Celtic Government and Society

by Annie Whitehead

In this series examining the lives of the peoples known as The Celts, I’ve looked at their origins, how they lived, the members of the community, and their occupation and leisure activities. Now, in the final post on this topic, I’m looking at their Government and Social Structure.

Boudicca

Among the Celtic tribes, the form of government was either monarchical or oligarchical. The Bretons were governed by several kings and chiefs, while the Caledonii had a democratic government. In Gaul and the British Isles, the power of the king was probably not very great, as they were almost certainly chosen by the people and could be easily deposed if the need arose.

In some tribes, there seems to have been a chief magistrate, “Summus Magistratus.” He had the power of life and death, and was elected by the priests and magistrates. He was appointed for a year only, and he could not leave the territory of the city.

At the beginning of each war, the Gauls usually convened an armed assembly. The law stated that all young adults must attend the meeting armed. The last man to arrive was tortured and put to death in public. When dealing with civic affairs, the assemblies were still attended by armed men. Anyone creating a disturbance would, according to Strabo [1] have had a chunk removed from his sagum (cloak). Approval was shown by a clanking of weapons, instead of applause. The assemblies only met in grave circumstances -  there is no evidence to suggest that they were held regularly.

A reconstructed Celtic 'La Tène' village

Caesar described the plebeians of Gaul as living in a state bordering on slavery, never being consulted about anything. There were two categories of vassals; the free vassals, “Soer-cheli”, and the non-free vassals, “doer-cheli”. These vassals were bound to their overlord by a contract based on livestock. There were five social classes: kings, nobles, free landowners, free men without property, and non-free men.

There is no firm evidence that children - of either sex - who waited on tables at banquets were slaves. It is clear, however, that the Celts brought back slaves from their expeditions.

The historian, Fustel de Coulages [2] described the structure of Celtic society thus: “A great number of peasants and a tiny urban class, many men attached to the soil and few land-owners; many servants and few masters; a plebeian class lacking utterly in status and importance, and a very powerful warrior aristocracy.”

In judicial matters, the authorities intervened only rarely, most disputes being settled privately between the parties. Certain disputes were decided by duelling. Poseidonius [3] reported that in Gaul, when hams were served at banquets, the strongest guest would seize the ham for himself. If he was challenged, the two men would fight to the death.

The Dying Gaul

In Irish law, duelling was one of the accepted means whereby parties to a legal dispute could settle their differences. If a contract had first been concluded with the consent of both parties, the family of the slain contender had no right to claim compensation for his death.

In cases of crime or murder, Caesar wrote that the Druids decided the issue and set the fine or punishment. The Celts generally prescribed a severe punishment for the killing of a stranger. The penalty for this was death, compared with the exile imposed on the murder of a fellow citizen.

An Arch Druid in His Judicial Habit -
wearing a Bronze Age gold collar

Anyone convicted of theft, highway robbery, or certain other crimes, was burnt alive. Diodorus [4] wrote that the Gauls used to keep their criminals in prison for five years, and then, in honour of the gods, they burnt them, along with numerous other offerings, on large pyres. Any Gaul caught hiding or stealing part of the booty obtained in war, or any object deposited in a sacred place, was put to death after the most cruel torture.

Fines were imposed on any young people whose waist measurement exceeded the standard, for as we saw in previous articles, much importance was placed on the perfection of the male body.

Diodorus also wrote that the Gauls had poets known as bards, and theologians known as druids. When singing their songs of praise, or reproach, the bards accompanied themselves on instruments similar to lyres. They sang of the deeds of the great, and kept alive the memory of the heroes of the past through their poems.

Druids Inciting the Britons to Oppose the Landing of the Romans

Anne Ross [5] suggests that the evidence we have about the druids in no way justifies the aura of romanticism which has surrounded them. The religious functions of the druids mainly involved attendance at ceremonies. They were responsible for the conduct of sacrifices, both public and private. Yet it appears that their presence during the ceremonies was more in response to the wishes of the people, and that they did not play a principal role in the sacrifice itself. Strabo and Diodorus agree on this point. Strabo says that the Celts made their sacrifices “with the assistance” of the druids, while Diodorus wrote that the Celts never offered a sacrifice without a philosopher present.

