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Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity

This article is about the ancient form of Christianity that existed in the British Isles until outlawed at the Synod of Whitby in 664 because of its competition with the Roman form of Christianity. The existence of a Celtic Church, or a Celtic Catholic Church (also known as "Culdee Church") is generally agreed upon by Roman sources but highly debated among scholars.

What is Celtic Christianity?

Celtic Christianity, or The Celtic Church, is thought to be a form of Christianity as it was first received and practised by communities within Celtic Britain. The debate about the existence of the Celtic Church centres primarily around three issues: #What is the antiquity of the Church? #Was there ecclesiastical structure enough to justify giving the church recognition as an organized Christian body? #What role did Celtic Christianity have in influencing the Roman Catholic Church? There is little debate that early Celtic Christians observed practices divergent from those in the rest of Europe. The debate about the existence of Celtic Christianity is an important debate because the existence of a separate Christian Celtic Catholic Church if verified, counters the Roman Catholic Church's claim to supremacy and seniority in Europe, making it the third body of practising Christians in Europe, along with the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. The issue of church supremacy and antiquity was first raised in the Synod of Whitby in 664 by the Roman Catholic Church who protested the Celtic Christian practices that differed from the Roman practices. Additionally, a series of follow up synods ending with Synod of Cashel in 1172 were organized to deal with the differences between the churches, and resulted in the theology and practices of the Celtic church being brought into line with Roman theology and practices. The debate about the existence of the Celtic Church likewise extends to debate about the how pagan Britain underwent conversion. Those that dispute the existence of Celtic Christianity hold that the process of converting Britain to Christianity was a series of missions by Rome, but only a singular process that likely began with the Roman conquest of Britain. However, those that accept the existence of Celtic Christianity hold that there were two very different missions, one by pre-Roman Christians, and the other by Roman Christians which resulted in Britain being divided along ethnic lines with the Celts accepting Christianity earlier than pagan Anglo Saxons. The two missions began at different times with the pre-Roman Christians likely starting mission work earlier, and the Roman Christians later. Two missions resulted in the existence of competing forms of the Christian faith with Celtic Christianity generally dominating the western portion of Great Britain (Cornwall and Wales), Ireland, Scotland and even Brittany on the Continent. The Roman conversion of pagans was largely responsible for converting the Anglo Saxons and extended roughly around the areas the Anglo Saxons settled. The separate practices held by the two communities was the issue that required arbitration at the Synod of Whitby in 664.

The Debate about the Church's Existence

In examining the different facets to why this issue is so contentious, it is important to realize both the issue of the antiquity of the Celtic Church, and the influence the Celtic Church may have had on Roman Catholicism seem to have theological implications. Combine this with renewed nationalism in modern church movements, Celtic revivalism and neo-paganism, and the debate, the evidence and the significance become difficult to establish clearly. At the heart of the debate between the Roman Church and the Celtic or Culdee Church, as it was called, and the issue that made this a theological one, was the Roman Church's claim that Peter founded the Roman Church. The Celtic claim was that Christ himself founded the Culdee Church when [http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Mat/Mat010.html he sent] the Apostles to Britain. Theologically Christ would trump Peter. The following sections will attempt to clarify Legend from accepted history;

Antiquity of the Celtic Church: Tradition & Legend

Though proponents of Celtic Christianity argue against the traditional view that Christianity came to Britain with the Roman invasions, there is no consensus as to when it did actually arrive, just that it arrived first. The earliest claim for the arrival of Christianity in the British Isles contends that Christianity was brought to Glastonbury by the Apostles themselves or Joseph of Arimathea, the tin trader, who removed Jesus' body from the Cross. This claim is anecdotal and largely based upon traditional or verbal history, and is known as The Traditions of Glastonbury. A number of manuscripts are referenced in documenting the details about this tradition. The earliest support for the idea that Christianity arrived in Britain early is Quintus Septimus Florens Terullianus also known simply as Tertullian (AD 155-222) who wrote in "[http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-19.htm#P2021_691723 Adversus Judaeos]" that Britain had already received and accepted the Gospel in his life time writing; :..all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons--inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ .. or in Latin; : ... Hispaniarum omnes termini et Galliarum diversae nationes et Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca Christo .. Tertullian doesn't say how the Gospel came to Britain before AD 222, however [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc09.rabanus_hrabanus_rhabanus_maurus.html Rabanus Maurus] [766-856 C.E.], Archbishop of Mayence states in Pœnitentium Liber (Liber Pœnitentitæ) that it was Joseph of Arimathea and details who is thought to have travelled with Joseph of Arimathea at least as far as France, claiming that he was accompanied by; :the two Bethany sisters, Mary and Martha, Lazarus, St. Eutropius, St. Salome, St. Cleon, St. Saturnius, St. Mary Magdalen, Marcella (the maid of the Bethany sisters), St. Maxium or Maximin, St. Martial, and St. Trophimus or Restitutus. Similarly the manuscripts [http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/laud.htm MSS Laud 108 of the Bodleian] also [http://cfp.english.upenn.edu/archive/Medieval/0183.html agrees] on the essential details of who Traveled with Joseph, however [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wace/biodict.h.html?term=hippolytus+romanus Hippolytus] (AD 170-236), considered to have been one of the most learned early Christian historians, identifies the seventy whom Jesus sent in Luke 10, and includes Aristobulus listed in Romans 16:10 as having ended up becoming a Pastor in Britain. Another source for these traditions is [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02304b.htm Cardinal Caesar Baronius] (C.E. 1538-1609), a historian to the Vatican, who claims in chapter 37 of Annales Ecclesiatici that in addition to those listed by Rabanus Maurus, Mary the sister of Jesus, accompanied the company and goes on to describe their voyage as; :Leaving the shores of Asia and favoured by an east wind, they went round about, down the Tyrrhenian Sea, between Europe and Africa, leaving the city of Rome and all the land to the right. Then happily turning their course to the right, they came near to the city of Marseilles, in the Viennoise province of the Gauls, where the river Rhone is received by the sea. There, having called upon God, the great King of all the world, they parted; each company going to the province where the Holy Spirit directed them; presently preaching everywhere ... Essentially the claim is that Joseph, Mary and others followed the well-known Phoenician trade route to Britain as described by Diodorus Siculus. A copy of Annales Ecclesiatici can be found in Magdalen College Library at Oxford, England. Upon arrival, according to Hardynge's Chronicle the company was met by Arviragus who was later converted to Christianity. There is evidence that Caractacus was indeed a Christian for Caratacus is described by Dio Cassius (Epitome of Book LXI, 33:3c [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/61
- .html]) as a "barbarian Christian" . Moreover, according to Domesday Survey Arviragus, or Caratacus, is recorded to have granted Joseph and his followers (as Judean refugees - "Quidam advanae-Culdich" which means roughly "certain Culdee strangers") twelve hides of land tax free, in Ynis-witrin or the Isle of Avalon. The Domesday Book also indicates that; :The Domus Dei, in the great monastery of Glastonbury, called the Secret of the Lord, this Glasonbury Church possesses, in its own villa XII hides of land which have never paid tax A survey of these XII hides of land can still be found in The History and Antiquities of Somersetshire, by W. Phelps, originally published in 1836. Additionally, William Malmsebury a scholar known of his accuracy, wrote in 1126 C.E. according to the writings of ancient texts that he found in Glastonbury Abbey that; :In the year of our Lord, 63, twelve holy missionaries, with Joseph of Arimathea (who had buried the Lord) at their head, came over to Britain, preaching the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. The king of the country and his subjects refused initially to become proselytes to his teaching, but in consideration that they had come a long journey, and being pleased with their soberness of life and unexceptional behaviour, the king, at their petition, gave them for their habitation a certain island bordering on his region, covered with trees and bramble bushes and surrounded by marshes, called Ynis-wytrin. Malmsebury continues by saying that; :These holy men built a chapel of the form that had been shown them. The walls were of osiers wattled together ... He goes on to describe it as rude and misshapen. This church is known traditionally as Wattle Church and is referred to in [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08647a.htm King Inga's] Charter issued in C.E. 725 as 'Ecclesia Vetusta Beatissimae Virginis' or the 'old Church of the most Blessed Virgin'. We do not have access to the ancient sources Malmsebury used because they were destroyed when the Abbey was in 1184 C.E At least one manuscript (of questionable origin) denoted the Sonnini Manuscript after being translated from the Greek by C.S. Sonnini in the 18th century, from an original manuscript found in the archives of Constantinople, claims that the Apostle Paul after visiting Rome, continued on to Spain, France and Britain (Mount Lud) and visited his countrymen, before returning to Rome. The manuscript itself was translated into English and published late in 1799 and was available around 1800 and is claimed to follow chronologically, the events recorded in the Biblical book of Acts. Modern scholars are not familiar with the Sonnini Manuscript, and certainly have not examined it, as the current whereabouts of the source document is unknown though its translation is readily available. The ancient British Traids list Joseph and his company as Culdees along with Paul, Peter, Lazarus, Simon Zelotes, and Aristobulus and before the Synod of Whitby the Celtic Catholic church was known as Culdee Christian Church and there is evidence that this name lived on past the Synod of Whitby until at least the reign of Henry II where the Canons of York where known the "Culdee Canons". It is claimed that Jacob Sabellus (AD 250), an early Christian presbyter and theologican, wrote; :Christianity was privately confessed elsewhere, but the first nation that proclaimed it as their religion and called it Christian after Christ was Britain. However this claim is currently un-verified as tracking down evidence of Sabellus' work has not been fruitful.

