BC) named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria.^[3] By the later La Tène period (c. 450 BC up to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture had expanded over a wide range of regions, whether by diffusion or migration: to the British Isles (Insular Celts), France and The Low Countries (Gauls), much of Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici and Gallaeci) and northern Italy (Golaseccans and Cisalpine Gauls)^[4] and following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC as far east as central Anatolia (Galatians).^[5]

The earliest directly attested examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions, beginning from the 6th century BC.^[6] Continental Celtic languages are attested only in inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic is attested from about the 4th century in ogham inscriptions, although it is clearly much earlier. Literary tradition begins with Old Irish from about the 8th century. Coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), survive in 12th-century recensions.

By mid 1st millennium AD, following the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations (Migration Period) of Germanic peoples, Celtic culture and Insular Celtic had become restricted to Ireland, to the western and northern parts of Great Britain (Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and the Isle of Man), and to northern France (Brittany). Between the fifth and eighth centuries the Celtic-speaking communities of the Atlantic regions had emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. In language, religion, and art they shared a common heritage that distinguished them from the culture of surrounding polities.^[7] The Continental Celtic languages ceased to be widely used by the 6th century.

Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scottish and Manx) and the Brythonic Celts (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern "Celtic identity" was constructed in the context of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Great Britain, Ireland, and other European territories, such as Galicia.^[8] Today Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton remain spoken in parts of their historical territories, and both Cornish and Manx are currently undergoing revival.

Names and terminology[link]

Galician Celtic Stele: Apana · Ambo/lli · f(ilia) · Celtica /Supertam(arica) · / [j] Miobri · /an(norum) · XXV · h(ic) · s(ita) · e(st) · /Apanus · fr(ater) · f(aciendum)· c(uravit)

The first recorded use of the word Celts (Κελτοί) to refer to an ethnic group was by Hecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC,^[9] when writing about a people living near "Massilia" (Marseille).^[10] According to the testimony of Julius Caesar and Strabo, the Latin name "Celtus" (pl. "Celti" or "Celtae") and the Greek (Κέλτης pl. Κέλται or Κελτός pl. Κελτοί) were borrowed from a native Celtic tribal name.^[11][12] Pliny the Elder referred it as being used in Lusitania as a tribal surname^[13] which epigraphic findings confirm.^[14][15]

Latin "Gallus" might originally be from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansions into Italy of the early 5th century BC. Its root may be the Common Celtic "*galno", meaning power or strength. Galli, Gallaeci and Galatae most probably go with Old Irish gal 'boldness, ferocity' and Welsh gallu 'to be able, power'.^[16] The Greek "Galatai" seems to be based on the same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source which gave us "Galli" (the suffix "-atai" is an Ancient Greek inflection).^[17] (see Galatia in Anatolia)

The English word "Celt" is modern, attested from 1707 in the writings of Edward Lhuyd whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of these early inhabitants of Great Britain.^[18] The English form "Gaul" (first recorded in the 17th century) and "Gaulish" come from the French "Gaule" and "Gaulois", which translate Latin "Gallia" and "Gallus, -icus" respectively. In Old French, the words "gualeis", "galois", "walois" (Northern French phonetics keeping /w/) had different meanings: Welsh or the Langue d'oïl, etc. On the other hand, the word "Waulle" (Northern French phonetics keeping /w/) is recorded for the first time in the 13th century to translate the Latin word Gallia, while "gaulois" is recorded for the first time in the 15th century, and the scholars use it to translate the Latin words Gallus / Gallicus. The word comes from Proto-Germanic *Walha- (see Gaul: Name). The English word "Welsh" originates from the word wælisċ, the Anglo-Saxon form of *walhiska-, the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word for "foreign"^[19] or "Celt" (South German Welsch(e) "Celtic speaker", "French speaker", "Italian speaker"; Old Norse "valskr", pl. "valir" "Gaulish", "French"), that is supposed to be derived of the name of the "Volcae",^[20] a Celtic tribe who lived first in the South of Germany and emigrated then to Gaul.^[21]

The notion of an identifiable Celtic cultural identity or "Celticity", though problematic, generally centres on language, art and classical texts,^[22] though can also include, material artifacts, social organisation, homeland and mythology.^[23] Earlier theories were that this indicated a common racial origin but more recent theories are reflective of culture and language rather than race. Celtic cultures seem to have had numerous diverse characteristics but the commonality between these diverse peoples was the use of a Celtic language.^{[citation needed]}.

"Celtic" is a descriptor of a family of languages and, more generally, means "of the Celts", or "in the style of the Celts". It has also been used to refer to several archaeological cultures defined by unique sets of artifacts. The link between language and artifact is aided by the presence of inscriptions.^[24] (see Celtic (disambiguation) for other applications of the term)

Today, the term Celtic is generally used to describe the languages and respective cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and Brittany, also known as the Six Celtic Nations. These are the regions where four Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent as mother tongues: Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton, plus two recent revivals, Cornish (one of the Brythonic languages) and Manx (one of the Goidelic languages). There are also attempts to reconstruct the Cumbric language (a Brythonic language from North West England and South West Scotland). 'Celtic' is also sometimes used to describe regions of Continental Europe that claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language has survived; these areas include the western Iberian Peninsula, i.e. Portugal, and north-central Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Extremadura).^[25] (see Modern Celts)

"Continental Celts" refers to the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe. "Insular Celts" refers to the different Celtic-speaking peoples of the British and Irish islands and to their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating insular Celts mainly from Wales and Cornwall and so are grouped accordingly.^[26]

Origins[link]

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Overview of the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures.