At the time of Pliny, magic was popular in Gaul and in the British Isles, and in his opinion the druids, whom he translated as “Magi”, were magicians and fetishists who held all kinds of magical secrets and medical remedies. The Gaulish druids believed that the mistletoe of the robur oak had special sacred powers. Sacrifices and divination were two important religious practices, but magic secrets, entrusted to druids at the time of Pliny (AD23-79) were normally left to sorcerers of lesser repute.

The druids were thought to be the most just among men, and they were made judges in public and private disputes. As we have seen, the druids were the ones to set the amount of fines and the type of punishment to be imposed in cases of crime, murder, or disputes about inheritance.

The idea that the druids were both physical and moral philosophers contrasts strongly with Pliny’s idea of their rather humble role. The explanation could be that, from the earliest times,the druids consolidated their power not merely by their knowledge, but also by the practice of certain magical arts. When Roman domination caused them to lose the judicial and political roles, all that was left for them was the equivalent of quackery.

Roman soldiers murdering druids and burning their groves
on Anglesey, as described by Tacitus

The origin for many later traditions about the druids can be found in Caesar’s writing on the subject. He described their role thus: “All the druids are under one head, whom they hold in the highest respect...The druids are exempt from military service and do not pay taxes like other citizens… It is said that their pupils have to memorise a great number of verses - so many, that some of them spend twenty years at their studies… A lesson they take particular pains to inculcate is that the soul does not perish, but after death passes from one body to another; they think that this is the best incentive to bravery, because it teaches men to disregard the terrors of death. They also hold long discussion about the heavenly bodies and their movements, the size of the universe and of the earth, the physical constitution of the world, and the power and properties of the gods; and they instruct the young men in all these subjects.” [6]

Lloyd Laing [7] agreed that the druids were powerful men, that there was an arch-druid, and that there were schools for the instruction of the young in druidic lore, but that it was unlikely that they believed in the transmigration of souls. Nor did he think it likely that they were rustic philosophers, who debated astronomy and the physical constitution of the earth, for "philosophy is was essentially the product of the civilised mind and had no real place in barbarian society."

Two Druids, as imagined by 19th c
artist  Bernard de Montfaucon

Perhaps it will always be a case of “You pays your money and you takes your choice.” Were the druids little more than ‘witch doctors’ to a primitive and undoubtedly very ancient religion, as Lloyd Laing suggested, or was their role much more significant? Caesar appears to have thought so.

