The Religion of Celts
Though there are records of deity names, and archaeological remains including altars, little is known about the specific religious beliefs of the Celts. Their burial practices included burying food, weapons, and ornaments with their dead, which suggests a belief in life after death. The druids, the early Celtic priesthood, were said by Caesar to have taught the doctrine of transmigration of souls along with astronomy and the nature and power of the gods. Transmigration is a philosophy of reincarnation incorporating the specific belief that after death, the soul of a living being is then transferred (or transmigrates) into another living form and thus takes birth again.
The Irish believed in an Otherworld, which they described sometimes as underground and sometimes located on islands in the Western Sea. This Otherworld was believed to be a country where there was no sickness, old age, or death, where happiness lasted forever, and a hundred years was as one day.
According to classical authors, the Celtic religion was based in three professional classes: the Druids, the Bards, and the Vates.
The Druids were the Celtic version of modern priests, but were also philosophers, scientists, lore-masters, teachers, judges and counsellors to the kings. The Druids linked the Celtic peoples with their numerous gods, the lunar calendar and the sacred natural order. In Commentarii de Bello Gallico Caesar gives the most complete account on the Druids. According to him the Druids constituted a "priest like" class, and were guardians of the unwritten ancient customary law. They had the power of executing judgments; the most dreaded being the exclusion from society.
The caste of the Druids was not hereditary, although the...
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...pire ended with the abdication of Emperor Romulus Augustus in 476, Christianity survived it, with the Bishop of Rome as the dominant religious figure.
Bibliography
Cunliffe, Barry, (1997) The Ancient Celts. Oxford, Oxford University Press
Caesar, Julius. De Bello Gallico. Book V, § XIV
MacKillop, James (1998) A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Paul-Marie Duval. 1993. Les dieux de la Gaule. Éditions Payot, Paris.
Patrick K. Ford (ed/trans). 1977. The Mabinogi and other Medieval Welsh Tales. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Augustinus Hibernicus. "De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae". King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings edited by John Carey. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000
MacMullen, Ramsay, 1984. Paganism in the Roman Empire
1997. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
The hostile and boisterous nature of Celtic warriors is depicted in tales of the Ulster Cycle, and hence explains common practices between characters and Celtic warriors. The Celt’s temper is illustrated in the tales of the Ulster Cycle: “the love of feasting and drinking, the boastful and quarrelsome nature of Celtic warriors and their love of spectacle and feats are daring and amply illustrated in these hero tales . . . these customs closely mirror the tales of the Ulster Cycle . . . in which the champion’s portion are central themes” (403-404). Cu Chulainn exemplifies the Celtic warrios’ loud and rambunctious behavior. The Tain is the most notorious mythology in the Ulster Cycle and illustrates through Cu Chulainn the ideal warrior and the champion’s portion that is so valued in the ancient Celtic warrior society. Simon Young in “Celtic Myths: Celtic History” argues that “recent research on early Celtic culture suggests that legends might be able to offer us a privi...
Included within the anthology The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction,1[1] are the works of great Irish authors written from around three hundred years ago, until as recently as the last decade. Since one might expect to find in an anthology such as this only expressions and interpretations of Irish or European places, events or peoples, some included material could be quite surprising in its contrasting content. One such inclusion comes from the novel Black Robe,2[2] by Irish-born author Brian Moore. Leaving Ireland as a young man afforded Moore a chance to see a great deal of the world and in reflection afforded him a great diversity of setting and theme in his writings. And while his Black Robe may express little of Ireland itself, it expresses much of Moore in his exploration into evolving concepts of morality, faith, righteousness and the ever-changing human heart.