Antiquity of the Celtic Church: Known and Generally Accepted

There seem to be tantalizing references from Roman sources that support Christianity's early arrival to Britain; however acceptance of this tradition by scholars is not commonplace. Dio Cassius's reference of Caratacus as a "barbarian Christian" certainly makes sense if this tradition holds. Furthermore, Gildas Badonicus or Saint Gildas (A.D. 516 – 570) is attributed the quote in [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/gildas-full.html De excidio Britannae liber querulus] on the victory of Aurelius Ambrosius, that the [Christian] Gospel arrived in Britain in the time of the Emperor Tiberius ('rigenti insulae...tempore Tiberii...radios suos indulget Christus' ch 8). It is also known that early Roman Christians may have been British (see Talk:Caratacus form more on this subject) Many proponents of Celtic Christianity distance themselves from these traditions, and most modern scholars reject them outright, though little serious scholarship has actually examined the tradition critically, however the early Roman Catholic Church accepted the Glastonbury traditions and the existance of the Culdee church. Eusebius, (C.E. 260-340) Bishop of Caesarea and father of Ecclesiastical History wrote in [http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_de_05_book3.htm Demonstratio Evangelica Bk. 3]; :The Apostles passed beyond the ocean to the isles called the Britannic Isles. Eusebius is thought to have gotten his information from British Bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicaea. [http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-09/Npnf2-09-03.htm St. Hilary of Pottiers] (C.E. 300-376) also wrote (Tract XIV, Ps 8) that the Apostles had built churches and that the Gospel had passed into Britain. Similarly [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm St. John] Chrysostom (C.E. 347-407), the Patriarch of Constantinople wrote in Chrysostomo Orat. O Theos Xristos; :The British Isles which are beyond the sea, and which lie in the ocean, have received virtue of the Word. Churches are there found and altars erected ... Though thou shouldst go to the ocean, to the British Isles, there though shouldst hear all men everywhere discoursing matters out of the scriptures, with another voice indeed, but not another faith, with a different tongue, but the same judgement. As well, [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15353c.htm Polydore Vergil] (AD 1470-1555), the Italian historian wrote; :Britain, partly Joseph of Arimathea, was of all kingdoms, first, that received the Gospel These references all show that these traditions were known and accepted by early Church historians and accepted until later centuries. It has only been since the protestant reformation that the acceptance of these traditions has been given up. What is generally agreed upon by "modern scholars" is that the first conversions of the Celts was led by Columba, who went from Ireland to Iona, Scotland. Priests from Iona led the Christianisation of Northumbria and later Mercia. There is clear evidence that this is likely. The other Roman effort to convert the British were led by Saint Augustine, from Rome who landed in Kent in AD 597 and said to have been given a pre-existing Celtic church named “[http://www.digiserve.com/peter/st-mtns.htm Saint Martins]”. In Epistolae ad Gregorium Papam Augustine writes to Pope Gregory I; :In the western confines of Britain, there is a certain royal island of large extent, surrounded by water, abounding in all the beauties of nature and necessities of life. In it, the first neophites of Catholic law, God beforehand acquainting them, found a church constructed by no human art, but by the hands of Christ Himself, for the salvation of His people. as a reference to the Glastonbury tradition. The reference to constructed by no human art, but by the hands of Christ Himself, is a reference to Christ's instructions to his disciples found in [http://bible.cc/matthew/10-6.htm Matthew 10:6 ] to go into the world to the lost sheep and 'spread the faith'. The Roman Catholic Church has been challenged a number of times in history as to the seniority of 'national' Catholic churches (by France, Italy, and Spain) and upheld each time that the senior Roman Catholic Church is not the Church of France, Spain or Italy, but the Ecclesia Anglicana or the English Church. This issues was raised and decided upon in the Council of Pisa (1409), Constance (1417), Sienna (1424), and Basle (1434) where it was declared that; :The churches of France and Spain, must yield in point of antiquity and precedence to that of Britain, as the latter Church was founded by Joseph of Arimathea immediately after the Passion of Christ. The last challenge to the antiquity of national Catholic Churches took place in 1927, and was again upheld by Pope Pius XI, though the Catholic Church increasingly refuses to acknowledge 'national churches' within its fold, instead placing emphasis on the continuance of the Universal Church.

Ecclesiastical Structure: How separate was the Celtic church?

The Celtic Christians saw themselves as independent of the Roman church as evidenced from the British Bishop Diaothus' reply to St. Augustine on the authority of Rome in Britain; :Be it known and declared that we all, individually and collectively, are in all humility prepared to defer to the Church of God, and to the Bishop in Rome, and to every sincere and Godly Christian, so far as to love everyone according to his degree, in perfect charity, and to assist them all by word and in deed in becoming the children of God. But as for any other obedience, we know of none that he, whom you term the Pope, or Bishop of Bishops, can demand. The deference we have mentioned we are ready to pay to him as to every other Christian, but in all other respects our obedience is due to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Cærleon, who is alone under God our ruler to keep us right in the way of salvation. (Spelman, Henry. Concilia, Decreta, Leges, Constitutiones in re Ecclesiarum Orbis Britannici: Volume 1, Republished Haddan & Stubbs (Wilkins), Cambridge England, 1636 pg 108-109). In otherwords, Diaothus was saying that the Celtic Christian Church's relationship to the Bishop of Rome was the same as its relationship to any other Christian Bishopric, and nothing more. Though the Celtic Church did seem to have ecclesiastical structure, it seems to have been one consisting of a relationship of peers, Dioceses-wise. Therefore it is easy to exaggerate the cohesiveness of the Celtic Christian communities. After the Synod of Whitby the Celtic Church was forced to acquiesce to the Bishop of Rome's specific commands. These communities did see themselves as separate from their competitors, the Anglo-Saxons. An early Welsh ecclesiastical rule levied penalties for interacting with the English, and for sharing communion with them. When St Augustine attempted to meet with a delegation of seven British bishops on the borders of the domains of Ethelbert of Kent, these bishops refused to talk or even dine with his party; and when Aethelfrith of Northumbria went to battle with Solomon, son of Cynan, king of Powys, hundreds of British Christian monks are said to have assembled to pray for the Welsh king. It is noteworthy that the British failed to attempt to convert the Anglo-Saxons, and that the successful Celtic missions had come from further away, from the Dalriadan Scots.

