Celtic Culture

[Ursus]

Preface.

The following is one man’s interpretation of Celtic culture as seen through a few scholarly texts. He does not claim to be an expert, only a student. He offers the following brief in honor of Celtic Month on the forum Peregrini.

 

 

Definition

Celt is a modern word referring to a group of people who shared similar languages, religions and cultures in Western Eurasia. The Celts themselves never referred to themselves as such. They, and apparently the classical writers, always referred to themselves by their particular tribes. It would seem Celt is a modern shorthand for these different but related people, in the same way that moderns use “Latins” to refer to different but related people who speak languages descended from that language. There is still some debate as to what makes a Celt a Celt.

 

 

Sources

At the Celts left few written accounts of themselves, our knowledge of them comes from two sources: archaeology, and classical writers. Archaeology is a constantly expanding field, though one whose findings are open to interpretation. Nonetheless archaeology has helped uncover indications of a culture that was somewhat, though perhaps not terribly, more advanced than what classical writers would suggest.

 

By contrast, the classical writers were often didactic and left little room for argument in their views. They tended to see the Celts as somewhere between naive primitives and savage barbarians. As the Celts were often at war with the Greeks and the Romans, a certain amount of negative bias is expected. The classical writers were also judging the Celts by their own Greco-Roman standards, rather than by the standards that Celts set for themselves. To the Greeks and Romans, the Celts were often overly fond of fighting, drinking, eating, money, material possession and sex. We must allow for the fact that many of the Classical writers who wrote about the Celts were themselves Stoics, and were thus beholden to a philosophy that was apathetic to worldly pleasures. Perhaps the excesses of the Celts were exaggerated by the austere worldview of Greco-Roman philosophy.

 

 

Prestige and Honor.

One thing that comes across consistently in both the archaeological and literary record is that the Celts were what might be called a “prestige society.” Everything seemed to revolve around one’s honor (so defined) and one’s place in the social hierarchy. Those at the top of the social pyramid were very much the center of all political, social and economic concerns. Roman and Greek society were not totally unlike the Celts in this regard, but their urban and cosmopolitan civilizations had somewhat different mechanisms for regulating prestige. Then too were the effects of austere Greco-Roman philosophy, which tended to moderate the Mediterranean pursuit of prestige and honor.

 

To the Celts, however, there were few inhibitions to a society obsessed with its own pecking order. Caesar made the generalization that the only people who mattered in Celtic society were the Druids and the Knights, his term for the intellectual and political orders. Let’s look at these classes.

 

 

 

Druids.

The class known as Druids are one of the hallmarks of Celtic civilization. They were the officiators of religious rituals, repositories of tribal culture, and advisors in judicial and civil affairs. There is some argument as to exactly how they should be defined. If Druids are defined simply as specialized religious officers, then it would seem only Britain and northern Gaul had Druids by the time of Caesar. If however Druid can encompass a broader segment of society which includes all intellectual and professional endeavors and not merely religious, then all Celtic societies seem to have had some version of Druids. This class of intelligentsia was most likely a remnant of a very ancient Indo-European caste system, cognate with the Hindu Brahmins.

 

Druids were exempt from military duties and taxes, a prospect which attracted many candidates. However, anyone wishing to become a Druid would have to undergo 20 years of rigorous education. Most of this involved memorizing every aspect of tribal lore, as there were cultural prohibitions to writing. Once successfully completing the education, the Druid could look forward to an honored life of leading the religious and judicial activities of the tribe. Some advised kings an d nobles. The Druids had the power to isolate a criminal or a malcontent from the religious and cultural life of the tribe, a terrible punishment for anyone concerned. The Druids may have also practiced human sacrifice at one point, though there is much debate and vitriol about this.

 

 

 

Knights.

Those whom Caesar called Knights were the warrior elite. They can be divided broadly as the kings who ruled the tribe and the aristocratic retainers who served just under them.

 

 

 

Kings.

The Kings have a singular place in Celtic society. The archeological record indicates they were often buried with vast amounts of wealth and material possessions. In life they were considered semi-divine, the heirs of gods. They often had to ritualistically mate with a land goddess; the king and the land were one, so to speak, a theme that shows up in the Arthurian legends.

