The Celts - a Brief History
The Celts were originally a nation in present day Eastern France. However the Celtic culture is best depicted as a loose and highly diverse collection of indigenous tribal societies bound together by trade, a common druidic religion, and similar political institutions – but each having its own local language and traditions. The modern Celtic nations are recognised by language – Brythonic (still spoken by the Welsh, Breton and Cornish) and Goidelic (still spoken by the Irish, Scots Gaelic, & Manx), and are currently undergoing a renaissance of Celtic culture.
The Celtic peoples, including the ancestors of all the modern Celtic nations, had a largely pre-Celtic genetic history, shared with the Basque people and possibly going back to the Palaeolithic. Stonehenge and the other megalithic monuments long predate the Iron Age Culture, but genetic evidence indicates that the Celtic populations of the Atlantic archipelago have been relatively stable for at least 6,000 years, in which case the modern Celts would be the direct descendents of their builders. Therefore Celts were not invading aliens but descendents of the people of Stonehenge.
The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as “keltoi”
or “hidden people”, is by the Greek historian Hecataeus in
517 BC. Some scholars think that the “Urnfield Culture” represents
an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural family of the Indo-European
family. This culture was pre-eminent in Central Europe during the late
Bronze Age from 1200 BC until 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to
the development of the “Hallstatt Culture” directly from the
Urnfield. The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tene culture,
and during the final stages of the Iron Age gradually transformed into
the explicitly Celtic culture of early historic times. The Celts are known
as the people who brought iron working to the British Isles. The advent
of iron changed trade and fostered local independence as iron, unlike
bronze, was relatively cheap and available almost everywhere.
The La Tene culture in central Europe, the Golden Age of Celtdom, was
from the 5th to 3rd centuries BC was highly derivative from the Greek,
Etruscan and Scythian decorative styles with whom the La Tene settlers
frequently traded. La Tene saw more lavish burials, more advanced decorations
on swords, helmets and jewellery, and a more cosmopolitan influence.
The Celts in present-day France were known as Gauls. Their descendents
were described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic wars. Celtic tribes sacked
Rome itself in 390 BC following the Battle of the Allia, but it was not
until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent
Celtic kingdoms in Italy.
The combination of Roman expansion from the south, Germanic migration
into Europe from the north-east, and internal disunity amongst the Celts
themselves left in modern times only Gaul (now France) and the British
Isles still under Celtic law and leadership. Today they are found in Scotland,
Ireland, Mann, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.
The Celts were not centrally governed and quite happy to fight each other
as any non-Celt. Famed for their love of war, drinking and feasting, the
Celts were also deeply spiritual people, with a closeness to nature. To
them, the natural world was a living and sacred entity. The air, water,
trees, animals and rocks were deeply revered and this relationship with
nature, with the land and its non human inhabitants is central to the
Celtic religion.
The Pre-Christian Celtic deities were mythic archetypes, and their legends
and stories were used to teach and inspire. The Celts thought themselves
to be potentially existent in all worlds, in the sense that they related
to each part of their cosmology. It was considered possible to pass between
the worlds. “Otherworld” existed alongside and entwined with
the real world and the doors between the worlds were considered to be
opened and often traversed in both directions.
The Celts were farmers when they weren’t fighting. Celtic lands
were owned communally and wealth seems to have been based largely on the
size of the cattle herd owned. The lot of women was a good deal better
than in most societies at that time. They were technically equal to men,
owned property, and could choose their own husbands. They could also be
war leaders (as Boudicea) later proved.
The Celts were also master craftsmen and artists and characteristic of
their culture was their love of decoration and generous use of jewellery.
Their artwork, as can be seen in some of the St Justin reproductions,
is distinctive for long sweeping curves, undulations with the concentric
energy of spirals or bosses done in torcs, tendrils, raised swirls, yin-yangs
and trisceles. Like the Egyptians, the Celts buried their nobles with
their jewellery and weapons. To plunder graves was considered an appalling
sacrilege.
By the commencement of the Christian era the entire Celtic world, excepting
Ireland and Scotland, had fallen under Roman rule. The Roman empire’s
decline and the onset of the Dark Ages saw the Celts in Gaul pushed into
Brittany by the invasion of the Franks, and the British Celts scattered
into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland by the 6th century Saxon conquest of
England. From the beginning of the Dark Ages, Ireland (from 500 to 900
AD) became the refuge of learning and the source of literary and philosophical
culture for half of Europe.
It was at this time that a second stage of Celtic artwork became predominant
in Ireland, and to a lesser extent in Scotland. In many respects this
was due to the spread of Christianity and the impact of Germanic tribes
representing a quite distinct second wave of Aryans migrating westward
across Europe. It encompassed the development of indigenous Celtic forms
drawn together with crude Germanic zoomorphic styles, particularly those
of the Saxons, and later, the Norse. Such forms were then developed into
the artistic Celtic knotwork seen today in manuscripts such as the “Lindisfarne
Gospels” and “The Book of Kells”, sculptured in stone
as in “St John’s Cross of Iona”, and in items of fine
metalcraft and jewellery such as the “Ardagh Chalice” and
the “Tara Brooch”.
The vulnerability and archetypal content of these Celtic motifs have created
an ideal medium for contemporary jewellery such as St Justin. This archetypal
quality shows itself in many of the similarities between Celtic art and
that of Middle Eastern, African, Japanese and American Indian artworks.
The modern term “Celt” was coined as an umbrella term in the
early C18th to distinguish non-English inhabitants of the archipelago
when England united with Scotland in 1707 to create the United Kingdom.
Modern interpretations of the Celtic traditions gave us the Art Nouveau
movement, and Celtic art is continually evolving, a living art created
for the people of today.
Disclaimer – All attempts have been made for historical
accuracy. However we are always open to a well structured argument, and
information on new and relevant information/sources is always welcome.
The Turning Point a.k.a The Merchants of Menace
References -
St Justin Pty Ltd.
www.ibiblio.org/gaelic/Celts/celtshistory.html
www.britainexpress.com/History/Celtic_Britain.htm
www.crystalinks.com/celts.html
Ps. have a good look at the Culture of ‘The Steppes’ nomads.