Differences from the rest of Catholicism

Due to the difficulties in communications at this time, it was inevitable that variations between the local churches would arise. Although the practice by Bishops, upon their ordination, of circulating a statement of their beliefs did minimize these differences somewhat, this help was lost to the congregations in the British isles and Armorica with the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. When missionaries from the Mediterranean met with those local congregations that did survive, they found differences in practice, doctrine and government. These differences were addressed in synods, from the Synod of Whitby in 664 to the Synod of Cashel in 1172. Exactly in which practices the Celtic church varied from the rest of Catholicism differ from source to source. A list of those proposed include the following:
- The method of calculating the date of Easter. The Celts celebrated Easter on the Vernal equinox. They agreed to celebrate it on "the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox".
- The method of Tonsure practised by monks. The Celts shaved the front of their head, from ear to ear. They agreed to shave the crown of their heads.
- The Veneration of Saints. There was no difference on the issue of veneration of Saints. However delegates from Rome had the view that the "Church was nourished by the blood of the martyrs". Therefore they sent gifts of the relics of their martyrs. It was said that the Celtic Church had "neither martyrs nor authority".
- Original Sin. The prevailing view, which persisted down to Thomas Aquinas was that all were stained by the sin of Adam. The Celts claimed that some were exempt, including Joshua, John the Baptist and Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Celts retained their opinion.
- Limbo. The prevailing view, as pronounced by Augustine of Hippo was that children who died without Baptism went to Limbo. Limbo was in Hell. The Celts rejected this view. While the rest of Christendom buried such children in unblessed ground, along with suicides, criminals and heretics; the Celts buried them right up against the walls of their churches. When a delegate from Rome quoted scripture, a Celt suggested that "the rainwater falling from the eaves of the church" would baptise them. The Celts may have prevented Limbo from being declared dogma.
- The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Celts held these Marian Doctrines. They follow from the doctrine that Mary was exempt from Original Sin. Decuit, potuit, fecit — "It was appropriate, it was possible, it was". The Celtic view was declared dogma in 1854.
- Infant baptism. The Celts held four baptism services each year. They agreed to alter this and baptise infants within eight days of their birth.
- 1-2-1, penitent to confessor private confession. This was a Celtic invention. It was unknown outside of the Celtic Church before the sixth century. Until then, Rome required public confession.
- Authority of Bishops. In the Celtic Church authority was vesting in Abbots and Abbesses. The role of Bishop was ceremonial. Delegates from Rome complained of "persons not in holy orders with authority in the church". The Abbess Brigid had two bishops reporting to her. After Hilda yielded, the Celts accepted and simply made their Abbots bishops.
- Role of Women. In Celtic society, women had a greater role. At the Synod of Whitby, Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, to the surprise of many, argued against women holding authority in the Church.
- Witches. The first synod of Patrick excommunicated any who would persecute a witch. In this respect the Celtic Church could well be unique. It did not happen in Scotland until the teaching of John Calvin was introduced. Following the only witchcraft trial in Ireland the witch-finder was tried for heresy and fled to the Antipope in Avignon. The Celtic cross, in which a symmetrical cross is superimposed on a circle, is a characteristic and distinctive Celtic Christian symbol. Use of this continued well past any separate organisation of Celtic Christianity, and has indeed never ceased to be common in the Celtic countries and among their emigré communities.

The Easter problem

The Easter problem — that is, the proper method to be used to calculate the date Easter will fall on in a given year — is a long and tedious story that extends beyond the topic of Celtic Christianity. As it applies to this topic, the Celtic peoples had lost contact with Rome when Victorius of Aquitania created the tables that were adopted as approved practice in 457. But as they learned of the current practice, the various communities of the Celtic church gradually returned into harmony with the predominant practice: southern Ireland agreed to this at a Synod in 632; northern Ireland at the Council of Birr around 697; the Northumbrian Church at the Council of Whitby in 664; the island of Iona celebrated Easter on the Roman date in 716; and Wales in 768. Various other churches founded or influenced by clerics trained in Ireland or Wales came to celebrate Easter on the Roman date at later times. Although historians often relegate the importance of the Easter problem, it actually had a major effect on the Catholic world at that time. Because Celtic Christianity considered itself separate and distinct in relation to Rome, Rome diligently made efforts to bring the Celtic church under its authority for many years. The submission of the Celtic church to Rome on this issue effectively expanded Rome's spiritual and political strength throughout Europe for centuries.

Celtic Saints

Some scholars, such as J.N.L. Myres and John Morris, have argued that Pelagius had have a direct effect on the early development of the Celtic church in Britain. Others, including Charles Thomas, have countered that this belief is incorrect and based on projecting a modern point of view upon an earlier age. Christianity was present in Britain from earliest times and was certainly practiced at the abbeys of Glastonbury and Whithorn at the turn of the 5th century. Its expansion to become the accepted religion of the Britons was due primarily to a succession of princes who became monastic priests during the fifth and sixth centuries, founding many abbeys and churches, and becoming honoured as "saints" after their death. Christianity was also present in Ireland and there was significant social intercourse between the churches of the two islands. The most famous Irish saints to preach extensively in Britain were Saint Brigit (variously spelt Bride, Brigid, Bryd) (439–524) and Saint Columba (Colum Cille) (520–593). In the inverse direction, Saint Patrick (d. 492/3) was a Briton who established himself in Armagh and became 'apostle of Ireland'. The earliest clearly British Christian leader recorded after the departure of the Roman legions from the island was Saint Dyfrig (Latin, Dubricius). He is said to have been a son of Eurddyl and her husband King Pabai or Pepiau of Ercych (now Herefordshire). He founded monasteries at Henllan ("Old Church"), now Hentland-on-Wye, 7 kilometers northwest of Ross-on-Wye; at Mochros, now Moccas, in the Wye Valley 16 kilometers west of Hereford; at Ynys Pyr (English, "Caldey Island"), off Tenby in the Dyfed county of Pembrokeshire; and possibly churches in Porlock and near Luscombe on the Exmoor coast of Somerset. He was a bishop, but it appears that he was so for the purpose of ordaining priests, not as administrative head of the church over a geographical area. There is a legend that he solemnised the marriage of King Arthur and Guinevere. Dyfrig taught Saint Illtud (c. 425 to c. 505), the founder of the great school/seminary/abbey of Llan Illtyd Fawr (English, "Llantwit Major") in the west of South Glamorgan. Illtud was considered the most learned person in Britain, expert alike in Maths, Grammar, Philosophy, Rhetoric and Scripture. He was “by descent a Druid and a fore knower of future events”, the writer implying that there was a Druid caste. One of the Trioedd Ynys Prydein, or Welsh Triads, refers to him as one of the "three knights of the Court of Arthur who kept the Holy Grail". In an age when any schooling was available only to a very few privileged people, perhaps Illtud's seminary was the closest approximation in existence to an institution of higher education. Among Illtud's pupils were Saints Pol Aurelian (in Latin, Paulinus Aurelianus), Samson, Gildas and Dewi (English, David). Pol, son of a British chieftain and one of the seven founder saints of Brittany, founded churches near Llandovery in the Dyfed county of Carmarthenshire, and before 518 had founded an abbey at Yr Henllwyn ("Old Bush") called Ty Gwyn ("White Church"). He later founded monasteries in Brittany and was first bishop of the city of Saint-Pol-de-Leon. His sister was St. Sidwell of Exeter. Samson was born in Dyfed. He was a first cousin of Illtud and a great-grandson of King Tewdrig (Tudor) of Morganwg (Glamorgan). He studied as a boy at Llan Illtyd Vawr and was then sent to Ynys Pyr, presently becoming its abbot. Some time after 545 he temporarily took over the abbacy of Llan Illtud Fawr from Illtud. When Illtud resumed charge of his abbey, Samson travelled first to Cornwall and then to Brittany, founding churches in both places and an abbey at Dol, where he died c.565. He is also celebrated as the evangeliser of Guernsey. Gildas, c.491 to c.570 was educated by Saint Illtyd and like his mentor acquired renown as a scholar. He was called "Gildas Sapiens" (English "the Wise"). He became a bell-maker by trade. He made a pilgrimage to Rome in 520, spent seven years at the Abbey of Rhuys in Brittany, then a year in charge of the Abbey of Llancarfan while the Abbot, Saint Cadoc was away. After 528 he moved to Street (near Glastonbury) and built himself a lan (hermitage comprising a church and enclosure). He later (c.544) returned to Rhuys, where he remained until he died, apart from a visit to Ireland dated by the Annales Cambriae to 565. Saint David, c.512 to 587, was a son of a king of Ceredigion -- presumably King Gwyddno. He was educated at Ty Gwyn. He became its abbot before 528 while still a youth. Later he moved this abbey to Glyn Rhosyn, where it became the city and cathedral of St. David’s in Pembrokeshire. He devised and operated an austere Monastic Rule. He is credited with founding churches over a large area of south and mid Wales, in Kernyw, and in Brittany. He also attended the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi. A prominent Christian leader, contemporary with and in some respects rival to David, was Saint Cadoc, a son of Gwladys and her husband King Gwynllyw of Gwynllywg (E. Glywysing), a grandson both of King Brychan of Powys and of King Glywys of Glwysing (Gloucestershire), and a nephew of Saint Keyne the hermit who lived first at Keynsham (Somerset) and later at St. Michael's Mount (Cornwall). Cadoc was apparently educated by Pol. He built himself a hermitage at Llancarfan (now in the south of Glamorgan) that soon grew into a monastery, and later one at Llanspyddid (3km W of Brecon). He is also credited with founding churches in Dyfed, Cornwall and Brittany. About 528, after his father's death, he built a stone monastery in Scotland below “Mount Bannauc” (generally taken to be the hill SW of Stirling down which the Bannockburn flows). It has been suggested that the monastery was where the town of St. Ninians now stands, 2 kilometers south of Stirling. Cadoc went on pilgrimages to both Jerusalem and Rome and was distressed that the Synod of Llanddewi Brefi was held during one of these absences. He came into conflicts with kings Arthur, Maelgwn of Gwynedd, and Rhain of Brycheiniog. He was killed in 580 at 'Beneventum'. Beneventum is not firmly identified. One scholar has suggested it is the Roman burgh of Bannaventa (5 kilometers east of Daventry in Northamptonshire), proposing the hypothesis that it was overrun by Saxons at this time as an explanation both for both the killing of Cadoc and for the prohibition on Britons entering the town to recover his body. Cadoc, with Illtud, is one of the three knights said to have become keepers of the Holy Grail. A brother of this King Gwynllyw was Saint Petroc. Petroc was educated in Ireland where he perhaps learned esoteric Druid wisdom as well as Christianity. He spent most of his adult life based at Padstow in Cornwall, and founded churches in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset (all then part of Dumnonia / Kernyw) including North and South Petherton (places named after him in west and south Somerset respectively). He converted King Constantine of Dumnonia (in 586) and died in 590. With Saint Piran he is among the best-known of the Cornish saints. The principal contemporary leader of the church in the north of Romanised Britain was Saint Kentigern / Mungo, a son of King Urien Rheged (ruled c. 560 to c. 590), the founder of Glasgow Cathedral and its first bishop. Although its impact continued, Celtic Christianity officially ended in 1172 when the Synod of Cashel ended the Celtic Christian system and brought them under Rome.

