THE CELTS

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THE CELTS

• Ancestors of many of the people in Highland
  Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall. They arrived
  around 700 BC.
• Many of them were tall, and had fair or red hair
  and blue eyes.

• The Iberian people of Wales and Cornwall took on
  the new Celtic culture.
• Celtic languages are still spoken.
• The British today are often described as
  Anglo-Saxon. It would be better to call them
  Anglo-Celt.

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Celtic Tribes
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Characteristics

• They were farmers, they used iron and produced
  elaborately shaped metal jewellery
• They lived in hill forts on the top of the
  hills
• trades were conducted by river and by sea
  (London, Edinburgh), for money they used iron
  bars (later Romans coins)
• They were dressed in shirts and breeches
  (knee-length trousers), with striped or checked
  cloaks fastened by a pin Scottish
  tartan dress?

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• They were ruled by a warrior class
• The priests - Druids - were particularly
  important members they could not read or write,
  but they memorised all the religious teachings,
  the tribal laws, history and medicine
• they used to meet once a year in sacred groves of
  trees, on certain hills, by the rivers
• Stonehenge was probably a temple, even if the
  Celts did not use to build them.

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The Romans

• In 55 BC Julius Caesar first came to Britain
  Fig.1 Area of Deal Beach where Caesar's ships
  probably landed.
• Only a century later, though, a Roman army
  actually occupied the country their legion
  counted about 40.000 men.
• They did not succeed in invading Caledonia
  (Scotland) and to keep up raiders from the North
  they built the Hadrians wall .
• In AD 409 Rome pulled its last soldiers out of
  Britain (in 410 Rome fell to raiders and the
  Empire collapsed).
• http//www.athenapub.com/caesar1.htm

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http//www.hadrians-wall.org/
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Characteristics

• Towns (castra) were built they were made of
  stones and wood, streets were planned and so were
  markets and shops
• some buildings had even a central heating
• 6 main roads met in London (founded by the Romans
  in AD 60,- but the name has a Celtic origin -),
  and which counted 20.000 people after 4 centuries
  of Roman rule.

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The Invaders (Anglo-Saxon tribes Germanic
invasions)

• Saxons, Angles (Englandthe land of the Angles)
  and Jutes formed several kingdoms between the 5th
  and the 6th centuries, but in mid 7th ce. The
  most powerful were 3
• Northumbria
• Mercia
• Wessex

• At first they only raided the coasts of Britain
  but after AD 430 they settled the British Celts
  fought them as well as they could, but they were
  eventually pushed in the far west (Weallas)
  Saxon for WALES. Some Celts stayed behind and
  many became slaves .

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They invaded Britaina at first very slowly some
Saxons had been called as mercenaries by the
Roman-celtic populations which were threatened by
the Irish and the Picts

• They came from the area of the actual Schleswig
  (called Angeln even nowadays) and built several
  reigns Kent by the Jutes, then Sussex, Wessex
  and Essex, i.e. Southern Saxon land, etc

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• At the beginning the Angles had the supremacy of
  the island England ( the land of the
  Angles)then a second raid occurred, it was
  caried out by
• (the Vikings) who raided the eastern coasts and
  the island was divided into a NE part or
  Danelaw, left to the invaders and a SW area
  under the Wessex King Alfred the Great (871- 899)

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Characteristics

• The Saxons created institutions which made the
  English state strong for the next 500 years. One
  of these was the Kings Council, called the
  Witan it gave advice and support on difficult
  matters - nowadays it is the Privy Council
• They divided the land into shires (county is
  a Norman word) and for each of them a local
  administrator was appointed (a shire reeve a
  sheriff)
• Under their rule a class system began it was
  made of king, lords, soldiers , workers of the
  land and men of learning .

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Christianity

• We cannot know or when Christianity first reached
  Britain, certainly before it was accepted by the
  Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 4th
  century AD. It was largely accepted by the Celtic
  areas (Welsh place-names beginning or ending eith
  llan mean the site of a small Celtic monastery
  around which a village or town grew).
• The Church increased the power of the king, so
  that royal power became unquestioned, as the
  kings had Gods approval, in this way there was
  no uncertainty of the royal succession, whereas
  previously he who had more soldiers had the
  throne.

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• The Church increased the power of the English
  state also with its monasteries, which were
  places of learning and where men were trained to
  read and write.
• Alfred the Great (he ruled Wessex from 871-899)
  established a system of law, had people educated
  and important matters written with the help of
  the literate men of the Church.
• He started the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the most
  important source for understanding that period.

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The Vikings

• They invaded England at the end of the 8th
  century (thanks to the continuous fights and
  quarrels among the ruling kings). From the actual
  Norway, Danemark and Scandinavia they moved
  towards west
• http//www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/index
  .shtml

• In the 9th century, however, the Danes prevailed
  in two reignsNorthumbria and Mercia
• (the Vikings) raided the eastern coasts and the
  island was divided into a NE part or Danelaw,
  left to the invaders and a SW area under the
  Wessex King Alfred the Great (871- 899)

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For nearly 300 years, from the end of the
eighth century AD until around 1100, the Vikings
set out from Scandinavia on raids and voyages of
discovery and colonization across the northern
world. Their pagan gods were regarded with horror
by the Christian countries of Europe, but the
archaeology of their settlements and burials and
the literature of their sagas reveal a complex
and fascinating culture Viking society was
hierarchical and ruled by kings or chiefs, who
owned large farmsteads. It was divided into the
free, who could carry arms and speak at local
assemblies, and the thralls, or slaves, who had
no rights. The free were divided into the noble
class of jarls (earls) and, beneath them, the
farmers, whose status depended on how long their
families had owned their farms.
A Viking Brooch
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The sagas, mostly composed in Iceland in the
thirteenth century, give the impression of a
violent society as rival families resorted to
blood feuds to settle disputes or avenge murder.
The violence of the age is reflected in the
quantity of weapons found in male graves.
However, Viking raids were often seasonal
affairs, after which the bands of warriors would
disperse to return to their farms. Trade and
plunder brought increasing prosperity to the
region and skilled craftsmen patronized by the
élite produced objects of great artistic merit.
http//www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/http
//viking.no/e/life/index.htmlA brooch and a
silver bracelet
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• The Norsemen came to Scotland looking for better
  farms they slowly changed their way of life to
  become more like the Scots. However they had an
  influence where they settled most densly, as for
  example in Lewis where all the villege names are
  Norse. They gradually became Christinas.
• The will be remembered mostly as the pirates who
  attacked monasteries for their gold and villages
  looking for slaves. They also reached several
  parts of Europe (Normandy) and even came into
  contact with Byzantium. They also terrorised
  Paris and burnt Hamburg and many other german
  cities.
• Over 900 of the most common English words come
  from the Vikings. There are over 600 village
  names in england which can be directly related to
  them