The Celtic culture today is so closely linked to Ireland that it is hard to remember there were once tribes of Celtic speakers throughout Germany, Poland, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, France, and the British Isles. The Celts left an indelible mark on Europe but left us little in the way of historical documents. Lacking a written language, much of the oral stories of the Celts have been lost to time, forcing historians to piece together their culture from shreds of evidence.
Still, we know that the Celts plundered village after village to expand their territory from roughly 500 BCE to 100 BCE. The Celts built a culture that was intriguing, spiritual, and artistic, yet the various Celtic tribes failed to work together as a cohesive unit. That flaw led to their eventual downfall. The Celts retreated to the relative safety of Ireland and quietly continued their unique traditions.
Let’s look at this once mighty yet disorganized group of people and learn how their history is interwoven with the history of the European continent.
Celtic Expansion and Influence
While most people assume that the Celts hailed from Ireland, they may have originated near the Danube River in Central Europe as far back as 1200 BCE. Both the Romans and the Greeks made references about them, noting that they lived in Northern Europe and Gaul in present-day France. The Celts, while widespread across the region, were clustered in farming communities. They established thriving trade routes, putting them in contact with other groups. However, anthropologists believe that the different groups of Celts were mostly unrelated to each other.
Anthropologists put forth a theory that parts of Europe underwent a “Celtization” process, in which various tribes appropriated or adopted the Celtic ways and their language. Despite the vast territory covered by Celts, there never seemed to be a united cohesive Celtic culture. Instead, the different groups maintained their independence until they were eventually integrated into other European cultures.
Without textual evidence, historians cannot know why some of the Celtic societies died out when the tribe spread so far across Europe. While the evidence is lacking because there are no written accounts from the Celts, researchers can understand the Celtic culture from linguistic evidence. It is believed that the Celtic language emerged between 1200 and 450 BCE from a Proto-Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family. This same branch eventually produced many present-day languages, including French, German, English, Persian, Portuguese, Hindi, Spanish, and Italian.
The Celtic language split into the insular group, which eventually became the tongue spoken on the British Isles, and the continental group that covered the rest of Europe.
Migration
The continental branch died out long ago, but the insular branch still exists today. As early as around 1200 BCE, the Celtic migration spread the Celtic culture into the Iberian Peninsula, the site of present-day Portugal and Spain. They interbred with the indigenous people of the region and Celticized them. This blended culture was distinctive; it drew on elements of the native Iberians, the Celts, and later the Romans.
Land in the Iberian Peninsula often flip-flopped between Roman ownership and Carthaginian ownership. Many of the Celtic tribes sided with the Carthaginians and fought against the Romans. In time, the Romans emerged as the dominant force on the Iberian Peninsula. The Celtiberians, as they were known, were an easy conquest for the advancing Roman armies.
Between about 58 and 50 BCE, Rome’s Julius Caesar engaged his army in the Gallic Wars, a series of military battles against several Celtic tribes in the region known as Gaul, or present-day France and Belgium. The Celts had an army as significant and courageous as the Romans, but they lacked central organization. Still, they went head-to-head with the formidable Roman army several times, leading to the Battle of Alesia in 52 BCE, the decisive campaign that ended in a Roman victory. The battle might have gone in the Celts’ favor, but an attempt by the Celtic chieftain Vercingetorix to unify the tribes and develop a unilateral front against the Roman forces did not come in time.
Today, many historians agree that the Gallic Wars were not fought for power or territory as much as they were fought to bolster Julius Caesar’s reputation and enforce his political position. An old saying states, “History is written by the victors.” Here, it is true. Most of the information we have about the Gallic Wars comes from a single source, the “Commentarii de Bello Gallico,” written by Caesar.
Chapters
It is unclear when and why the Celts spread to the British Isles, but by the first century BCE, they were well established in Britannia. The Britons who were living on the island adopted the Celtic language and rituals but were much more tenacious than their European counterparts. They kept the invading Romans at bay for several years. Even after the Roman conquest of the British Isles, pockets of Celts remained independent in some of the northern reaches. Because of this, the Celtic culture outlasted the Roman occupation of the region.