Over this series, we have seen that the Celts were masters of many techniques; that they wove and used dyes, their art was advanced and they were expert miners. They were very concerned with hygiene, the women were faithful and loyal, and the men had no fear of death. On the one hand, they indulged in barbaric rituals, but enjoyed relatively sophisticated government. There are recognisable elements of what would become ‘feudalism’. They worked the land, they played games and music. A warrior society, certainly, but much more besides.

~~~~~~~~~~

[1] Strabo was a Greek geographer who lived from about 58BC-AD25
[2] Quoted from The World of Celts, G Dottin
[3] Poseidonius was a Greek Stoic philosopher who lived from 135-51BC
[4] Diodorus was a Greek historian who lived 90-30BC
[5] Pagan Celtic Britain
[6] Caesar’s The Conquest of Gaul
[7] Celtic Britain

See the other articles in this series: Who Were the Celts?, How the Celts Lived, The Celtic Community
All above images are in the public domain

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Whitehead is a history graduate and prize-winning author. Her first novel, To Be A Queen, is the story of Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, who came to be known as the Lady of the Mercians. It was long-listed for the Historical Novel Society’s Indie Book of the Year 2016, and it has been awarded a B.R.A.G. Gold Medallion.

Her second novel, Alvar the Kingmaker, is a tale of intrigue, deceit, politics, love, and murder in tenth-century Mercia. It charts the career of the earl who sacrificed personal happiness to secure the throne of England for King Edgar, and, later, Aethelred the Unready. It too has just been awarded a B.R.A.G. Gold Medallion.

Most recently, she has contributed to the anthology of short stories, 1066 Turned Upside Down, in which nine authors re-imagine the events of 1066, and which has just been awarded HNS Editors’ choice and long-listed for Book of the Year 2017.

Author Page
Alvar the Kingmaker
To Be A Queen
Website
Blog
1066 Turned Upside Down

The Celts - Occupations and Leisure Activities

by Annie Whitehead

So far in this series, I’ve looked at the origins of the Celtic People, how they lived and who they were. Now I’m looking at what they did:

While the Celt as a warrior has been the most colourful picture to come down for posterity, warfare was not a full time occupation, and the majority of Celtic people spent most of their time in rural, agricultural pursuits.

The Aedui chief Dumnorix, Museum of Celtic
Civilization, Bibracte

There was a great difference between the Germanic tribes and the Gauls, as the former consumed very little wheat and lived mainly on milk and the flesh of their animals.

Cattle were abundant in Gaul, which can be seen from the fact that during all Caesar’s expedition large amounts of livestock were seized.

The cattle in Britain were of the Celtic Shorthorn variety, first appearing towards the end of the Bronze age. Sheep were small, similar to the Soay breed. Wild animals presented a threat, to crops and to life, with wolves, bears and wild cats all still abundant.

Soay sheep at Cranborne Ancient Technology Centre
Attrib. Simon Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3499513

The cultivation of wheat was quite common among the Transalpine Gauls, and Caesar never had any difficulty feeding his armies on any of his campaigns.  Besides wheat, we know from Pliny that millet was grown, at least in Aquitaine.

In the highlands of the northern British Isles, rain-bearing winds caused many fields to be abandoned during the latter stages of the Bronze age, but iron axes (seventh century BC onwards) enabled the clearing of forests, allowing for the planting of crops.

The Greek writer Hecataeus noted that in the sixth century BC, the people in Britain reaped two harvests a year, of the hardy spelt. Other ‘new’ grains included the Celtic bean, rye, club wheat and chess. Aerial views of Celtic fields are used to make calculations, and at Overton Down in Wiltshire the fields there suggest that the average field could have been ploughed in a day, based on a plough being pulled by two oxen.

But the Celts generally were also accomplished hunters. Those who hunted for pleasure used no nets. The richer Celts would send men to seek out a resting hare. After rousing the hare, they would send their dogs after it. The Celtic dogs were famous; they were extremely savage and fast runners. One dog tracked down the animal by following its scent, while the others stood where the animal was likely to emerge, ready to leap on it for the kill.

Money was put aside every time a kill was made. It was used every year to pay for a sacrifice to the Goddess Artemis, and for a banquet where the dogs appeared covered with flowers.

Caesar observed, though, that it was unlawful to eat hares. Boudicca released one while praying to her goddess before setting out on her anti-Roman campaigns. Hares of course continue to be abundant in Celtic folklore.

Artemis with hind

The Celts used a hand thrown dart when hunting birds. The arrows used in hunting were poisoned with juice from the fruit of a tree.

Fishing was not as popular as hunting, and many tribes took no advantage of the abundance of fish available off their shores.

In terms of industry, there were silver mines in the Pyrenees, and also in Spain. Gaul contained many iron ore mines and the Gauls were experts at working them. There were, however, few of them in the British Isles. The Britons used copper for their coins, and also iron rings of a given weight. The Caledonii wore iron ornaments around their necks, and this was regarded as a sign of great wealth. Copper was to be found in Aquitaine, but the Gauls did not know how to process it properly. Imported copper was used in the British Isles, and tin occurred only in the British Isles.