  The core Hallstatt territory (HaC, 800 BC) is shown in solid yellow,

  the eventual area of Hallstatt influence (by 500 BC, HaD) in light yellow.

  The core territory of the La Tène culture (450 BC) is shown in solid green,

  the eventual area of La Tène influence (by 250 BC) in light green.

The territories of some major Celtic tribes of the late La Tène period are labelled.

The Celtic languages form a branch of the larger Indo-European family. By the time speakers of Celtic languages enter history around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of Western continental Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland and Britain.

Some scholars think that the Urnfield culture of Western Middle Europe represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European family.^[2] This culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from ca. 1200 BC until 700 BC, itself following the Unetice and Tumulus cultures. The Urnfield period saw a dramatic increase in population in the region, probably due to innovations in technology and agricultural practices. The Greek historian Ephoros of Cyme in Asia Minor, writing in the 4th century BC, believed that the Celts came from the islands off the mouth of the Rhine and were "driven from their homes by the frequency of wars and the violent rising of the sea".

The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture directly from the Urnfield (ca. 700 to 500 BC). Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is considered by this school of thought to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures, in the early 1st millennium BC. The spread of the Celtic languages to Iberia, Ireland and Britain would have occurred during the first half of the 1st millennium BC, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to c. 500 BC. Other scholars see Celtic languages as covering Britain and Ireland, and parts of the Continent, long before any evidence of "Celtic" culture is found in archaeology. Over the centuries the language(s) developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brythonic languages.

The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture of central Europe, which was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style are still to be seen in Gallo-Roman artefacts. In Britain and Ireland La Tène style in art survived precariously to re-emerge in Insular art. Early Irish literature casts light on the flavour and tradition of the heroic warrior elites who dominated Celtic societies. Celtic river-names are found in great numbers around the upper reaches of the Danube and Rhine, which led many Celtic scholars to place the ethnogenesis of the Celts in this area.

Diodorus Siculus and Strabo both suggest that the Celtic heartland was in southern France. The former says that the Gauls were to the north of the Celts but that the Romans referred to both as Gauls. Before the discoveries at Hallstatt and La Tene, it was generally considered that the Celtic heartland was southern France, see Encyclopædia Britannica for 1813.

Linguistic evidence[link]

The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age.^[2] The earliest records of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul, the oldest of which still predate the La Tène period. Other early inscriptions are Gaulish, appearing from the early La Tène period in inscriptions in the area of Massilia, in the Greek alphabet. Celtiberian inscriptions appear comparatively late, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic is available only from about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions. Besides epigraphical evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy.^[27]

Archaeological evidence[link]

Map of the Hallstatt Culture

Before the 19th century, scholars^[who?] assumed that the original land of the Celts was west of the Rhine, more precisely in Gaul, because it was where Greek and Roman ancient sources, namely Cesar, located the Celts. This view was challenged by Jubainville^{[citation needed]} who placed the land of origin of the Celts east of the Rhine. Jubainville based his arguments on a phrase of Herodotus´ that placed the Celts at the source of the Danube, and argued that Herodotus had meant to place the Celtic homeland in southern Germany. The finding of the prehistoric cemetery of Hallstat in 1846 by Johan Ramsauer and almost ten years later the finding of the archaeological site of La Tène by Hansli Kopp in 1857 draw attention to this area. The concept that the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures could be seen not just as chronological periods but as “Culture Groups”, entities composed of people of the same ethnicity and language, started to grow by the end of the 19th century. In the beginning of the 20th century the belief that those “Culture Groups” could be thought in racial or ethnic terms was strongly held by Gordon Childe whose theory was influenced by the writings of Gustaf Kossinna.^[28] Along the 20th century the racial ethnic interpretation of La Tene culture rooted much stronger, and any findings of “La Tene culture” and “flat inhumation cemeteries” were directly associated with the celts and the celtic language.^[29] The Iron Age Hallstatt (c. 800-475 BC) and La Tène (c. 500-50 BC) cultures are typically associated with Proto-Celtic and Celtic culture.^[30]

In various^{[clarification needed]} academic disciplines the Celts were considered a Central European Iron Age phenomenon, through the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène. However, archaeological finds from the Halstatt and La Tène culture were rare in the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern France, northern and western Britain, southern Ireland and Galatia^[31][32] and did not provide enough evidence for a cultural scenario comparable to that of Central Europe. It is considered equally difficult to maintain that the origin of the Peninsular Celts can be linked to the preceding Urnfield culture, leading to a more recent approach that introduces a 'proto-Celtic' substratum and a process of Celticisation having its initial roots in the Bronze Age Bell Beaker culture.^[33]

Expansion of the Celtic culture in the IIIth century BC according to Francisco Villar in The Indo-Europeans and the origins of Europe - Italian version p.446

The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from Greek, and later Etruscan civilisations. A shift of settlement centres took place in the 4th century.