When the Romans ruled Britannia, they tried to suppress the Celtic culture. Historians have uncovered evidence that leads them to believe that the Romans intentionally prevented the Celts from inventing a written language. Finally, in the 6th century CE, after the Roman occupation of the British Isles was over, a written version of the Celtic language was developed. For the first time, the rich oral stories of the Celts were recorded. Having a written language allowed the Celts to advance their mythology, customs, and laws.
The Story of Bodica
During the Roman occupation of the British Isles, various Celtic leaders waged resistance campaigns against Roman legions. Some of these accounts of rebellion provided the foundation of Celtic legends and folklore, such as the story of Boudica. According to legend, Boudica was married to the Iceni tribe’s chieftain not far from the city of London. Her husband had established a makeshift alliance with the Roman invaders to keep his tribal lands intact. When he died, however, the Romans no longer honored the agreement, and the Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus set his sights on the island of Anglesey, then called Mona, off the coast of Wales.
To protect the Iceni lands, Boudica rallied the tribe’s army and launched a massive assault on the Romans in 61 CE. At first, Boudica succeeded. Under her command, the Celtic army defeated two Roman towns, Londinium and Verulamium, burning them to the ground. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus gathered his defeated troops and prepared for another attack. Meanwhile, Boudica recruited men from neighboring Celtic tribes to boost her numbers. Although the Romans were gearing up for battle back in Rome, Emperor Nero was so concerned about Boudica’s initial defeat of his men that he considered pulling all the Roman troops out of the British Isles. In their next clash, however, Suetonius’s army swiftly defeated Boudica to regain control over the area. Shortly after the battle, Boudica died, either by suicide or illness, depending on the version of her story.
During the Victorian era, the British people rediscovered the story of Queen Boudica, and she became a national folk hero. Stories based in fact like that of Boudica were added to the myths and folklore of the Celts.
Religion
A polytheistic culture, the Celts worshiped a collection of deities like the gods and goddesses of the Greek and Roman pantheon. The key figures of the Celtic religion ruled over specific aspects of the natural world. Although there were venerated Celtic temples, many of the religious ceremonies were held outdoors in sacred groves or beneath hallowed oak trees or near rocky outcroppings. Historians of the past credited the construction of Stonehenge in England to the Celts, but modern carbon dating of the site indicates that it was constructed at least one thousand years before the Celtic people arrived on the British Isles.
In Celtic society, the Druids belonged to the learning class; therefore, they presided over the religious rituals of the Celts. They provided spiritual guidance, administered sacred rites, and cast spells to ward off evil spirits. Beyond that, the Druid’s role remains largely unknown because the Celts did not leave a written record. According to several historians, it is likely that the Druids oversaw human sacrifice rituals and perhaps head-hunting.
Historians have gleaned some understanding of the religion of the Celts by examining Irish myths and folklore; however, this may cause an inaccurate look at the Celtic religion. That’s because the Celts’ spiritual beliefs merged with the Roman religion during the Roman occupation of the British Isles. Later, when Christianity was introduced across the island in the 5th and 6th centuries, the original myths took on a biblical slant. With no written language of their own, many of the Celtic folk tales were recorded on paper for the first time by Christian scribes who injected the tales with Christian morals.
Many aspects of the Celtic culture remained shrouded in mystery simply because the Celts did not have a written language. Despite the lack of textual evidence, we know that the Celtic culture was at one time widespread throughout the European continent. While they had sheer numbers, they failed to organize themselves into a central group. They remained a loose collection of tribes, each with their army. Through their interactions with the Romans, the Celts may have experienced a cultural renaissance. The Romans conquered Celtic tribes, but the Celts, too, influenced the Romans with their mythologies, their art, and their beliefs.
Throughout the centuries, the Celtic culture survived through folklore, music, and art, resulting in modern Celtic heritage and pride. Today, the Celtic culture endures across much of Europe, with the revival of traditional music, dance, and festivals. It remains a source of national identity for many regions that once belonged to the Celts.