 

Some classical writers claim that by their time kings were becoming archaic and the Celtic tribes were electing magistrates. This may have been a misunderstanding of how Celtic kingship worked. In many Celtic cultures, Kings were elected by a council of aristocrats, and once elected were constrained by the advice of the aristocrats as well as iron clad tribal custom and Druidic counsel. Often a Second, or Heir, was elected to rule under the king as successor. Caesar may have mistaken this elected king and vice-king as similar to the election of two Roman Consuls. On the other hand, Caesar may very well have been correct in his assertions as the transition from petty monarchy to elected magistrate seems reflective of other advances in the Celtic world.

 

 

Nobles.

Beneath the kings and their royal splendor were the retainers of warrior aristocrats, whose collective counsel Caesar referred to as a Senate. Aside from electing the king and vice-king, they were important in their own right. They held vast tracts of land within their community, were patrons to client freedman, and might own a few slaves. They were the leading warriors in their society, and the leading sources of wealth.

 

The Celtic aristocrats were much like the petty war chieftains of Homeric Greece, only on a more visceral level. Prestige was everything, and prestige was won by military victory and accumulation of wealth. In primitive tribes, the leading occupation of the aristocracy was the raid. During a raid, a Celtic aristocrat would lead his minor retainers against a neighbor and steal their wealth, often in the form of cattle. Once the Celts has reached a certain stage in development, they were less apt to raid each other and more likely to raid neighboring civilizations. It was at this stage that Celtic infiltration into Italy and the Balkans began to acquaint classical society with the Celts. Finally, at another stage of development the Celtic tribes would develop market economies and were more likely to trade with their neighbors then raid them. But whether through raid, conquest or trade, one thing was sought after – wealth.

 

 

 

Wealth

Wealth was proudly displayed by the Celtic aristocrats to their community as status symbols. Fine cattle. Vases and wine from the Mediterranean. And gold. The Celtic love for gold was infamous and legendary among their Mediterranean neighbors.

 

 

The Celtic aristocrats did not however hoard their wealth. Generosity, hospitality and gift giving were fundamental to the culture. Celtic aristocrats would hold great feasts for their retainers. During these feasts, the noble would sit at the head of the assembly, and his minor retainers would be positioned from him in a strict geometry according to their own social rank. (If the diners disagreed about their relative status and seating arrangements, they could fight and kill each other for it, though classical writers say this custom was becoming archaic by their day). At the feast the noble would give many fine gifts to his retainers. In exchange the retainers were bound to serve the noble in war and peace. The feasts among the nobles were thus a way to discharge surplus wealth in exchange for bonds of loyalty. The more retainers and clients a noble had, the greater his prestige. But the more retainers and clients a noble had, the greater his need to accumulate wealth through raid or trade. The social cycle thus had a certain self-propelling mechanism.

 

With all this in mind, it’s easy to see how Caesar could make a generalization that the druids and knights were the only significant social classes among the Celts. Virtually everything notable in Celtic society seemed to revolve around them and their prestige.

 

 

 

 

Other sectors of society.

However, we know Celtic society was not entirely autocratic. The free peoples had an assembly that could voice their opinion. If the average Celt was bound to serve his local lord, the local lord in turn was obligated to protect his retainers and their interests.

 

The Celts were a musical and artistic people, and the musicians and artists were in service of the nobles. Celtic metal smiths were highly skilled in making jewelry and trinkets from precious materials, and their main buyers were the local nobles who needed these items as status symbols. Bards sung of the bravery and generosity of their patron noble.

 

Women had a greater status among Celts than their Greek and Roman peers. They had legal rights in marriage. They could become monarchs. They sometimes fought alongside the men and became war leaders. The presence of female druids is confirmed in some accounts. They seemed to have been much freer in their sexuality than in Greece and Rome. However, it would be a mistake to overestimate the rights of females in Celtic society. They were not completely equal as men, much less dominant. The idea of ancient Celtic matriarchies is romanticized New Age fiction.

 

Beneath the freemen who were the retainers of the nobles, there was an underclass of people. There were debtors who became basically serfs to a landlord. There were criminals and outcasts who had lost their civil rights. There were also slaves, though they weren’t as prevalent as in Classical society.

 

 

Religion

The Druids presided over the tribal religion of the Celts, which was polytheist and animist. There were hundreds of gods, though most were confined to a tribe or a region. As a very broad generalization, Celtic religion seemed to work as protective gods of the tribe interacting with goddesses of the land. There were four religious festivals common throughout the Celtic world when these gods and goddesses would interact. Unlike in Greece or Rome, magic was a constant in religion, and there was continual traffic between the world of humans and the Otherworld of the gods. Religion seems to have been conducted in natural settings; temples were not built until after significant contact with classical society. There was a strong belief in the immortality and transmigration of the soul.