The western La Tène culture corresponds to historical Celtic Gaul. Whether this means that the whole of La Tène culture can be attributed to a unified Celtic people is difficult to assess; archaeologists have repeatedly concluded that language, material culture, and political affiliation do not necessarily run parallel. Frey notes that in the 5th century, "burial customs in the Celtic world were not uniform; rather, localised groups had their own beliefs, which, in consequence, also gave rise to distinct artistic expressions".^[34] Thus, while the La Tène culture is certainly associated with the Gauls, the presence of La Tène artefacts may be due to cultural contact and does not imply the permanent presence of Celtic speakers.

Historical evidence[link]

Polybius published a history of Rome about 150 BC in which he describes the Gauls of Italy and their conflict with Rome. Pausanias in the 2nd century BC says that the Gauls "originally called Celts", "live on the remotest region of Europe on the coast of an enormous tidal sea". Posidonius described the southern Gauls about 100 BC. Though his original work is lost it was used by later writers such as Strabo. The latter, writing in the early 1st century AD, deals with Britain and Gaul as well as Hispania, Italy and Galatia. Caesar wrote extensively about his Gallic Wars in 58-51 BC. Diodorus Siculus wrote about the Celts of Gaul and Britain in his 1st-century history.

Minority views[link]

Myles Dillon and Nora Kershaw Chadwick accepted that the Celtic settlement of the British Isles might have to be dated to the Beaker period concluding that There is no reason why so early a date for the coming of the Celts should be impossible (The Celtic Realms Dillon and Chadwick 1967, 18-19).^[35] Martín Almagro Gorbea^[36] proposed the origins of the Celts could be traced back to the 3rd millennium BC, seeking the initial roots in the Bell Beaker culture, thus offering the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the different Celtic peoples, and the existence of ancestral traditions an ancient perspective. Using a multidisciplinary approach Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero reviewed and built on Almagro Gorbea's work to present a model for the origin of the Celtic archaeological groups in the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberian, Vetton, Vaccean, the Castro Culture of the northwest, Asturian-Cantabrian and Celtic of the southwest) and proposing a rethinking the meaning of "Celtic" from a European perspective.^[37] More recently, John Koch^[38] and Barry Cunliffe^[39] have suggested that Celtic origins lie with the Atlantic Bronze Age, roughly contemporaneous with the Hallstatt culture but positioned considerably to the West, extending along the Atlantic coast of Europe.

Stephen Oppenheimer^[40] points out that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees.

Distribution[link]

Continental Celts[link]

Gaul[link]

Repartition of Gaul ca. 54 BC

At the dawn of history in Europe, the Celts then living in what is now France were known as Gauls to the Romans. The territory of these peoples probably included the low countries, the Alps and what is now northern Italy. Their descendants were described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. Eastern Gaul was the centre of the western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organisation was similar to that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the Gauls adopted coinage, and texts with Greek characters are known in southern Gaul from the 2nd century.

Greek traders founded Massalia in about 600 BC, with exchange up the Rhone valley, but trade was disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the Alps to the Po valley in Italy. The Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd century BC and encountered a Gaul that was mostly Celtic-speaking. Rome needed land communications with its Iberian provinces and fought a major battle with the Saluvii at Entremont in 124-123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, and the Roman Province of Gallia Transalpina was formed along the Mediterranean coast. The remainder was known as Gallia Comata - "Hairy Gaul".

In 58 BC, the Helvetii planned to migrate westward but were forced back by Julius Caesar. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 BC, most of Gaul had been overrun. In 52 BC, Vercingetorix led a revolt against the Roman occupation but was defeated at the siege of Alesia and surrendered.

Following the Gallic Wars of 58-51 BC, Caesar's Celtica formed the main part of Roman Gaul. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by the Garonne and on the north by the Seine and the Marne.^[41] Place and personal name analysis and inscriptions suggest that the Gaulish Celtic language was spoken over most of what is now France.^[42]

Iberia[link]

Main language areas in Iberia, showing Celtic languages in beige, circa 300 BC.

Triskelion and spirals on a Galician torc terminal (Museu do castro de Santa Tegra).

Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the Celts did acknowledge their presence in the Iberian Peninsula^[43][44] as a material culture relatable to the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. However, since according to the definition of the Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic populations were supposedly rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe, the presence of celtic culture in that region was generally not fully recognised. Three divisions of the Celts of the Iberian Peninsula were assumed to have existed: the Celtiberians in the mountains near the centre of the peninsula, the Celtici in the southwest, and the celts in the northwest (in Gallaecia and Asturias).^[45]

Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions.^[46][47] The Celts in Iberia were divided into two main archaeological and cultural groups,^[48] even though that division is not very clear:

• One group was spread out along Galicia^[49] and the Iberian Atlantic shores. They were made up of the Proto / Para-Celtic Lusitanians (in Portugal)^[50] and the Celtic region that Strabo called Celtica in the southwestern Iberian peninsula,^[51] including the Algarve, which was inhabited by the Celtici, the Vettones and Vacceani peoples^[52] (of central-western Spain and Portugal), and the Gallaecian, Astures and Cantabrian peoples of the Castro culture of northern and northwestern Spain and Portugal.^[53]
• The Celtiberian group of central Spain and the upper Ebro valley.^[54] This group originated when Celts (mainly Gauls and some Celtic-Germanic groups) migrated from what is now France and integrated with the local Iberian people.

The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the Celticisation process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of Celticisation of the southwestern area of the peninsula by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is, however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent investigations about the Callaici^[55] and Bracari^[56] in northwestern Portugal are providing new approaches to understanding Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.^[57]

John T. Koch of the University of Wales-Aberystwyth suggested that Tartessian inscriptions of the 8th century BC might already be classified as Celtic. This would mean that Tartessian is the earliest attested trace of Celtic by margin of more than a century.^[58]

Alps and Po Valley[link]

Map of the Alpine region of the Roman Empire as of AD 14.

It had been known for some time that there was an early, although apparently somewhat limited, Celtic (Lepontic, sometimes called Cisalpine Celtic) presence in Northern Italy since inscriptions dated to the 6th century BC have been found there.

The site of Golasecca, where the Ticino exits from Lake Maggiore, was particularly suitable for long-distance exchanges, in which Golaseccans acted as intermediaries between Etruscans and the Halstatt culture of Austria, supported on the all-important trade in salt.

In 391 BC Celts "who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Appennine mountains and the Alps" according to Diodorus Siculus. The Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) was inhabited by Celtic-speakers who founded cities such as Milan.^[59] Later the Roman army was routed at the battle of Allia and Rome was sacked in 390 BC by the Senones.

At the battle of Telamon in 225 BC a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces and crushed.

The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.

Eastward expansion[link]

Celtic tribes in S.E.E c. 1st century BC (in purple)

The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the Scordisci, had established their capital at Singidunum in 3rd century BC, which is present-day Belgrade, Serbia. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a density of population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine. Expansion into Romania was however blocked by the Dacians.

Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians (see also: Gallic Invasion of Greece). Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least 700 years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.

For Venceslas Kruta, Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense celtic settlement.

The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia, Bologna and possibly Bavaria, and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and Slovakia. A celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava's mint was displayed on the old Slovak 5-crown coin.

As there is no archaeological evidence for large-scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion.^[60] However, the Celtic invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history.

There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were employed in 283-246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC. They attempted to overthrow Ptolemy II.

Insular Celts[link]

Principal sites in Roman Britain, with indication of tribal territories.

All Celtic languages extant today belong to the Insular Celtic languages, derived from the Celtic languages spoken in Iron Age Britain. They were separated into a Goidelic and a Brythonic branch from an early period.

Linguists have been arguing for many years whether a Celtic language came to Britain and Ireland and then split or whether there were two separate "invasions". The older view of prehistorians was that the Celtic influence in the British Isles was the result of successive invasions from the European continent by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several centuries, accounting for the P-Celtic vs. Q-Celtic isogloss. This view is now generally discredited in favour of a phylogenetic Insular Celtic dialect group.

Celtic arrival in Britain is usually taken to correspond to Hallstatt influence and the appearance of chariot burials in what is now England from about the 6th century BC. Some Iron Age migration does seem to have occurred but the nature of the interactions with the indigenous populations of the isles is unknown. In the late Iron Age Pryor estimates that the population of Britain and Ireland was between 1 and 1.5 million, upon which a smaller number of Celtic-speaking immigrant populations would have installed themselves as a superstrate.

By about the 6th century (Sub-Roman Britain), most of the inhabitants of the Isles were speaking Celtic languages of either the Goidelic or the Brythonic branch.

After Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the 50s BC, some Belgic people seem to have come to central southern Britain.^[61] Though there was a tribe called Parisi in eastern Yorkshire, these were probably a British people with cultural links to the continent. It has been claimed that there were a tribe of Iverni in Ireland who spoke a Brythonic language.

In Ireland as in Great Britain, beginning Celtic influence is taken to correspond to the beginning Iron Age. The adoption of Celtic culture and language was likely a gradual transformation, brought on by cultural exchange with Celtic groups in the mainland or otherwise southwest continental Europe.

Romanisation[link]

The Roman republic and its neighbours in 58 BC.

Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of Britain. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman tribal boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government.

The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanised and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.

The Roman occupation of Gaul, and to a lesser extent of Britain, led to Roman-Celtic syncretism. In the case of the continental Celts, this eventually resulted in a language shift to Vulgar Latin, while the Insular Celts retained their language.

There was also considerable cultural influence exerted by Gaul on Rome, particularly in military matters and horsemanship, as the Gauls often served in the Roman cavalry. The Romans adopted the Celtic cavalry sword, the spatha, and Epona, the Celtic horse goddess.^[62][63]

Society[link]

Stone head from Mšecké Žehrovice, Czech Republic, wearing a torc, late La Tène culture.