It’s probable that smiths were not of equal status in Britain. Those who made, for example, the Snettisham Torcs, must have been master craftsmen, while below them there would have been itinerant smiths who set up their forges to repair or make tools as and when required.

Snettisham Hoard Attrib. Portable Antiquities Scheme from London, England -
The Snettisham Hoard Uploaded by Victuallers, CC BY 2.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10719871

The Gauls used coral and enamel for decorative purposes. The finest coral was collected off the southern coast of Gaul. It was used to decorate swords, shields and helmets. The use of coral in the ancient world was found only in those areas under Celtic influence. Pliny says that coral was thought to have certain cultural properties; for example, a branch of coral round the neck of a child was regarded as protections against harm. Objects decorated with coral most probably belong to the end of the Halstatt period and the first part of the La Tène period.*

Philostratus** wrote that the ‘barbarians’ knew how to pour white, black, yellow and red colours on incandescent copper so that they hardened to the consistency of stone, keeping the designs made on the metal. This must have been a reference to the Celts and an enamelling process. The Celts applied enamel to objects such as buttons, clasps and brooches.

Trade between the British Isles and the Roman world increased after Caesar’s expeditions. Initially, luxury wine arrived, but by 15BC ‘rough’ wines were being imported, and by the last decade of the first century BC products such as fish-sauce and tableware came in. The main imports of pottery were Gallo-Belgic imitations of the fine Arretine pottery, which was finished in a rich red gloss.

In Scotland, one fort grew in prosperity under the Roman occupation. At Traprain Law, in East Lothian, finds include distinctive dress-fasteners which were being imitated by local bronze-smiths.

Iron age Hill Fort

‘Cottage industry’ likely included the weaving of baskets, but there are few finds. A basket fragment was found in Stanwick, Yorkshire. More abundant are finds of woven hurdles, with fine examples found in Glastonbury and Meare in Somerset.

Meare also gave up objects such as wooden tubs and cups, wheel hubs and spokes and various wooden tool handles.

Antler was often carved and fashioned into a variety of tools, as well as for making the cheek pieces for bridles.

The Stanwick Horse Mask, La Tene style mount, British, 1st century
By Johnbod - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11522642

Life was not all about work. Also found on the Meare site were game counters made from polished pebbles. At Welwyn Garden City, an excavation uncovered glass gaming pieces from a chieftain’s burial. Five dice and a dice box were also found.

A bone flute, found in a burial at Standfordbury, and an iron horn from Ireland, suggest that music played a part in Celtic life, be it in the home, or simply as part of festivals and rituals.

Next time, more on rituals, as we look at the government and social structure of Celtic society, and the Druidic rituals and traditions.


*See the first part of this series for more on these cultures.
** Philostratus was a Greek writer of the second and third centuries. He was born on the island of Lemnos and lived from AD175-249.

[All above images public domain unless otherwise attributed]

See the previous articles in this series
Who Were the Celts?, How the Celts Lived, The Celtic Community

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Whitehead is a history graduate and prize-winning author. Her first novel, To Be A Queen, is the story of Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, who came to be known as the Lady of the Mercians. It was long-listed for the Historical Novel Society’s Indie Book of the Year 2016, and it has been awarded a B.R.A.G. Gold Medallion.

Her second novel, Alvar the Kingmaker, is a tale of intrigue, deceit, politics, love, and murder in tenth-century Mercia. It charts the career of the earl who sacrificed personal happiness to secure the throne of England for King Edgar, and, later, Aethelred the Unready. It too has just been awarded a B.R.A.G. Gold Medallion.

Most recently, she has contributed to the anthology of short stories, 1066 Turned Upside Down, in which nine authors re-imagine the events of 1066, and which has just been awarded HNS Editors’ choice and long-listed for Book of the Year 2017.

Author Page
Alvar the Kingmaker
To Be A Queen
Website
Blog
1066 Turned Upside Down

How The Celts Lived

By Annie Whitehead

Last time, I introduced the Celts and who they were.*

I explained that there were three phases of Celtic settlement in Britain, beginning in around 500-450 BC (perhaps earlier in Scotland), with settlers from France and the Low countries, continuing around 250 BC, and then a third phase, in around 100 BC, of Belgic peoples settling in southern Britain.

This time I’m taking a look at how they lived, although, given the paucity of the sources, it's sometimes necessary to look at those still living in Europe, in order to build up an adequate picture.

Firstly, what kind of housing did they have?