 

There soon developed a type of synthesis between Celtic and Roman religions in the occupied territories. This culminated in a distinct style of architecture used for temples.

 

One curious fact about Celtic religion is that they apparently believed the soul of a person lived in its head. By severing the head of an opponent and collecting it, they could control the soul therein. Celtic headhunting became notorious.

 

 

 

War and Warriors

The Celtic expertise with metals was melded with the Celtic love for warfare, and as a result the Celts, or at least their nobility, were well-armed. Swords, shields, helmets, chain mail body armor – all were greatly effective. They were effective to the extent they were used, for some Celtic tribes fought virtually naked. Nonetheless Celtic arms and armor were so effective that the Romans seemed to have copied some of it. The Celts were also skilled horsemen.

 

The Celts viewed war differently from their Classical neighbors. They saw it as a matter of individual honor and prestige. Thus the Celts fought separately in the field rather than as an organized team. The Celts would charge like a frenzied mass at their rivals. Sometime this was enough simply to overwhelm and crush their opposition. But the Romans soon learned that if they could hold out long enough, their superior organization and efficiency could quickly wear down the Celtic horde. The Celts often tired quickly of warfare if it became apparent they could not immediately seize personal honor and wealth. To the Romans, war was a cold-blooded profession with geopolitics in mind and a long-term commitment. These differences in approach to war are ultimately what led to the Roman conquest of Celtdom.

 

 

Cultural Qualities and Stereotypes

The Celts were viewed as having a prickly sense of honor that acted as a short trigger to violence. They loved fighting, arguing and boasting of their exploits. They were great consumers of food and alcohol. Supposedly an entire horde of Celtic warriors too drunk to hold a sword straight were slaughtered by a Roman legion. They, and especially their women, were also viewed as lusty, promiscuous and not exactly monogamous. Their thirst for gold and luxury items was infamous.

 

But the classical writers found something to praise in them. The Celts had a reputation for eloquence stemming from their vast oral and bardic tradition. They could speak in riddles or compose poetry at the drop of a hat. A Celtic warlord once captured by the Romans and sentenced to death so impressed his captors with his natural eloquence that his life was spared. Celtic music and art were ubiquitous and strangely graceful, and their skill in working wood or metal could not be denied. Their women had a reputation for being tall, beautiful and strong. As Caesar admitted under pressure from Vercingetorex, they could learn quickly and adapt.

 

 

Celts and Romans

From the Roman perspective, there were basically three types of Celts.

 

1) The Romanized Celts, the ones closest to the perimeter of the classical world, such as the ones in northern Italy and southern Gaul. Conditioned by centuries of trade with the rich Mediterranean, these Celts developed prosperous trading societies and links with Greco-Roman culture. They were thus more pliable to Romanization. Another factor in their Romanization was that their “Druid” caste seemed to be less potent than the ones that existed in Britain. Some of these Celtic tribes had friendly treaties with Rome and assisted Caesar in his invasion of Gaul by service as cavalry auxiliaries. Within two or three generations from Caesar’s conquest, Celts from these areas were sufficiently Roman to serve as Equestrians and Senators. Gallic cavalry became a component of the legions, and Celtic Headhunters were hired by Romans for use against the Germans.

2) The semi-Romanized Celts who existed further away from Rome, such as in southern Britain or northern Gaul. They were less affected by Roman trade and contact with the classical world and became appreciably “Roman” only after they were conquered, and then not entirely. They had a later share in the political and cultural realities of the empire. With the end of the Western Empire most of their areas would fall under the shadow of Germanic tribes. On the Continent a legacy of Romanization survived, but in Britain the Romano-Celts were pushed by the Anglo-Saxons to a small corner now called Wales.

3) The non-Romanized Celts at the fringes of the British Isles. These peoples were not Romanized to any significant degree, as the legions never conquered them. Today Scotland and Ireland are thought of as the quintessential Celtic countries and the repositories of any lingering Celtic tradition. But Ireland was conditioned by different breed of invaders from Rome - Catholic missionaries.