Celtic Christianity today

The phrase Celtic Christianity has come into current used to describe a modern revival of what is believed to be a more spiritually free form of Christianity abandoned after the Synod of Whitby enforced Roman Catholicism as the standard form of Christianity in the British Isles (see Culdee.) Many believe that this older worship more closely resembled Eastern Orthodoxy. It is also considered very close to Anglicanism in many respects. Celtic Christianity is at present undergoing something of a revival: in the North of England at the Community of St. Aidan and St. Hilda on Lindisfarne, and in Scotland at the Iona Community. It currently embraces both Charismatic and neo-Evangelical Christians, as well as some pagan elements. Celtic Christianity has become increasingly popular in the United States, for example in the Celtic Catholic Church, and an annual conference on the subject is held every year. Its main features are claimed to be:
- Love of nature
- Lack of dogmatism
- Friendship to and tolerance for other religions. However, it is difficult to document that these particular features were unique to "Celtic Christianity" lands or that they even predominated there in earlier centuries.

References

- Charles Thomas. 1981. Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0520043928

External links

- [http://www.orthodoxireland.com Orthodox Ireland]
- [http://www.iona.org.uk The Iona Community]
- [http://www.celtic-catholic-church.org Celtic Catholic Church]
- [http://nctimes.net/~celt/index.html Celtic Christian Spirituality] Category:Ancient_Roman_Christianity Category:Religion in the United Kingdom Category:Christianity Category:Ancient Christian Denominations Category:Christian denominations Category:Celtic Christianity ja:ケルト系キリスト教

Synod of Whitby

The Synod of Whitby was an important synod which eventually led to the unification of the church in Britain and the closing of the gap between Roman and Celtic church doctrines. Summoned by King Oswiu of Northumbria in AD 663, the synod was held in 664 at Whitby Abbey, which was Saint Hilda's double monastery of Streonshalh, at Whitby.

The Problem

Christianity in Britain existed in two forms: Celtic Christianity, which had dominated in Scotland, Wales and parts of the North of England, and originated from the work of the great Celtic missionaries Columba and Saint Brendan; and Roman Christianity, which had been established in the South of England, under the first international papal mission of Saint Augustine to Canterbury. At this point in history, both forms of Christianity were nearly identical with slight variations in practice. The actual matters in dispute were fairly minor and as such this synod is often treated lightly by many historians. The main controversies were primarily over how to calculate the date of Easter and what style of tonsure clerics should wear. However, whichever side was acknowledged as having authority to rule on these matters would also decide whether the Celtic or the Roman church would have ascendency over all of Britain with wider implications for an emerging international Church . Therefore, the synod did in reality encompass much greater implications than it is usually credited with. The matter came to a head one spring when the king, who followed the Celtic practice, was feasting at Easter, while the queen, who followed Roman practice, was still fasting for Lent.

The Decision of the Council

The Venerable Bede in his History of the Church, described the proceedings in detail, but he did not write his account until seventy years after the events he describes. A shorter account was given by Eddius. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, however, makes no mention at all of the synod. King Oswiu with Bishops Colman and Chad represented the Celtic tradition; Alchfrid, son of Oswiu, and Saint Wilfrid (634–710), and Bishop Agilbert that of Rome. Both Bede and Eddius agree as to the facts that Colman appealed to the practice of St. John and the authority of St. Columba, Wilfrid to St. Peter and to the council of Nicaea, and that the matter was finally settled by Oswy's determination not to offend St. Peter. "I dare not longer", he said, "contradict the decrees of him who keeps the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven, lest he should refuse me admission". This decision involved more than a mere matter of discipline.

The Consequences

The Synod of Whitby may have constituted a milestone not only in the history of the church in Britain but also in the history of the Catholic church throughout the world. This is due to the fact that delegates from the North and the South came together to debate the future of the church in Northumbria and that the highly debated issues between many historians today that believe the synod effectively outlawed Celtic Christianity throughout the Catholic world. Final judgement went to the Roman Church, whose practices were then adopted by the Northumbrians. Supporters of the Celtic traditions withdrew to Scotland. Full unification, and integration with the Roman Catholic Church and the authority of the Pope was finally achieved at the councils of Hertford in 673 and Hatfield 680 under the diplomatic guidance of St Theodore of Tarsus, a Greek monk who had been consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian, came to England in 669. In these synods much was done to promote unity, to define the limits of jurisdiction, and to restrain the wanderings and mutual interference of the clergy.

Celt

:This article is about the European people. For the tool, see celt (tool). celt (tool) The term Celts (pronounced "kelts") refers to any of a number of ancient peoples in Europe using the Celtic languages, which form a branch of Indo-European languages, as well as others whose language is unknown but where associated cultural traits such as Celtic art are found in archaeological evidence. Historical theories were developed that these factors were indicative of a common origin, but later theories of culture spreading to differing indigenous peoples have recently been supported by genetic studies. Though the spread of the Roman empire led to continental Celts adopting Roman culture, the development of Celtic Christianity in Ireland and Britain brought an early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 400 and 1200. Antiquarian interest from the 17th century led to the term Celt being developed, and rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century in areas where the use of Celtic languages had continued. Today, "Celtic" is often used to describe the languages and respective cultures of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and the French region of Brittany, but correctly corresponds to the Celtic language family in which are still spoken Scottish, Irish and Manx (Gaelic languages) and Welsh, Breton and Cornish (Brythonic languages).