To the extent that sources are available, they depict a pre-Christian Celtic social structure based formally on class and kingship. Patron-client relationships similar to those of Roman society are also described by Caesar and others in the Gaul of the 1st century BC.

In the main, the evidence is of tribes being led by kings, although some argue that there is also evidence of oligarchical republican forms of government eventually emerging in areas which had close contact with Rome. Most descriptions of Celtic societies portray them as being divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy; an intellectual class including professions such as druid, poet, and jurist; and everyone else. In historical times, the offices of high and low kings in Ireland and Scotland were filled by election under the system of tanistry, which eventually came into conflict with the feudal principle of primogeniture in which succession goes to the first born son.

Little is known of family structure among the Celts. Patterns of settlement varied from decentralised to urban. The popular stereotype of non-urbanised societies settled in hillforts and duns,^[64] drawn from Britain and Ireland (there are about 3,000 hill forts known in Britain)^[65] contrasts with the urban settlements present in the core Hallstatt and La Tene areas, with the many significant oppida of Gaul late in the first millennium BC, and with the towns of Gallia Cisalpina.

Slavery, as practised by the Celts, was very likely similar to the better documented practice in ancient Greece and Rome.^[66] Slaves were acquired from war, raids, and penal and debt servitude.^[66] Slavery was hereditary^{[citation needed]}, though manumission was possible. The Old Irish word for slave, cacht, and the Welsh term caeth are likely derived from the Latin captus, captive, suggesting that slave trade was an early venue of contact between Latin and Celtic societies.^[66] In the Middle Ages, slavery was especially prevalent in the Celtic countries.^[67] Manumissions were discouraged by law and the word for "female slave", cumal, was used as a general unit of value in Ireland.^[68]

Archaeological evidence suggests that the pre-Roman Celtic societies were linked to the network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia. Archaeologists have discovered large prehistoric trackways crossing bogs in Ireland and Germany. Due to their substantial nature, these are believed to have been created for wheeled transport as part of an extensive roadway system that facilitated trade.^[69] The territory held by the Celts contained tin, lead, iron, silver and gold.^[70] Celtic smiths and metalworkers created weapons and jewellery for international trade, particularly with the Romans.

The myth that the Celtic monetary system consisted of wholly barter is a common one, but is in part false. The monetary system was complex and is still not understood (much like the late Roman coinages), and due to the absence of large numbers of coin items, it is assumed that "proto-money" was used. This is the collective term used to describe bronze items made from the early La Tene period onwards, which were often in the shape of axeheads, rings, or bells. Due to the large number of these present in some burials, it is thought they had a relatively high monetary value, and could be used for "day to day" purchases. Low-value coinages of potin, a bronze alloy with high tin content, were minted in most Celtic areas of the continent and in South-East Britain prior to the Roman conquest of these lands. Higher-value coinages, suitable for use in trade, were minted in gold, silver, and high-quality bronze. Gold coinage was much more common than silver coinage, despite being worth substantially more, as while there were around 100 mines in Southern Britain and Central France, silver was more rarely mined. This was due partly to the relative sparcity of mines and the amount of effort needed for extraction compared to the profit gained. As the Roman civilisation grew in importance and expanded its trade with the Celtic world, silver and bronze coinage became more common. This coincided with a major increase in gold production in Celtic areas to meet the Roman demand, due to the high value Romans put on the metal. The large number of gold mines in France is thought to be a major reason why Caesar invaded.

The Dying Gaul, a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic work of the late 3rd century BC Capitoline Museums, Rome

There are only very limited records from pre-Christian times written in Celtic languages. These are mostly inscriptions in the Roman and sometimes Greek alphabets. The Ogham script, an Early Medieval alphabet, was mostly used in early Christian times in Ireland and Scotland (but also in Wales and England), and was only used for ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on gravestones. The available evidence is of a strong oral tradition, such as that preserved by bards in Ireland, and eventually recorded by monasteries. The oldest recorded rhyming poetry in the world is of Irish origin^[71] and is a transcription of a much older epic poem, leading some scholars to claim that the Celts invented rhyme. Celtic art also produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites.

In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative: for example, they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans. However, despite being outdated, Celtic chariot tactics were able to repel the invasion of Britain attempted by Julius Caesar.

According to Diodorus Siculus:

The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.

—Diodorus Siculus

Clothing[link]

The Waterloo Helmet

During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved shirts or tunics and long trousers (called braccae by the Romans).^[72] Clothes were made of wool or linen, with some silk being used by the rich. Cloaks were worn in the winter. Brooches and armlets were used, but the most famous item of jewellery was the torc, a neck collar of metal, sometimes gold. The horned Waterloo Helmet in the British Museum, which long set the standard for modern images of Celtic warriors, is in fact a unique survival, and may have been a piece for ceremonial rather than military wear.