And, of course, there were the Druid Priests. This branch of the Druid set were the keepers of the knowledge of Earth and Spirits. It was their responsibility to learn the Spirit World, in order to keep people and Earth in harmony. Priests performed marriages and "baptisms", they were healers, and psychiatrists. The Priests were
The Tuatha De’ Danaan were more a “godlike” people than anything else, although Celtic mythology would like to have us believe otherwise; “…the Tuatha De’, to some degree, became gods by the time they arrived in Ireland.” (Leeming, 81) This is due to the tradition of the Celts and their telling of the settlers of Ireland all being deities. “In accordance with Irish tradition, much of its history and mythology were viewed as one and the same- many diverse races of both gods and humans alike settling Ireland.” (Rosenberg, 369) We learn, though, that the Tuatha De’ are divided into two societal castes: deities and mortals. Those that were “deemed” deities were craftsmen, artists and noble combatants. The others, “mortals”, were farmers and field workhands. The Tuatha De’ Danaan “deities” were considered such as “…they were the gifted and powerful of their race.” (Rosenberg, 372) This is what elevated them to a godlike status; the ability to perform and execute tasks that required more than just the average education or experience needed by a simple farmer or worker.
Legend of sorcery has been long lost in current day and age. Some opinionate it never existed, that it was forged purely for reasons of entertainment. However, many believe that this ancient power coursed through past civilizations. Druids were thought to be capable of this power, they were shamans, high ranking religious figures in a society. They were said to have the ability to see into the future, the power to heal, the power to destroy, and the power to communicate with animals and spirits not from this world. Druids lived in forests of tall oak trees, where under these magnificent oaks they laid homage. The oak tree was very sacred to these people, therefore they worshiped in sacred groves that were under the trees themselves. The precise meaning of the word, druid, is unclear to many historians. There are ancient Celtic words that are similar which mean “knowledge” and “oak”, they can be interpreted as “knowledge of the oak” or “great oak”. Due to their “so-called”rare abilities, druids were looked down upon and persecuted by Romans and Christians. As they didn’t want their scriptures to fall into unkindly hands, they were opposed to writing down these sacred matters. They were rumored to also perform human sacrifice with unlawful prisoners and convicts. Druids were thought to be barbaric savages but undoubtedly were creatures of advanced intellectual ability.
First and foremost, the Celts were a linguistic group that originally hailed from the Bavarian and Bohemian regions of present-day Germany and Czech Republic beginning around 1100 BC. They slowly spread out and migrated to Western Europe (which included modern-day France) and even made it as far as Britain and Ireland. The Celts had 3 main social types: warrior heroes, poets and smiths. Warrior heroes dominated the culture and were the alpha dogs. They were tattooed from head to toe, had long hair worn in ponytails, and wore little to no armor when going into battle. Poets were also held in high esteem since they expressed praise for the warrior heroes. They wrote the great epic poems, as well as love stories and even the law of the people. S...
As can be seen, the strength of the Roman Empire may have had a great
The ancient mythology of Ireland is one of its’ greatest assets. The glorious, poetic tales of battles, super humans, demigods and heroes ranks among the best of ancient literature. The book of the Dun Cow, (Lebor na huidre), was written around 1100 and contains stories from the eighth and ninth centuries. The Book of Invasions, (Lebor Gabala), tells how the mythical ancestors of the Irish, the God-like Tuatha Dé Danann, wrestled Ireland (or Erin) from misshapen Fir Bolg in fantastic battles. The Fir Bolg were traditionally linked to Gaul and Britain so the analogy between them and the invading English was complete.