Development of the term "Celt"

The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as keltoi or hidden people, is by the Greek historian Hecataeus in 517 BC. According to Greek mythology, Celtus was the son of Heracles and Celtine, the daughter of Bretannus. Celtus became the primogenitor of Celts (Ref.: Parth. 30.1-2). In Latin Celta, in turn from Herodotus' word for the Gauls, Keltoi. The Romans used Celtae to refer to continental Gauls, but apparently not to insular Celts, which were divided into Goidhels and Britons, and possibly other peoples. This is likely due to the possibility that, at those times, the term "Celta/Keltos" was tied to those cultures or people descendant from the Central Europe Celts, while no ties were known to the insular people (especially the Gaels whose language was extremely different from that of Brythonic Celts). The English word is modern, attested from 1707. In the late 17th century the work of scholars such as Edward Lhuyd brought academic attention, then in the 18th century the interest in "primitivism" which led to the idea of the "noble savage" brought a wave of enthusiasm for all things Celtic and Druidic. The "Irish revival" came after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 as a conscious attempt to demonstrate an Irish national identity, and with its counterpart in other countries subsequently became the "Celtic revival". Nowadays "Celt" is usually pronounced as and "Celtic" as (in IPA) when referring to the ethnic group and its languages, while the pronunciation remains in use mainly for certain sports teams (eg. the NBA team, Boston Celtics, and the SPL side, Celtic F.C., in Glasgow). (The pronunciation with /s/ reflects historical palatalization of the letter 'C' when it occurs before 'I' or 'E' in words of Latin origin; in the Classical era Latin 'C' was always pronounced as /k/. The modern pronunciation with /k/ is a reversion to the original, whereas the pronunciation with /s/ has not been reverted.) The word spelt as "Celtic" is (arguably) English, as the Latin was "Celticus" or "Celticum", the Welsh is "Celtaidd", and the Irish Gaelic is "Ceilteach". By this argument, a pronunciation with /s/ should therefore be acceptable. The term "Celt" or "Celtic" can be used in several senses: it can denote a group of peoples who speak or descend from speakers of Celtic languages; or the people of prehistoric and early historic Europe who share common cultural traits which are thought to have originated in the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In contemporary terms, there are typically six nations defined as 'Celtic Nations'. To be defined as a Celtic nation, that nation must have ownership of a Celtic language. The first six are usually defined as Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany. The additional nations of Galicia and Asturias in Spain are sometimes considered to be modern Celtic nations based on the survival of Celtic traditions similar to the traditions of other Celtic nations, however, the Celtic language has not survived in either. England retains many Celtic influences but is not Celtic, but the languages of Pre-Anglo Celtic peoples influences dialects of some of its more rural regions, particularly those bordering Scotland and Wales, the best known of which are Cumbric which was spoken from Strathclyde to Derbyshire as recently as the 11th century, and the language centred on Devon — both languages are under-going a modern revival. Other areas of Europe are associated with being Celtic as well, including France, which traces its roots to the Gauls. In Scotland, the Gaelic language traces at least some of its roots to migration and settlement by the Irish Dalriada/Scotti. Due to the settlement of English speaking Angles in the lowlands, which — among other things — drove out the Gaelic language, Scots Gaelic survives only in the country's northern and western fringes in the areas where Scotti tribes settled and dominated over the indigenous Brythonic culture. The use of the word 'Celtic' as a valid umbrella term for the pre-Roman peoples of Britain has been challenged by a number of writers — including Simon James of the British Museum. His book The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? makes the point that the Romans never used the term 'Celtic' in reference to the peoples of the Atlantic archipelago, i.e. the British Isles, and points out that the modern term "Celt" was coined as a useful umbrella term in the early 18th century to distinguish the non-English inhabitants of the archipelago when England united with Scotland in 1707 to create the United Kingdom. Nationalists in Scotland, Ireland and Wales looked for a way to differentiate themselves from England and assert their right to independence. James then argues that, despite the obvious linguistic connections, archaeology does not suggest a united Celtic culture and that the term is misleading, no more (or less) meaningful than 'Western European' would be today. This is somewhat misleading, however, since the Romans and Greeks did describe the Atlantic and continental Celts as being related to each other, having military alliances (and rivalries) with one another, sharing similar languages and traditions, as well as having a common religion and priest class. Additionally, archeological evidence shows quite clearly that the Atlantic and continental Celts were engaged in commerce with each other via regular trade routes. No one on either side of the debate argues that Celtic people have ever been a single homogenous political or social unit, but to argue that the Atlantic Celts were not Celts at all simply because hostile Romans never described them as such betrays a rather unscholarly bias. Miranda Green, author of Celtic Goddesses, describes archaeologists as finding "a certain homogeneity" in the traditions in the area of Celtic habitation including Britain and Ireland — an assertion backed up by recent genetic evidence which shows the populations of Ireland and Wales to be virtually indistinguishable from each other. She sees the inhabitants of the British Isles and Ireland as having become thoroughly Celticized by the time of the Roman arrival, mainly through spread of culture rather than a movement of people. In his book Iron Age Britain, Barry Cunliffe concludes that "...there is no evidence in the British Isles to suggest that a population group of any size migrated from the continent in the first millennium BC...". Cunliffe tempers his remarks by pointing out that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but modern archaeological thought tends to disparage the idea of large population movements without facts to back them up, a caution which appears to be vindicated by genetic studies. In other words, Celtic culture in the Atlantic Archipelago and continental Europe most probably emerged through the peaceful convergence of local tribal cultures bound together by networks of trade and kinship — not by war and conquest. This type of peaceful convergence and cooperation is actually relatively common among tribal peoples; other well known examples of the phenomenon include the Six Nations of the Iroquois League and the Nuer of East Africa. The ancient Celts are thus 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. Michael Morse in the conclusion of his book How the Celts came to Britain concedes that the concepts of a broad Celtic linguistic area and recognizably Celtic art have their uses, but argues that the term implies a greater unity than existed. Despite such problems he suggests that the term Celt is probably too deep-rooted to be replaced and — what is more important — it has the definition that we choose to give it. The problem is that the wider public reads into the term quite anachronistic concepts of ethnic unity that no one on either side in the academic debate holds.

Population genetics

With the information gathered recently by population geneticists, it is becoming increasingly clear that the old idea of large-scale replacement by newer invaders is often a misleading concept. The Celtic ethnicity debate took off at a particularly early stage in population genetic studies. In his book, "Neanderthal", the archaeologist, Douglas Palmer, refers to genetic research conducted across Europe, and then states that the original modern genetic group in Europe arrived between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago with the spread of farming, displacing the earlier hunter gatherer populations. Such displacement occurred by population explosion, since farming is capable of supporting up to a 60 times greater population than the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the same area; :"None of Europe's subsequent historic upheavals - even catastrophic wars and famines - has seriously dented the old pattern set by the influx of farmers. The Goths, Huns and Romans have come and gone without any significant impact on the ancient gene map of Europe". -Douglas Palmer It seems futile to suggest that people who were once part of a wider Celtic cultural group, cannot be considered Celtic, in the same way that it would seem futile to suggest that their direct descendants in places like Devon or Cumbrian cannot be considered English in modern times. Perhaps our percepion of race and culture need to change, as European population genetic history seems to indicate that the latter is independent of the former.

Origins and geographical distribution

Huns style. The red area indicates an idea of the possible region of Celtic influence around 400 BC.]] The Celtic language family is a branch of the larger Indo-European family, which leads some scholars to a hypothesis that the original speakers of the Celtic proto-language may have arisen in the Pontic-Caspian steppes (see Kurgan). However, as the Celts enter history from around 600 BC, they are already split into several languages groups, and spread over much of Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, Ireland and Britain, and studies now suggest that some of the Celtic peoples - including the ancestors of all the modern Celtic nations - had a largely pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, shared with the Basque people and possibly going back to the Palaeolithic. . Some scholars think that the Urnfield culture represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European family. 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 spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture directly from the Urnfield (c. 700 to 500 BC). Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is 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 Britain and to Iberia would have occurred during the first half of the 1st millennium, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to ca. 500 BC. Over the centuries they developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brythonic languages. Whether Goidelic and Brythonic are descended from a common Insular-Celtic language, or if they reflect two separate waves of migration is disputed. The La Tène culture, in any case, can be associated with the Gauls, but it is entirely too late for a candidate for the Proto-Celtic culture. The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture, and during the final stages of the Iron Age gradually transformed into the explicitly Celtic culture of early historical times. The La Tène culture was distributed around the upper reaches of the Danube, Switzerland, Austria, southern and central Germany, eastern France, Bohemia and Moravia, and parts of Hungary. The technologies, decorative practices and metal-working styles of the La Tène were to be very influential on the continental Celts. The La Tène style was highly derivative from the Greek, Etruscan and Scythian decorative styles with whom the La Tène settlers frequently traded. It is not known whether the Picts of Scotland were Celts or the remnant of an earlier population of the British Isles who had been pushed to the margin by Celtic invasions, or indeed whether they spoke a Brythonic language. The lack of any evidence to support the Celtic Invasion model, however, leads many scholars to favor the former model. In historical times western Scotland was colonised by Celtic Scotti from Ireland, who subsequently formed a political union with the Picts under Kenneth mac Alpin who had both Scots and Pictish ancestry. Additional forays into Greece and central Italy during the historical period did not result in settlement, though the same movement that brought Celtic invaders to Greece pushed on through to Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians. 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. However, the Celtic invasions of Italy, Greece, and western Anatolia are well documented in Greek and Latin history. Examine the Map of Celtic Landsfor more information. Stonehenge and the other megalithic monuments long predate the Iron Age Celtic 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 descendants of their builders. There is no evidence that they used these sites as areas of worship from the Iron Age on, however, and indeed most evidence suggest that the Druidic Celtic religion(s) preferred to use groves of Oak trees as places of worship. The connection between these monuments and the Celts largely stems from 18th century romantics such as William Stukely.