Gender and sexual norms[link]

Reconstruction of a Celtic warrior's garments, museum Kelten-Keller, Rodheim-Bieber, Germany

According to Aristotle, most "belligerent nations" were strongly influenced by their women, but the Celts were unusual because their men openly preferred male lovers (Politics II 1269b).^[73] H. D. Rankin in Celts and the Classical World notes that "Athenaeus echoes this comment (603a) and so does Ammianus (30.9). It seems to be the general opinion of antiquity."^[74] In book XIII of his Deipnosophists, the Roman Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus, repeating assertions made by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC (Bibliotheca historica 5:32), wrote that Celtic women were beautiful but that the men preferred to sleep together. Diodorus went further, stating that "the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused". Rankin argues that the ultimate source of these assertions is likely to be Poseidonius and speculates that these authors may be recording male "bonding rituals".^[75]

The sexual freedom of women in Britain was noted by Cassius Dio:^[76]

...a very witty remark is reported to have been made by the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta. When the empress was jesting with her, after the treaty, about the free intercourse of her sex with men in Britain, she replied: "We fulfill the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest." Such was the retort of the British woman.

—Cassius Dio

There are instances recorded where women participated both in warfare and in kingship, although they were in the minority in these areas. Plutarch reports that Celtic women acted as ambassadors to avoid a war among Celts chiefdoms in the Po valley during the 4th century BC.^[77]

Very few reliable sources exist regarding Celtic views towards gender divisions and societal statues, though some archaeological evidence does suggest that their views towards gender roles may differ from contemporary and less egalitarian classical counterparts of the Roman era.^[78][79]

There are some general indications from Iron Age burial sites in the Champagne and Bourgogne regions of Northeastern France which suggest that women may have had roles in combat during the earlier portions of the La Tène period. However, the evidence is far from conclusive.^[80] Examples of individuals buried with both female jewellery and weaponry have been identified, such as the Vix Grave, and there are questions about the sexing of some skeletons that were buried with warrior assemblages. However, it has been suggested that "the weapons may indicate rank instead of masculinity".^[81]

Among the insular Celts, there is a greater amount of historic documentation to suggest warrior roles for women. In addition to commentary by Tacitus about Boudica, there are indications from later period histories that also suggest a more substantial role for "women as warriors" in symbolic if not actual roles. Posidonius and Strabo described an island of women where men could not venture for fear of death, and where the women ripped each other apart.^[82] Other writers, such as Ammianus Marcellinus and Tacitus, mentioned Celtic women inciting, participating in, and leading battles.^[83] Poseidonius' anthropological comments on the Celts had common themes, primarily primitivism, extreme ferocity, cruel sacrificial practices, and the strength and courage of their women.^[84]

Under Brehon Law, which was written down in early Medieval Ireland after conversion to Christianity, a woman had the right to divorce her husband and gain his property if he was unable to perform his marital duties due to impotence, obesity, homosexual inclination or preference for other women.^[85]

Celtic art[link]

The reverse side of a British bronze mirror, with spiral and trumpet motifs typical of La Tène Celtic art in Britain

Celtic art is generally used by art historians to refer to art of the La Tène period across Europe, while the Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, that is what "Celtic art" evokes for much of the general public, is called Insular art in art history. Both styles absorbed considerable influences from non-Celtic sources, but retained a preference for geometrical decoration over figurative subjects, which are often extremely stylised when they do appear; narrative scenes only appear under outside influence. Energetic circular forms, triskeles and spirals are characteristic. Much of the surviving material is in precious metal, which no doubt gives a very unrepresentative picture, but apart from Pictish stones and the Insular high crosses, large monumental sculpture, even with decorative carving, is very rare; possibly it was originally common in wood.

The interlace patterns that are often regarded as typical of "Celtic art" were in fact introduced to Insular art from the animal Style II of Germanic Migration Period art, though taken up with great skill and enthusiasm by Celtic artists in metalwork and illuminated manuscripts. Equally, the forms used for the finest Insular art were all adopted from the Roman world: Gospel books like the Book of Kells and Book of Lindisfarne, chalices like the Ardagh Chalice and Derrynaflan Chalice, and penannular brooches like the Tara Brooch. These works are from the period of peak achievement of Insular art, which lasted from the 7th to the 9th centuries, before the Viking attacks sharply set back cultural life.

In contrast the less well known but often spectacular art of the richest earlier Continental Celts, before they were conquered by the Romans, often adopted elements of Roman, Greek and other "foreign" styles (and possibly used imported craftsmen) to decorate objects that were distinctively Celtic. After the Roman conquests, some Celtic elements remained in popular art, especially Ancient Roman pottery, of which Gaul was actually the largest producer, mostly in Italian styles, but also producing work in local taste, including figurines of deities and wares painted with animals and other subjects in highly formalised styles. Roman Britain also took more interest in enamel than most of the Empire, and its development of champlevé technique was probably important to the later Medieval art of the whole of Europe, of which the energy and freedom of Insular decoration was an important element.

Warfare and weapons[link]

Parade Helmet, Agris, France. 350 BC, with stylistic borrowings from around the Mediterranean.