According to Polybus [1] the people who settled in Cisalpine (the Roman side of the Alps) Gaul lived in scattered villages without walls. Their houses were probably wooden, which could easily be burned down and destroyed.

Gaulish houses were usually thatched and dome-like, and built of planks and willow supports. Some had an outer facing of mud, while others were covered with oak shingles, or straw mixed with earth. The Bretons built similar houses of reeds and wood. The Caledonii still had neither fortified walls, nor towns, as late as the second century of the Christian era.

A Pre-Roman Gaulish House

In wartime, the Gauls used to take refuge in the fortified camps known to Caesar as ‘Oppida’. The oppida of the Bretons were nothing more than retrenched camps defended by a ditch and a mound of earth with a stockade, within which they erected temporary huts. The Belgian people who inhabited the Ardennes Forest used to take special precautions in times of war by weaving the branches of thorny bushes into a mesh of thorns, so that invaders would find all paths blocked. In certain places, they would retreat with their families to small islands in swamps deep in the forest, having first driven stakes into the ground along potential paths. The oppida of Gaul were towns which could also offer shelter to the inhabitants of neighbouring areas but which also had a permanent population themselves.

Caesar described the walls of Gaulish fortifications: solid beams were laid out on the ground about two feet apart; they were joined by transverse struts, and the cavity thus formed was filled with earth. Large stones were used to face the front. A second layer was then added, and so on until the desired height was reached. These interwoven layers of stone and wood had major military advantages as the stone was a protection against fire, and the wood against the danger of the battering ram.

The Gauls described by Polybus were not familiar with the idea of furniture and their beds were apparently nothing more than grass.

Posidonius, [2] quoted by Athenus, [3] noted that at mealtimes the Celts used to sit on bales of hay around low circular tables of wood. They used neither spoons nor forks; they simply grabbed chunks of meat and tore them apart. Their dishes were made of silver, copper, or earthenware. Their goblets were of earthenware or silver.

A Belgic bronze tankard was found in Trawsfynydd in Wales, and has been dated to the mid-first century AD. Its base was made of turned wood. Two more tankards were found at Shapwick Heath in Somerset, and one was recovered from the River Thames, at Kew. Belgic wrought iron ‘fire dogs’, would have been used to spit-roast meat at feasts, and examples have been found at Great Chesterford, Essex and Capel Garmon, North Wales.

The fire dogs - pic from bbc.co.uk

Dairy products were much used among the Gauls. (The remains of vast cheese-making installations have been found at Mont Beuvray- also known as Bibracte.) [4]

The Calednoii and the Maeatae apparently made no use at all in their diet of the abundant stocks of fish in the waters of their region.

For their daily sustenance, the Bretons used to shell the oldest ears of cereal in their barns. Some of their tribes were so lacking in industry that although they had plenty of milk, they never made cheese from it. Others lived off bark and roots, and devised a type of food which was so filling that a very small amount was enough to serve as a meal. The fore-runner of the breakfast bar, perhaps? (More about farming in a later episode.)

The standard drink of the Gauls was at one time a beer made from grain. This drink was called ‘corma’. The guests all drank out of the same goblet, which was passed round by a servant.

In the first century BC, wine brought from Italy was the drink of the rich. Some Gauls would lie down on their shields, and, in exchange for wine or money, would allow their throats to be cut, as long as the wine or the money should go to their descendants after their death.

The Celts held ceremonial dinners; the guests sat in a circle, and the man who was the most distinguished in terms of military prowess, birth, or wealth, sat in the middle of the assembled company. The master of the household sat next to him, and the others sat on either side, their position depending on their rank.

So, as they sat there, what would they have been wearing?

It would seem that many of the Celtic tribes were comparatively sophisticated in their dress. Diodorus [5] described the Gauls as having worn tunics and trousers, with striped sashes over their shoulders. Pliny [6] suggested that the Gauls were the inventors of checked cloth; they extracted a purple dye from the bilberry, scarlet from the hyacinth, and colours from various other plants.

The Aedui chief Dumnorix, Museum of Celtic Civilization, Bibracte

The Celts of the La Tène culture had highly developed weaving and dyeing techniques. The men wore close-fitting trousers and pullovers, while the women wore freely-flowing cloaks of the same material.

In Ireland, the men liked to wear woollen cloaks, pinned together at the neck by a brooch. Trousers were worn only by the poor, noblemen preferring ‘Léine’, knee-length linen tunics.

The Celts wore sandals, which left much of the upper foot exposed. These sandals were tied up with leather.

Some Celtic tribes, however, seem to have been quite unaware of the use of clothes. In the second century AD, the inhabitants of Northern Brittany went completely naked. Some Gaulish tribes also were in the habit of undressing completely before battle.

When they were clothed, though, did they wear any other adornments?