 

 

Today

Today there is a strong resurgence of interest in all things Celtic. However, much of it is either New Age romantic fiction, cheap commercialism, or a little of both. Some of the interest also takes a form of virulent Celtic nationalism, tethered to perceived matters of ethnicity as much as culture. However, such is beyond the scope of this article, and it is here the Romanophile ends his essay on Celts.

 

 

 

Works used:

 

Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford University Press. Oxford, England. 1997.

 

Ellis, Peter. The Celts: A History. Caroll and Graf Publishers. New York, New York. 2004.

 

James, Simon. The World of the Celts. Thames and Hudson. London, England. 1993.

[Tobias]

Great Essay Ursus:)

With sources thinking that the Celts thought that Kings were archaic, i believe this may have been more of a wish of generals, mainly Caesar, that they were making real headway in romanizing these tribes. Some tribes did, i believe, elect what were known as vergobrets did they not? Is this just a roman name for an "elected king", or is it a different title, made more to represent the election of consuls?

[Ursus]

A good question I had to look up. These three Celtic scholars don't always agree with each other.

 

According to James, in the Aedui tribe the Knights or Druids elected one Vergobret for one year. James calls the Vergobret a magistrate.

 

However, Ellis seems to suggest this was simply just another spin on the "elected king" phenomenon.

 

 

It's interesting to note the Celts'closest cousins, the Germans, had a long history of elected kings right up into the Holy Roman Empire era. Rome, for that matter, also had elected kings early in its history. Maybe it's another surviving remnant of an older Indo-European society.

[Ursus]

*bump* Does this help you for your project, FC?

[DecimusCaesar]

Great Work Ursus! I am also fascinated by the Celts and I'll looking out for other articles you might write in future.

I was also under the impression that the Celts were a group that shared a similar culture and langauage rather than a racial group. The Celt-Iberians are an example of this.

[WotWotius]

I was also under the impression that the Celts were a group that shared a similar culture and langauage rather than a racial group. The Celt-Iberians are an example of this.

 

And probably the Picts and Caledonian, and maybe the Brigantes: according to Tacitus , they came from Germany, though this seems fairly hard to believe as he was as bad an ethnographer as he was a geographer.

[DecimusCaesar]

If the Celts could be placed as a racial group, who would be closest to them? It is my guess that it is in Germany,Austria, Switzerland and France seeing as those were among the first homelands of the La Tene Culture Celts.

 

It has always confused me that the Jastorf Culture in Germany was not more heavily influenced by the La Tene Culture seeing as they existed in such close proximity. Caesar tells us that the Celts in southern Gaul had been corrupted by trading with Romans, especially their fixation with Roman wine. Yet the Jastorf culture refused both Celtic and Roman culture for centuries.

 

Was it to do with lack of trade or was it because the German tribes lacked a material culture before the 3rd Century (when the first villages and town come into existance on the archaeological record)?

[Andrew Dalby]

If the Celts could be placed as a racial group, who would be closest to them? It is my guess that it is in Germany,Austria, Switzerland and France seeing as those were among the first homelands of the La Tene Culture Celts.

 

It has always confused me that the Jastorf Culture in Germany was not more heavily influenced by the La Tene Culture seeing as they existed in such close proximity. Caesar tells us that the Celts in southern Gaul had been corrupted by trading with Romans, especially their fixation with Roman wine. Yet the Jastorf culture refused both Celtic and Roman culture for centuries.

 

Was it to do with lack of trade or was it because the German tribes lacked a material culture before the 3rd Century (when the first villages and town come into existance on the archaeological record)?

 

If you conquer widely, as the Celts did -- all the way from the Iberian peninsula to Galatia (central Turkey now) -- your "racial" characteristics get splattered, even if they weren't before.

 

Linguistically, some Indo-European specialists say that Celtic languages were a bit closer to Italic languages (Latin, Oscan, Umbrian etc.) than to any others. But Celtic also had some similarities with Germanic and perhaps with Greek. These similarities might say something about early dialects at the time when Indo-European was more or less a single language (a couple of thousand years or more before the Celts we know of came in contact with the Greeks and Romans).

[Ursus]

Do any of the newcomers want to add to the discussion? Edgewaters, perhaps? This was my poor attempt to provide a broad outline of an unfamiliar topic. I am honestly interested in learning more about the "Celts" or whatever term one wants to apply to the collective Iron Age tribes of Western Europe.