Principal sites in Roman Britain, with indication of the Celtic tribes. Tribal warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, the historical record is more of tribes using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.^{[citation needed]}

The Celts were described by classical writers such as Strabo, Livy, Pausanias, and Florus as fighting like "wild beasts", and as hordes. Dionysius said that their "manner of fighting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic procedure, quite lacking in military science. Thus, at one moment they would raise their swords aloft and smite after the manner of wild boars, throwing the whole weight of their bodies into the blow like hewers of wood or men digging with mattocks, and again they would deliver crosswise blows aimed at no target, as if they intended to cut to pieces the entire bodies of their adversaries, protective armour and all".^[86] Such descriptions have been challenged by contemporary historians.^[87]

Polybius (2.33) indicates that the principal Celtic weapon was a long bladed sword which was used for hacking edgewise rather than stabbing. Celtic warriors are described by Polybius and Plutarch as frequently having to cease fighting in order to straighten their sword blades. This claim has been questioned by some archaeologists, who note that Noric steel, steel produced in Celtic Noricum, was famous in the Roman Empire period and was used to equip the Roman military.^[88][89] However, Radomir Pleiner, in The Celtic Sword (1993) argues that "the metallographic evidence shows that Polybius was right up to a point", as around one third of surviving swords from the period might well have behaved as he describes.^[90]

Polybius also asserts that certain of the Celts fought naked, "The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life."^[91] According to Livy this was also true of the Celts of Asia Minor.^[92]

Head hunting[link]

A Gallic statue of a Celtic warrior, in the Museum of Brittany

Celts had a reputation as head hunters. According to Paul Jacobsthal, "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world."^[93] Arguments for a Celtic cult of the severed head include the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tène carvings, and the surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their decapitated heads, right down to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off, just as St. Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre.

A further example of this regeneration after beheading lies in the tales of Connemara's St. Feichin, who after being beheaded by Viking pirates carried his head to the Holy Well on Omey Island and on dipping the head into the well placed it back upon his neck and was restored to full health.

Diodorus Siculus, in his 1st century History had this to say about Celtic head-hunting:

They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold

In Gods and Fighting Men, Lady Gregory's Celtic Revival translation of Irish mythology, heads of men killed in battle are described in the beginning of the story The Fight With The Fir Bolgs as pleasing to Macha, one aspect of the war goddess Morrigu.

Religion[link]

Polytheism[link]

A statuette in the Museum of Brittany, Rennes, probably depicting Brigantia/Brigid: ca. 1st century AD, with iconography derived from Roman statues of Minerva.

Like other European Iron Age tribal societies, the Celts practised a polytheistic religion.^[94] Many Celtic gods are known from texts and inscriptions from the Roman period. Rites and sacrifices were carried out by priests known as druids. The Celts did not see their gods as having human shapes until late in the Iron Age. Celtic shrines were situated in remote areas such as hilltops, groves, and lakes.

Celtic religious patterns were regionally variable; however, some patterns of deity forms, and ways of worshipping these deities, appeared over a wide geographical and temporal range. The Celts worshipped both gods and goddesses. In general, Celtic gods were deities of particular skills, such as the many-skilled Lugh and Dagda, while goddesses were associated with natural features, particularly rivers (such as Boann, goddess of the River Boyne). This was not universal, however, as goddesses such as Brighid and The Morrígan were associated with both natural features (holy wells and the River Unius) and skills such as blacksmithing and healing.^[95]

Triplicity is a common theme in Celtic cosmology, and a number of deities were seen as threefold.^[96] This trait is exhibited by The Three Mothers, a group of goddesses worshipped by many Celtic tribes (with regional variations).^[97]

The Celts had literally hundreds of deities, some of which were unknown outside a single family or tribe, while others were popular enough to have a following that crossed lingual and cultural barriers. For instance, the Irish god Lugh, associated with storms, lightning, and culture, is seen in similar forms as Lugos in Gaul and Lleu in Wales. Similar patterns are also seen with the continental Celtic horse goddess Epona and what may well be her Irish and Welsh counterparts, Macha and Rhiannon, respectively.^[98]

Roman reports of the druids mention ceremonies being held in sacred groves. La Tène Celts built temples of varying size and shape, though they also maintained shrines at sacred trees and votive pools.^[94]

Druids fulfilled a variety of roles in Celtic religion, serving as priests and religious officiants, but also as judges, sacrificers, teachers, and lore-keepers. Druids organised and ran religious ceremonies, and they memorised and taught the calendar. Other classes of druids performed ceremonial sacrifices of crops and animals for the perceived benefit of the community.^[99]

Gallic Calendar[link]

The Coligny calendar, which was found in 1897 in Coligny, Ain, was engraved on a bronze tablet, preserved in 73 fragments, that originally was 1.48 m wide and 0.9 m high (Lambert p. 111). Based on the style of lettering and the accompanying objects, it probably dates to the end of the 2nd century.^[100] It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals, and is in the Gallic language. The restored tablet contains 16 vertical columns, with 62 months distributed over 5 years.