Celts in Ireland and Britain

The indigenous populations of Britain and Ireland today are primarily descended from the ancient peoples that have always inhabited these lands. As to their culture, little is known but remnants remain primarily in the naming of certain geographical features, such as the rivers Clyde, Tamar, Thames and Tyne. By the Roman period most of the inhabitants of the isles of Ireland and Great Britain (the ancient Britons) were speaking Goidelic or Brythonic languages, close counterparts to Gaulish languages spoken on the European mainland. Historians explained this as the result of successive invasions from the European continent by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several centuries. In 1946 the Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly published his extremely influential model of the early history of Ireland which postulated four separate waves of Celtic invaders. What languages were spoken by the peoples of the British Isles before the arrival of the Celts is unknown. early history of Ireland Later research indicated that the language and culture had developed gradually and continuously, and in Ireland no archaeological evidence was found for large intrusive groups of Celtic immigrants, suggesting to historians such as Colin Renfrew that the native Late Bronze Age inhabitants gradually absorbed influences to create "Celtic" culture. The very few continental La Tène culture style objects which had been found in Ireland could have been imports, or the possessions of a few rich immigrants. Julius Caesar had written of people in Britain who came from Belgium (the Belgae), but archaeological evidence which was interpreted in the 1930s as confirming this was contradicted by later interpretations and it was suggested that there might have been only a handful of élite Belgae in Britain. In the 1970s this model was popularised by Colin Burgess in his book The Age of Stonehenge which theorised that Celtic culture in Great Britain "emerged" rather than resulted from invasion and that the Celts were not invading aliens, but the descendants of the people of Stonehenge. More recently a number of genetic studies have supported this model of culture being absorbed by native populations. The study by Cristian Capelli, David Goldstein and others at University College, London showed that genes associated with Gaelic names in Ireland and Scotland are also common in Wales, Cornwall and most parts England, and are similar to the genes of the Basque people, who speak a non-Indo-European language. This similarity supported earlier findings in suggesting a largely pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, possibly going back to the Paleolithic. They suggest that 'Celtic' culture and the Celtic language were imported to Britain by cultural contact not mass invasions, either by Indo-Europeans bringing farming or by Celts in 600 BC. Recent studies have proven that, contrary to long-standing beliefs, the Teuton tribes did not wipe out the Romano-British of England but rather, over the course of six centuries, conquered the native Brythonic people of what is now England and south east Scotland and imposed their culture and language upon them, in a manner similar to the Irish spread over the west of Scotland.

Roman influence

At the dawn of history in Europe, the Celts in present-day France were known as Gauls. Their descendants were described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. There was also an early Celtic presence in northern Italy. Other Celtic tribes invaded Italy, establishing there a city they called Mediolanum (modern Milan) and sacking Rome itself in 390 BC following the Battle of the Allia. A century later the defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the end of the Celtic domination in Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy. Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of the Celtic British Isles. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman 'tribal' boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government. Latin was the official language of these regions after the conquests. The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanized 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.

Examples of Romanization

Examples of Romanization include the slow dissapperence of druids. This was because under Roman rule the druids lost power. Before Roman rule druids were important and made almost all desicions. When Rome came to rule druids no longer made these desicions. The use of stone by Celts. Before Rome they almost only used mud and sticks. When they started to interact with Rome more they started to use stone. Appearence of Roman-Celt hybrid gods. With more interaction with Rome celtic gods started to have names such as Mars.

Celtic Christianity

While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Scotland and Ireland moved from Celtic polytheism to Celtic Christianity which was a major source of missionary work in other parts of Britain and central Europe. This brought the early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 400 and 1200, developing many of the styles now thought of as typically Celtic, and found through much of Ireland and Britain, including the north-east and far north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Islands. This was brought to an end by Roman Catholic and Norman influence, though the Celtic languages and some minor influences of the art continued.

Celts pushed west by Germanic migration

Celts were pushed westwards by successive waves of Germanic invaders, perhaps themselves at times pressured by Huns and Scythians or simply population pressures in their homeland of Scandinavia and Northern Germany. With the fall of the Roman Empire the Celts of Gaul, Iberia and Britannia were "conquered" by tribes speaking Germanic languages. Elsewhere, the Celtic populations were assimilated by others, leaving behind them only a legend and a number of place names such as Bohemia, after the Boii tribe which once lived there, or the Kingdom of Belgium, after the Belgae, a Celtic tribe of Northern Gaul and south-eastern England. Their mythology has been absorbed into the folklore of half a dozen other countries. For instance, the famous Medieval English Arthurian tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is almost certainly partially derived from the medieval Irish text Fled Bricrend (The Feast of Bricriu). Argument rages in the academic world as to whether the Celts in England were mostly wiped out/pushed west as the lack of evidence for influence of the Celts on Anglo-Saxon society suggests, or whether the Teuton migration consisted merely of the social elite and that the genocide was cultural rather than physical due to such relatively few numbers of Anglo-Saxons mixing with the far larger native population, enabled to do so due to the civil strife in Britain after the Roman withdrawal and the unity of the incoming invaders. Recent DNA studies have confirmed that the population of England maintains a predominately ancient British element, equal in most parts to Cornwall and Wales. The general indigenous population of Yorkshire, East Anglia and the Orkney and Sheltand Islands are those populations with the least traces of ancient British continuation . Ironically, it is Viking genetic influence and not Anglo-Saxon which has had a more profound impact on British bloodlines.

Celtic social system and arts

The pre-Christian Celts had a well-organized social structure, based on class and kinship, with the religion we call Celtic polytheism. Elected Kings led the tribes, and society was divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy, an intellectual class including druids, poets, and jurists, and everyone else. Women participated both in warfare and in kingship, and all the offices of high and low kings were filled by election under the system of tanistry, both factors which would confuse Norman writers expecting the feudal principle of primogeniture where the succession goes to the first born son. Little is known of family structure, but Athenaeus in his Deipnosophists, 13.603, claims that "the Celts, in spite of the fact that their women are very beautiful, prefer boys as sexual partners. There are some of them who will regularly go to bed – on those animal skins of theirs – with a pair of lovers," implying with a woman and a boy. Celtic societies were organised around warfare, but this seems to have been more of a sport focussed on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, drawing obvious comparisons to warfare among Native Americans prior to European contact. This was the age of Hillforts and duns, but there was apparently no urbanization. There is strong archeological evidence to suggest that the pre-Roman Celtic nations were tied into a network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia from Ireland to China. Celtic traders were also in contact with the Phoenicians, gold works made in Pre-Roman Ireland have been unearthed in archeological digs in Palestine, and trade routes between the Celtic nations and Palestine date back to at least 1600 BC. Local trade was largely in the form of barter, but as with most tribal societies they probably had a reciprocal economy in which goods and other services are not exchanged, but are given on the basis of mutual relationships and the obligations of kinship. Though they had a written language, the Ogham script, it was only used for ceremonial purposes and they produced little in the way of literary output. Instead, Celtic peoples preferred the oral Bardic tradition. The oldest recorded rhyming poetry in the world is of Irish origin and is a transcription of a much older epic poem, leading some scholars to claim that the Celts invented Rhyme. They were highly skilled in visual arts and Celtic art 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, though when faced with the Romans, and in the Atlantic islands their chariot tactics defeated the invasion attempted by Julius Caesar.