Because the most reliable resources of evidence on Druidism, their own written scripts, cannot be found we can only make assumptions and Julius Caesar also spoke of this when stating “the Druids think it is not right to entrust their teachings to written script, though they use the Greek alphabet in almost all other matters, including public and private accounts.” (1) The real reasons for this are also unknown, but according to Julius Caesar, two assumptions can be made, “It seems to me that this (not writing their teachings down) is for two reasons. They do not want their teachings to be available to the general public and they also do not want those who are studying to rely more on writing than on their memories.”(1) However, despite the lack of reliable information, we can assume that Druids were ancient priests, who led Celtic Britain and other European regions into nature-based rituals. Among the ancient Celts, Druids were members of the highly respected ‘professional’ class, where the spiritual life of the Druids and their society’s religious life was incorporated. Among the Druids were doctors, judges, philosophers, priests, seers and other intellectuals of their culture who possessed the knowledge, both religious and philosophical. The meaning and the origins of the word “Druid” is not clearly known. In Old Irish, ‘drui’ was the singular form of ‘Druid’, and through the scholar Rudol Turneysen, a Druid was understood as a person with great knowledge. This was because, Turneysen derived the prefix ‘dru’ and ‘vid’ from old Irish, which meant ‘through’ and ‘know’. Other early classical writers had different ideas, such as Pliny, who related to ‘drus’ from the Greek word for ‘oak’ and through the word “Druid” became to mean a ...
It was Roman myths of origin which imparted the most quintessentially Roman qualities onto the city and its people. Since Rome’s founders first exhibited the desire for conflict, so too has Rome. The sense of divine protection of such importance to the city’s people, is a direct product of the creation myths. The myths also provided evidence of the honour found within rusticity, giving rise to the value Romans placed on thrift and simple living. The myths of origin also stipulated the nobility of Rome’s founders, who would come to reflect the nobility of later Romans. The broad implications of the creation myths on Roman society, were felt most sharply by women, who were subjugated throughout the city’s history. Rome is deeply reflective of its myths of origin, as it was the myths which shaped the city into what it became.
The Mabinogion is a collection of eleven tales from the Welsh myths, preserved in two manuscripts, the White Book of Rhydderch and Red Book of Hergest. The tales from the Mabinogion are divided into three categories: the first four tales belong to the Four Branches; the next four are the Independent tales; and the last three are called the Three Romances, which show strong association to the French romances written by Chretien de Troyes. Historia Peredur ab Efrawg shares significant material in common with Chretien’s Perceval or Le Conte du Graal; the Welsh romance of Owain, subtitled Chwedl Iarlles Y Fynawn is clearly related to Yvain, Le Chevalier du Lion; and the chwedl (Welsh tale) Geraint ab Erbin follows the plot-line of Chretien’s Erec et Enid perfectly. These similarities immediately call into question the origin, history, and influences of the tales – or so called mabinogionfrage. Through examining the work of Chretien de Troyes and historical and thematic evidence, we will elucidate the relationship between these parallel stories and attempt to explain the mabinogionfrage.
Throughout the history of Rome, from the monarchy to the late empire, religion had played a great role in it's society and was involved in almost every aspect of the life of the Roman citizen. It was common for each house to have it's own patron god/gods and ,on special occasions, the head of the house would make a sacrifice to the personal gods of the family. Also, great festivals were usually held in honor of certain gods and would include spectacles like chariot races and Gladiatorial fights.
Ford. P, (2008), ‘The Mabinogi and other Medieval Welsh Tales’, illustrated, annotated, California United States of America, University of California Press
Religion is an ever-growing idea that has no set date of origin. Throughout history religion has served as an answer to the questions that man could not resolve. The word religion is derived from the Latin word “religio” meaning restraint in collaboration with the Greek word “relegere” which means to repeat or to read again. Religion is currently defined as an organized system of beliefs and practices revolving around, or leading to, a transcendent spiritual experience. Throughout time, there has yet to be a culture that lacks a religion of some form, whether it is a branch of paganism, a mythological based religion or mono/polytheistic religion. Many religions have been forgotten due to the fact that they were ethnic religions and globalizing religions were fighting to be recognized, annihilating these ancient and ethnic religions. Some of these faiths include: Finnish Paganism, Atenism, Minoan Religion, Mithraism, Manichaeism, Vedism, Zoroastrianism, Asatru, and the Olmec Religion. Religion is an imperative part of our contemporary world but mod...
Foster, R.F.,ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland. Oxford University Press: Oxford, New York, 1989.