Strabo [7] said of the Celts: “to the frankness and high spiritedness of their temperament must be added the traits of childish boastfulness and love of decoration. They wear ornaments of gold, torcs on their necks, and bracelets on their arms and wrists.”

These torcs were heavy rings of solid gold, richly decorated, and with a finger-sized opening at the front. Gerhard Herm points out in The Celts, that they must have been put on with great difficulty, being too small to push over the head, and yet too thick to bend open. Perhaps the most famous of the Celtic torcs were discovered at Snettisham in Norfolk between 1948 and 1968. The largest was 20cm in diameter and made of electrum. It was dated to the mid-first century BC

A more delicate (Bronze) torc

Besides jewellery, the Celts also used the tattoo as a form of personal adornment. Caesar wrote that all the Bretons used to dye their bodies with pastel, thus turning their bodies a bright blue colour, which made them look particularly horrible in battle. It is possibly from the addiction to his habit that the dark-age Picts acquired their name, ‘painted men’.

A brief note on hygiene: Personal hygiene among the Celts cannot have been overly sophisticated. They did, however, make soap from tallow or ash. This was, according to Pliny, a Gaulish invention. In order to preserve the freshness of their complexions, the Celtic women used beer foam. The cleaning of teeth, among the Celtiberians (the Celts who invaded Greece) was done with urine, stored for a long time in special tanks.

Next time: The role of Members of the Community
* Read the first in this series, Who Were the Celts?


[1] Polybus, or Polybius, was a Greek historian who was born between 210 and 205 BC, in Arcadia. He wrote a general history of his time, and died around 125 BC
[2] Posidonius, or Poseidonius, was a Syrian born historian. He was a Stoic philosopher, and emphasised the interrelation of all things in the universe.
[3] Athenus, or Athenaeus, was a Greek writer born in Egypt. He wrote in the end of the second century and the third century AD
[4] The world of the Celts - G.Dottin
[5] Diodorus (Sicilus) of Sicily was a Greek historian who used literary sources with little judgement of his own, but for certain periods he provides the best evidence available.
[6] Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79) was born in Northern Italy and wrote 37 books of natural history. The eruption of Pompeii claimed his life.
[7] Strabo was a Greek geographer, who lived from about 58 BC - AD 25. Lloyd Laing (1979) attributes this translation to S. Piggot (1970)

Further reading:
The Celts - Gerhard Herm
Pagan Celtic Britain - Anne Ross
Celtic Britain - Lloyd Laing
The World of the Celts - G Dottin

(all images are in the public domain unless otherwise attributed)

Annie Whitehead is a history graduate and prize-winning author. Her novel, To Be A Queen, is the story of Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, who came to be known as the Lady of the Mercians. It was long-listed for the Historical Novel Society’s Indie Book of the Year 2016 and has been awarded an indieBRAG medallion. Her new release, Alvar the Kingmaker, which tells the story of Aelfhere of Mercia, a nobleman in the time of King Edgar, is available now.
Annie's Author Page
Buy Alvar the Kingmaker
Buy To Be A Queen

Annie's Website
Annie's Blog

Annie has also been involved in a collaborative e-book project re-imagining the events of 1066

Women Warriors

By Mark Noce

This topic has gotten controversial in recent years, as archaeologists and historians reexamine the historical record in order to identify a history of female warriors across the British Isles. What specifically am I talking about here?

Well, believe it or not, years ago archaeologists identified bodies in very simplistic ways. For instance, if the skeleton had armor on it was considered male and if it had something resembling a dress it was considered female. But recent bone forensics have turned this old time notion on its head, as several instances of female skeletons have been identified from various eras decked out in full armor or with various weapons. So what’s it all mean?

To some, the facts have been staring us in the face all this time. Even written records from the days of Caesar down through the Renaissance depict women going into battle beside men, but many of these remarks were dismissed as exaggeration or even as outright satire. Others have opted for a middle path, suggesting that women in various eras did go into combat beside men, but that these were rare instances. There are several eras of British history, however, that point to a larger cultural involvement of women warriors across Britain and Ireland.

Firstly, the Celts. It’s no secret that women held equal sway with men in ancient Celtic society. An ancient chariot burial unearthed in Yorkshire identified a Celtic woman buried in full battle dress along with her chariot. Both a wealthy woman and one clearly accustomed to using a sword. In west Ireland, an even older grave identified a female skeleton buried with her bow, war horse, and the hide of a red stag. Clearly, these aren’t just one-off instances. Such cultural practices may have even continued into the medieval era in regions where Celtic culture remained strong, such as Wales and Scotland.