Celtic Religous Patterns

Although Celtic gods varied from region to region and tribe to tribe, the Celtic religion had some patterns. For example like Mediterranean cultures most early Celts worshipped in sacred groves. This was once postulated to have occured because of Celts trading with Mediterranean cultures; however, evidence from Hallstatt era finds show that the earliest Celts practiced this before such trade took place. More reasonably, it is a byproduct of most primitive religion to worship in such a way. However, La Tene Celts also built temples of varying size and shape, though they still usually maintained sacred trees, or votive pools. Worship was, in this way, defered to temples, when they were available. Numerous temples were converted by the Romans, and with little difficulty; the design was rather similar to Roman temples, as they were both highly influenced by the Greeks, architecturally speaking. They druids postitions vary; a druid is not always a priest. Druids are any members of a Celtic society who had what we would view today as a college education. The most educated druids were usually doctors, priests, and heralds, as these occupations required the most memorization and skill for their practices. Priests from this class were in charge of a great deal of religious festivals, as well as organizing the calendar; a daunting task as the Celtic calendar is incredibly accurate, but required manual correction about every 40 years, meaning lengthy mathematic discourse. Druids also carried out sacrifices of crops, animals, and during specific festivals, humans. In a Celtic society, people were not executed for crimes, except during these festivals. Such executions varied, depending on what god the execution was dedicated to. Among the most famous is the human sacrifices practiced in the course of Essus worship. Essus was, more or less, a benevolent law god to many Celts, particularly Gauls. However, Essus worship also intoned a sense of merciless behavior toward repeated criminals, rapists, traitors, and other societal dregs. The offender, if found guilty, would be taken to the temple of Essus, where an oak would be growing through an opening in the temple roof. His stomach would be cut open, and he would be hung from an oak branch. The Celts' gods were often named after natural things. For example the source of rivers would often have their own goddesses, though rarely many gods. Another theme with Celt gods were triple deities; not only goddesses, but numerous gods. For example the Mothers of Britain, or Cromm Cruach's slovenly, deific, and humanistic forms. The main deities of Celtic religion, contrary to much misconception, were usually male. The world in some remaining myths is often depicted as having been forged by a god with a hammer, such as Dagda or Sucellos, who then poured all life from a magic cauldron or cup; a source of pre-Christian 'Holy Grail' myths in Celtic societies. While deities varied, several constant deities or demigods existed over a wide area. A great example is Lugos, a heroic sun god from Gaul and the southern, Gallic parts of Britain. He is also known as Lugh (in Ireland), Llew (in non-Gallic Britain), and Lug (among Celtiberians, who were not culturally true Celts). Early depictions of him exist as early as the Hallstatt era, suggesting him as one of the longest existing gods of Celtic religion. Similar is the horse and fertility goddess, Epona, who was also worshipped by the Romans when they came to rule Gaul. She also seems to have existed from the early era. Finally, there is Sucellos, who is argued by some to have been the 'creator of the universe' in some Celtic religions. He is party to Dagda of Ireland, and was worshipped over an enormous area, including by non-Celtic peoples such as the Lusitani. He was the patron god of the Ordovices tribe of Britain, and was built up by the Arverni and their allies to replace the druidic god Cernunnos, as the Gallic druids were allies of their enemies in the rule for Gaul; the Aedui. Other religious practices also existed; Celts seem to have universally removed body hair. Some postulate this as religious, but was more realistically part of the Celtic propensity for cleanliness. Body hair kept dirt close to the body, and Celts were an extremely cleanly people, so this was unacceptable. However, Celts also took heads from dead enemies. This was definitely a religious practice in origin. However, even post-Christian Gaels continued this practice into the middle ages; some Irish even took to scalping the heads that they took, so they could braid the scalp through rings on their weapons. The religious connotations by that point were slim, but it does imply that taking heads had incredible cultural importance to have persisted so long after the religious background had been removed. To our understanding, Celts believed the soul resided in the head, and that capturing a head meant that one captured the soul of an opponent, and that when a Celt died, the dead whom he had collected would serve him as slaves for eternity.

Celts as head-hunters

"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." - Paul Jacobsthal, Early Celtic Art. The Celtic cult of the severed head is documented not only in the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tene carvings, but in 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 who picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off, just as St. Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre. Separated from the mundane body, although still alive, the animated head acquires the ability to see into the mythic realm. 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 carry off as booty, while 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; thus displaying what is only a barbarous kind of magnanimity, for it is not a sign of nobility to refrain from selling the proofs of one's valour. It is rather true that it is bestial to continue one's hostility against a slain fellow man." The Celts also believed that if they attached the head of their enemy to a pole or a fence near their house, the head would start crying when the enemy was near. The Celtic headhunters venerated the image of the severed head as a continuing source of spiritual power. If the head is the seat of the soul, possessing the severed head of an enemy, honorably reaped in battle, added prestige to any warrior's reputation. According to tradition the buried head of a god or hero named Bran the Blessed protected Britain from invasion across the English Channel.

Names for Celts

The origin of the various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts is obscure and has been controversial. It appears that none of the terms recorded were ever used by Celtic speakers of themselves. In particular, there is no record of the term "Celt" being used in connection with the inhabitants of Ireland and Britain prior to the 19th century.

The name "Gauls"

English Gaul(s), French Gaulois(es), Spanish Galo(s), Latin Gallus or Galli, German Gallier might be from an originally Celtic ethnic or tribal name (perhaps borrowed into Latin during the early 400s BC, Celtic expansions into Italy). Its root may be the Common Celtic
- galno, meaning "power" or "strength". Greek Galatai (see Galatia in Anatolia) seems to be based on the same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source which gave us Galli (the suffix -atai is simply an ethnic name indicator).

The word "Welsh"

The word Welsh is a Germanic word, yet it may ultimately have a Celtic source. It may be the result of an early borrowing (in the 4th century BC) of the Celtic tribal name Volcae into early Germanic (becoming the Proto-Germanic
- Walh-, "Foreigner" and the suffixed form
- Walhisk-). The Volcae were one of the Celtic peoples that barred, for two centuries, the southward expansion of the German tribes in central Germany on the line of the Hartz mountains and into Saxony and Silesia. In the middle ages certain districts of what is now Germany were known as "Welschland" as opposed to "Deutschland", and the word is cognate with Vlach (see: Etymology of Vlach) and Walloon as well as the 'wall' in Cornwall. During the early Germanic period, the term seems to have been applied to the peasant population of the Roman Empire, most of whom were, in the areas immediately settled by the Germans, of ultimately Celtic origin.

The name "Celts"

English Celt(s), Latin Celtus pl. Celti (Celtae), Greek Κέλτης pl. Κέλτες seem to be based on a native Celtic ethnic name (singular
- Celtos or
- Celta with plurals
- Celtoi or
- Celta:s), of unsure etymology. The root would seem to be a Primitive Indo-European
- kel- or (s)kel-, but there are several such roots of various meanings to choose from (
- kel- "to be prominent",
- kel- "to drive or set in motion",
- kel- "to strike or cut" etc.)

References

- Collis, John. The Celts - Origins, Myths & Inventions. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0752429132.
- Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0198150105.
- Cunliffe, Barry. Iron age Britain. London: Batsford, 2004. ISBN 0713488395
- James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, August 1999. ISBN 0299166740.
- James, Simon & Rigby, Valerie. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age. London: British Museum Press, 1997. ISBN 0714123064.
- Kruta,V., O. Frey, Barry Raftery and M. Szabo. eds. The Celts. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0847821935.
- Laing, Lloyd. The Archaeology of Late Celtic Britain and Ireland c. 400--1200 AD. London: Methuen, 1975. ISBN 0416823602
- MacKillop, James. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0192801201
- McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History. New York: Penguin, 1985. ISBN 0140708324
- Mallory, J. P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0500276161.
- Powell, T. G. E. The Celts. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1980. third ed. 1997. ISBN 0500272751.
- Raftery, Barry. Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. ISBN 0500279837.
- Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN 0521386756.
- Ward-Perkins, Bryan. "Why Did The Anglo-Saxons Not Become More British?" in English Historical Review, June 2000.
- Weale, M. "Y Chromosome Evidence For Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration." in Society For Molecular Biology And Evolution, 2002.
- Lloyd and Jenifer Laing. Art of the Celts, London: Thames and Hudson, 1992 ISBN 0500202567

External links

- [http://www.resourcesforhistory.com Celts and Romans]
- [http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MA/CELTS.HTM The Celts]
- [http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/capelli2_CB.pdf "A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles" (pdf)]
- BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2076470.stm "English and Welsh are races apart"]
- BBC [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/genetics_results_07.shtml "Descendents of the ancient Britons in genetic survey results for Rush and Castlerea, Ireland, 2003".] Category:Ancient Roman enemies and allies Category:Ancient peoples Category:Celts Category:Ethnic groups of Europe als:Kelten ms:Celt ja:ケルト人

Britain

:This article deals with the history of the word Britain. For clarification of terminology and an overview of articles about Britain and Ireland see British Isles (terminology). The word Britain is an informal term used to refer to
- the island of Great Britain which consists of the nations of England, Scotland and Wales.
- the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or UK,
- sometimes the Roman province called "Britain" or "Britannia" The word British generally means belonging to or associated with Britain in one of the first two senses above (i.e. the United Kingdom or the island of Great Britain). However, the term has a range of related usages, as described in this article. Etymologically, these words are closely related to Brittany, the name of the western French peninsula, and its adjective Breton.