The French archaeologist J. Monard speculated that it was recorded by druids wishing to preserve their tradition of timekeeping in a time when the Julian calendar was imposed throughout the Roman Empire. However, the general form of the calendar suggests the public peg calendars (or parapegmata) found throughout the Greek and Roman world.^[101]

Roman Influence[link]

The Roman invasion of Gaul brought a great deal of Celtic peoples into the Roman Empire. Roman culture had a profound effect on the Celtic tribes which came under the empire's control. Roman influence led to many changes in Celtic religion, the most noticeable of which was the weakening of the druid class, especially religiously; the druids were to eventually disappear altogether. Romano-Celtic deities also began to appear: these deities often had both Roman and Celtic attributes and combined the names of Roman and Celtic deities. Other changes included the adaptation of the Jupiter Pole, a sacred pole which was used throughout Celtic regions of the empire, primarily in the north. Another major change in religious practice was the use of stone monuments to represent gods and goddesses. The Celts had only created wooden idols (including monuments carved into trees, which were known as sacred poles) previously to Roman conquest.^[97]

Celtic Christianity[link]

A Celtic cross.

While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Ireland and Scotland moved from Celtic polytheism to Christianity in the 5th century. Ireland was converted under missionaries from Britain, such as Patrick. Later missionaries from Ireland were a major source of missionary work in Scotland, Saxon parts of Britain, and central Europe (see Hiberno-Scottish mission). The term Celtic Christianity has been applied to the forms of Christianity that took hold in Britain and Ireland at this time, with especial reference to its traditions that were distinct from the rest of Western Christianity. The development of Christianity in Ireland and Britain brought an early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 390 and 1200 AD.^[102][103] Many of the styles now thought of as typically "Celtic" developed in this period, and are found throughout much of Ireland and Britain, including the northeast and far north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland. Notable works produced during this period include the Book of Kells and the Ardagh Chalice. Antiquarian interest from the 17th century led to the term Celt being extended, and rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century.

See also[link]

	Culture portal
	Europe portal
	Celts portal

• Celtic nations
• Celtic languages
• Ethnic groups of Europe
• Modern Celts

Notes[link]

Literature[link]

• Alberro, Manuel and Arnold, Bettina (eds.), e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, Volume 6: The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Center for Celtic Studies, 2005.
• Collis, John. The Celts: Origins, Myths and Inventions. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7524-2913-2. Historiography of Celtic studies.
• Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-815010-5.
• Cunliffe, Barry. Iron Age Britain. London: Batsford, 2004. ISBN 0-7134-8839-5
• Cunliffe, Barry. The Celts: A Very Short Introduction. 2003
• Freeman, Philip Mitchell The Earliest Classical Sources on the Celts: A Linguistic and Historical Study. Diss. Harvard University, 1994. (link)
• Gamito, Teresa J. The Celts in Portugal. In E-Keltoi, Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, vol. 6. 2005.
• Haywood, John. Historical Atlas of the Celtic World. 2001.
• Herm, Gerhard. The Celts: The People who Came out of the Darkness. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977.
• James, Simon. Exploring the World of the Celts 1993.
• James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, August 1999. ISBN 0-299-16674-0.
• James, Simon & Rigby, Valerie. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age. London: British Museum Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7141-2306-4.
• Kruta, V., O. Frey, Barry Raftery and M. Szabo. eds. The Celts. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0-8478-2193-5. A translation of Les Celtes: Histoire et Dictionnaire 2000.
• Laing, Lloyd. The Archaeology of Late Celtic Britain and Ireland c. 400–1200 AD. London: Methuen, 1975. ISBN 0-416-82360-2
• Laing, Lloyd and Jenifer Laing. Art of the Celts, London: Thames and Hudson, 1992 ISBN 0-500-20256-7
• MacKillop, James. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-280120-1
• Maier, Bernhard: Celts: A History from Earliest Times to the Present. University of Notre Dame Press 2003. ISBN 978-0-268-02361-4
• McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History. New York: Penguin, 1985. ISBN 0-14-070832-4
• Mallory, J. P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0-500-27616-1.
• O'Rahilly, T. F. Early Irish History Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946.
• Powell, T. G. E. The Celts. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1980. third ed. 1997. ISBN 0-500-27275-1.
• Raftery, Barry. Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. ISBN 0-500-27983-7.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Celts

Additional articles[link]

• Ancient Celtic music - in the Citizendium
• Essays on Celtiberian topics - in e-Keltoi, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Ancient Celtic Warriors in History

Geography[link]

• An interactive map showing the lands of the Celts between 800BC and 305AD.
• Detailed map of the Pre-Roman Peoples of Iberia (around 200 BC), showing the Celtic territories
• Map of Celtic lands

Multimedia[link]

• Discussion - with academician Barry Cunliffe, on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time, February 21, 2002. (Streaming Realplayer format)
• "The Primitive Celts" - part of Terry Jones' Barbarians, June 2006.

Organisations[link]

• newworldcelts.org
• XIII. International Congress of Celtic Studies in Bonn

Special interest[link]

• Related Nordic-Celtic DNA material - at FamilyTreeDNA.com
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/celts-descended-from-spanish-fishermen-study-finds-416727.html

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