Secondly, the Viking era, surprisingly is revealing more and more female skeletons buried in Norse armor throughout the British Isles. The Scandinavian Sagas are replete with tales of Shieldmaidens that until recently were written off as fanciful storytelling, but now it seems that hardly a Viking ship set out without at least one or two women warriors abroad it. Some historians have posited that the rough and tumble Vikings didn’t include women on their raids because they necessarily believed in equality, but because it made sense to utilize as much of their population as possible in order to continue their aggressive expansion into Northern and eventually Southern Europe.

Thirdly, one doesn’t have to look into ancient history to see women contributing to a war effort. Just look at the FANYs and WAAFs who served Britain in uniform during World War II. Some even ended up in dangerous Resistance work as part of SOE (Special Operations Executive) fighting the Nazis behind enemy lines. In one form or another, well over half a million young women served as auxiliaries for the UK during WWII, doing everything from driving trucks to wireless operations to working in factories.

Is it really that difficult to imagine that women have served as warriors throughout the many centuries of human habitation across Britain?

I think that in the years to come both archaeology and historical analysis will only reveal more and more evidence that women warriors have played an integral part in shaping the fate of the British Isles to this day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mark Noce writes historical fiction with a passion. His medieval Welsh novel, Between Two Fires, comes out with Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press on August 23, 2016.

Learn more at marknoce.com or preorder his novel here.

Of Tartan, Celts and Long-dead Mummies

by Anna Belfrage

Say “tartan”, and people will immediately think of Scotland – and of kilts. The word conjures up images of stalwart warriors, dressed in skirts as they charge the English soldiers of centuries long gone by. From what one can read on the internet, the combination of a tartan skirt and a hairy male knee is about as close to heaven as one can get, and while having nothing against kilt-wearing men – I find them both handsome and ruggedly male, as they walk about in their heavy swinging garments with God knows what on underneath – I do not necessarily consider hairy knees to be a “die-for” vision.

Neither here nor there, as this post is supposed to be about tartan – or plaid, as some Americans say. Tartan is not a Scottish invention. Nor is it an Irish invention, which would otherwise be a logical conclusion, as the Scots originated in Ireland. Ancient Celts – from which both the Irish and, by association, the Scots, are descended – were known for their love of tartan, further borne out by the finds in Hallstatt, Austria. This is believed to have been the heartland of the Celtic culture back in the 8th century B.C., and the prehistoric burial grounds, as well as the old salt mines, have turned up quite a number of bits and pieces in tartan – skilfully woven twill cloth with horizontal and vertical stripes of different colours.

For us modern people, it is difficult to fully comprehend the effort that went into making clothes in the past. Most of us wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a plain weave or a twill weave, we never consider the work that has gone into the garments we so casually pull off the rack to wear.

For the truly ancient people, clothes weren’t much of an issue. The cave dwellers used skins to cover themselves with, and given the general conditions in which they lived, this was a smart choice. But I bet you that already back then, someone was decorating their leather covering with whatever they could find, transforming a shapeless garment into an individual fashion statement.

Millennia rolled by, and people learnt to farm. In Egypt arose cultures where clothes were definitely of importance, but given the heat, the thinner the better, and so the Egyptians concentrated on linen and cotton, on light colours to reflect the glare of the sun. I am sure the skilled Egyptian weavers would now and then decorate the products from their looms with a contrasting line in red, or blue, but to go as far as a colourful tartan, that they did not.

While our Ancient Egyptians were experimenting with monumental architecture and innovative farming, an entirely different way of life existed on the large Eurasian steppe, that endless roll of grasslands that extends from modern day Ukraine to China. Here people had for generations lived as herdsmen, leading their flocks from one new grazing ground to the other. Being a herdsman was being a nomad. Belongings were transported in carts, entire tribes travelling together as their flocks moved south or west or east. Home was not a permanent residence, home was what you could carry with you, and so fabrics became important, the quality of your textiles shouting to the world just how successful you were.

Textiles don’t do well over time. They rot, they get degraded to rags, end up thrown in the fire. As a consequence, only rarely do we find any remnants of the clothes worn by people who died thousands of years ago – unless they were buried in very dry conditions, such as the Andean altiplano or the Tarim basin in Central Asia, home to the Taklamakan desert, the most arid place on earth. And it is to this rather inhospitable area that we must go to find the oldest known tartan specimens in the world. Asia, you say, having major problems envisioning a Japanese kimono in Black Watch tartan. Yup, Asia.