Earliest attested references

- Pretaniké; Pretanikai nesoi (Pretanic isles) - 325 BC
- Britannia - 55 BC (Julius Caesar, Roman invasion of Britain)
- Breten - 855 (Old English Chronicle, introduction)
- Brittisc - 855 (OED)
- Grate Briteigne - 1548 (OED)
- British isles - 1550 (in Latin; map of Sebastian Munster cited in British Isles article)

Etymology

The etymology of the name Britain is thought to derive from a Celtic word, Pritani, "painted people/men", a reference to the inhabitants of the islands' use of body-paint and tattoos. If this is true, there is an interesting parallel with the name Pict, connected with a Latin word of the same meaning. The modern Welsh name for Britain is Prydain. The Q-Celtic form was Cruithin, showing that the Common Celtic singular form was qr[ui]tanos. The root is presumably that of the modern Gaelic/Irish word cruth 'shape, form'. It has also been postulated that Britain may derive from the Celtic goddess Brigid; the form of the word, however, is against this postulation. In 325 BC the Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia visited a group of islands which he called Pretaniké, the principal ones being Albionon (Albion) and Ierne (Erin). The records of this visit date from much more recent times, so there is room for these details to be disputed, but it does seem to attest pre-Roman use of the name by Celtic-speaking inhabitants of the islands - or the names used by the Phoenecians Pytheas went with. The Roman geographer Ptolemy called the larger island Megale Brettania (Great Britain), and the smaller island Micra Bretannia (Little Britain).

Britain and Brittany

The original reference seems to have been to the territory in which the Brythonic languages were spoken, which more or less coincided with the Roman province of Britannia, an area equivalent to modern England, Wales and southern Scotland. In the Early Middle Ages speakers of a Brythonic language which later evolved into Breton migrated from Cornwall to Armorica, Western France, possibly because of pressure from Saxon invasions. This is why different forms of the same name apply to insular Britain and continental Brittany. In French the similarity is even more obvious: Bretagne and Grande Bretagne. Geoffrey of Monmouth used the names Britannia minor to refer to the Armorican region and Britannia major for the island. The element great in the term Great Britain thus simply means large, to make the distinction from Brittany.

Historical evolution of the term Britain

The kingdoms established on the island of Great Britain were perceived to be dominant over the whole archipelago, which thus came to be known as the British Isles. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, the queen's astrologer and alchemist, John Dee, wrote mystical volumes predicting a British Empire and using the terms Great Britain and Britannia. After Elizabeth's death in 1603 the kingdoms shared one King, James VI of Scotland and I of England. On 20 October 1604 he proclaimed himself "King of Great Brittaine" (thus including Wales and also avoiding the cumbersome title "King of England and Scotland"). This title was eventually adopted formally in 1707 when the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed. Politically, then, British has been used to described someone or something from the United Kingdom, in its various forms, since 1707. Briton or Brit are also used colloquially in this form, though the use of Briton here is incorrect. Since its formation, the kingdom was enlarged in 1801 by the addition of the island of Ireland - already ruled by the British monarchy - to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and was then reduced in 1922 by the independence of the Irish Free State, now the Republic of Ireland. The name of the kingdom changed accordingly, in 1927 becoming The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. British was also used to describe members of nations that formed part of the British Empire. This use now, however, could be seen as justifying the colonial era, even if only applied historically.

Modern use of the term 'British'

The modern use of the term 'British' is as an adjective to describe someone or something from the United Kingdom. It is officially used as the term to describe the nationality of a citizen of the United Kingdom. Irish Nationalists may reject this term as offensive, as it is used to describe Irish people in Northern Ireland. Many people from England, Scotland and Wales also dislike the term, preferring to define themselves as natives of their own particular country. It is also frequently used to describe residents of the United Kingdom's current colonies. This may still offend some people, though since the British Overseas Territories Act 2002 all residents of the United Kingdom's remaining colonies have been eligible for British citizenship, making the term more apt. British occurs in the legal term British Islands . This was coined to describe all of the islands of the British Isles, exlcuding those that form part of the Republic of Ireland, when they act together as a political whole. Geographically, the term can be used in various ways:
- To describe someone from the island of Great Britain
- In the term British Isles, the traditional term for the entire archipelago of islands that lie off the north west coast of France, of which Great Britain and Ireland are the two biggest. Note that this is not intended to imply that all of these islands are part of the United Kingdom, for many of them are part of the Republic of Ireland. However, confusion caused by this term can lead to offense.
- The term has historically been used to describe someone or something from the British Isles. Due to the above mentioned potential for offense, this rarely happens today. For example the British Lions a rugby team which draws players from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland has been renamed to the British and Irish Lions.
- Sometimes British applies to an area or territory currently or formerly governed by or a dependent territory of the United Kingdom, for example the British Virgin Islands, the British Indian Ocean Territory, or British Columbia which is now a province of Canada.

Brutus of Troy

In keeping with the mediaeval penchant for etymologising country names in terms of eponomous heroes, English historians of the late mediaeval and early modern periods charted the history of the nation from Brutus of Troy, supposedly a hero of the Trojan war who founded Britain just as Aeneaus' descendant Romulus founded Rome, Frankus France, and so forth. The life of Brutus, anglicised as Brute, was recorded in the literary tradition of the Prose Brute. This was long accepted as the etymology of Britain.

Sources and further reading

- A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World, 3000 BC - 1603 AD by Simon Schama, BBC/Miramax, 2000 ISBN 0786866756
- A History of Britain, Volume 2: The Wars of the British 1603-1776 by Simon Schama, BBC/Miramax, 2001 ISBN 0786866756
- A History of Britain - The Complete Collection on DVD by Simon Schama, BBC 2002
- The Isles, A History by Norman Davies, Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0195134427
- Shortened History of England by G. M. Trevelyan Penguin Books ISBN 0140233237
- Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Eric Partridge, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1966

External links

- [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/ British History Online] Category:British Isles Category:History of Britain Category:Europe simple:Britain

Roman Britain

:This article is about the Roman province called Britannia. For other uses, see Britannia (disambiguation). Britannia (disambiguation) Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between 43 and

Celtic Christianity

What is Celtic Christianity?

The Debate about the Church's Existence

Antiquity of the Celtic Church: Tradition & Legend

Antiquity of the Celtic Church: Known and Generally Accepted

Ecclesiastical Structure: How separate was the Celtic church?

Differences from the rest of Catholicism

The Easter problem

Celtic Saints

Celtic Christianity today

See also

References

External links

Synod of Whitby

The Problem

The Decision of the Council

The Consequences

See also

Celt

Development of the term "Celt"

Population genetics

Origins and geographical distribution

Celts in Ireland and Britain

Roman influence

Examples of Romanization

Celtic Christianity

Celts pushed west by Germanic migration

Celtic social system and arts

Celtic Religous Patterns

Celts as head-hunters

Names for Celts

The name "Gauls"

The word "Welsh"

The name "Celts"

See also

Endnotes

References

External links

Britain

Earliest attested references

Etymology

Britain and Brittany

Historical evolution of the term Britain

Modern use of the term 'British'

Brutus of Troy

See also

Sources and further reading

External links

Roman Britain