For very many years, the Eurasian Steppe was considered a one-way street. The Huns, for example, came from the east and moved west, causing destructing and chaos as they went. Some centuries later, and it was Djingis Khan, leading his Mongol Horde from east to west. Only recently have we begun to realise that some migrants went the other way, travelling from west to east. Some of them apparently ended up in the Tarim basin, developed a flourishing culture that survived for several centuries before they disappeared, floating off without leaving much of a trace – except for two things; documents in a now extinct language, and the Ürümchi  mummies.

Some of the Ürümchi mummies are old. Very old, well over 3 000 years. They are also remarkably well-preserved, having been buried in almost perfect conditions from a preservation perspective. Astoundingly, the mummies seem to be Caucasian – very strange in Chinese Turkestan, where the predominant population is either Chinese or Mongol. But the mummies have blond hair, they are tall (very tall) and fair-skinned, they have high-bridged noses and round eyes. Interestingly enough, this tallies with descriptions in ancient Chinese texts, referring to a neighbouring people of great height, with fair or red hair and deep-set blue eyes. These Nordic hunks hung around in one form or other until somewhere midway through the first millennia A.D. They were the Tokharian.

From "The Mummies of Ürümchi" by E.W.Barber

Although the mummies have been found in various locations within the basin, and vary in age, they all share one further common feature; the high quality of the woven textiles they were buried with, many of them with a tartan pattern. Even more intriguing, the tartan patterns uncovered in Chinese Turkestan resemble not only those of the old Hallstatt culture (bi-coloured twill weave or three coloured plain weave) but also those of Scottish tartans (multi-coloured twill), which are not found anywhere else. So, are we looking at very ancient Scottish emigrants? Or are these people the ancestors of present days Scots?

Let us take a step back. Tartan patterns are generally restricted to woollen textiles. To make wool, one needs sheep, an animal that was domesticated well over 8 000 years ago. At the time, the sheep wasn’t woolly, it was hairy, more like a goat. It was bred for its meat, but with the passing of years and a conscious breeding effort, the hairy sheep became a woolly one, so that about 4 000 B.C. we had our classical white fluffy animal (and those of you with a more than passing acquaintance with sheep will know that rarely are they fluffy – or white).

Suddenly, there was a lot of wool. Spindles were invented, and looms were adapted to handle this new material, rather different from flaxen thread/yarn. Plain weave was replaced – or complemented – with twill weave (in which two threads of the warp are looped together by the weft, with an offset between the rows, thereby creating a diagonal pattern that runs through the fabric). Twill had the advantage of allowing for a tighter weave, thereby making the resulting cloth warmer. All of this seems to have happened in present day Turkey or thereabouts, a remnant of twill having been found in a 3 000 B.C. grave in central Turkey.

At the time, Anatolia and the Caucasus was a veritable melting pot for humanity. Innovations were made at an impressive speed: domesticated horses, carts, sheep, woollen textiles. All these novelties were shared between the peoples, probably using some sort of proto Indo-European language. And then, for whatever reasons – maybe they fell out, or maybe the grazing became restricted, or maybe some of them just wanted to see the world – began the exodus from the Caucasian heartlands, with some going east while the majority went west.

Tokharian princes

Our Ürümchi mummies – or their ancestors – obviously went east, leaving most of their tribe to go the other way. Maybe they went to Hallstatt, Austria and the salt mines, where they would develop into the people we call the Celts. Our voyagers on the eastern road carried with them an Indo-European language. (As late as in the 6th century A.D., a people in the Tarim basin spoke Tokharian, an Indo-European language that has a clear resemblance to the Celtic languages.) Those long-dead travellers also took along a love for their tribal tartan patterns, a love so strong that it would survive the long, slow trek across the endless Eurasian steppe. While none of this is conclusive evidence, I believe the mummies of Ürümchi were, in fact, a side-branch on the Celtic tree.

So where does tartan comes from? I guess it sprang out of love for colour and textile, a silent ode to the world that surrounded the weaver. Maybe she had her eyes captured by the spectacular colour of a winter sunrise, when the muted purplish grey of the receding night is shot through with strands of glowing pink. Maybe she was trying to capture all those elusive colours that lie trapped in the soft caress of an evening breeze - or maybe she was foresighted enough to realise, that somewhere down the line, men would look good wearing a kilt.

If you want to read more about the Ürümchi mummies and their fascinating textiles, I strongly recommend “The Mummies of Ürümchi” by Elizabeth Wayland Barber.

Anna Belfrage is the author of four published books, A Rip in the Veil , Like Chaff in the Wind, The Prodigal Son and her latest release, A Newfound Land.  Set in seventeenth century Scotland and Virginia/Maryland, the books tell the story of Matthew and Alex, two people who should never have met – not when she was born three hundred years after him. For more information about Anna and her books, please visit her website or her blog.