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and refuges in times of danger. As for women, they enjoyed almost the same rights as men; they could choose the man to marry and manage their property. They could also bring other warriors to war as did Boadicea, who was a warrior queen of a Celtic tribe who fought against the Romans. The Druids were the priests of the Celts; they played a major role in religion and also in justice, education, medicine. They celebrated their ceremonies in the heart of the forest and not in temples because they worshipped the natural elements like the sun, moon, trees and rivers. In particular, for them water was a holy element because it generated life and was the means to enter the world beyond death. They believed in the immortality and transmigration of the soul from one person to another. For them, life after death still took place on earth in places like caves, hills or lakes, and because of that, they respected nature. THE ROMANS Julius Caesar led a Roman invasion of Britain in 55-54 BC, but the country was conquered in 43-47 AD, under Emperor Claudius; by this time, for about fifteen generations, part of Britain was a region of the Roman Empire. Britain was a land much loved by the Romans especially for the presence of a rich agriculture in the South, the tin and lead in the West and an offshore base. Because of the Romans did not control the whole island, in 122 Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of a wall to mark the border between the conquered Britons and the Scots and the Picts in the North, leading to the creation of one of the largest engineering projects in the ancient world. The Romans built over 9,600 kilometers of paved roads in Britain, which remained in use for centuries because they were well built, facilitating the movement of troops (and later also the movement of commercial goods) and the connection between the various cities, which developed as military, administrative and commercial centers. Many of these towns were originally army camps and the Latin name, castra, has remained in many modern names of the city ending in caster, chester or cester, such as Lancaster, Manchester and Gloucester. The most important city was Londinium, built around the lowest point bridge over the Thames. The Romans also brought their culture, the Latin language and Christianity to Britain. The Roman control of Britain ended in 409 because soldiers were forced to retreat to Rome to defend it from barbarian raiders. As a consequence of this, the Romanized Celts were left alone to fight against the Saxon invaders from the North Sea region of Europe. THE ANGLO-SAXONS During the 5th and 6th centuries, the British were overwhelmed by the Anglo-Saxons, people from the North Sea Region of Northern Europe such as Jutes, Angles and Saxons; they settled south of Hadrian's Wall because they preferred the plain rather than the mountain and sought farmland. Their society was founded on loyalty, which was sworn in the hall, the center of community life, to the family, or clan, and especially to the chiefs in exchange for their protection. Thus, in the early 7th century the borders of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, known as Heptarchy or Seven Kingdoms, were formed. The geo-political situation remained unchanged until 829, when the kingdom of Wessex prevailed. CHRISTIANISATION While the Romans had introduced Christianity to Britain, the Anglo-Saxons partly reintroduced pagan values. So, to bring Christianity back to England, in 597 Pope Gregory I the Great sent here a monk, Augustine, whose mission was successful. Soon, in 602, Canterbury Cathedral was founded and Augustine became the first archbishop of Canterbury, the most important role within the England Church. Thus, England began to be part of the European ecclesiastical culture. Monasteries became important cultural centers, the Church taught the people and offered them an efficient public administration. In particular, in the monastery of Lindisfarne, founded in 635 off the northeastern coast of England, the monks produced enlightened Gospels, which are now on display at the British Library in London. In 685 a new monastery was built on the River Tyne at Jarrow where the scholar Venerable Bede wrote The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. Bede first used the word 'Angle-land' and applied a certain chronology to the birth of the country. For this he is considered the father of English history. THE DANES The Danes, who were a Scandinavian, Viking people, preferred the sea rather than agriculture, unlike the Anglo-Saxons who were farmers. In fact, they traveled frequently in the Atlantic with their longships in search of treasures, cattle and slaves, later succeeding in creating colonies along the coasts of Europe, giving rise to their Norman culture. In 793 they plundered Lindisfarne, destroying hundreds of manuscripts and exploiting the monks as slaves. From the early 9th century the Viking invasion of Britain became an occupation. Vikings began to intermarry and settle at Danelaw, which consisted of a code of Danish laws, but also in the area administered by the Danes in the north and east of England. Their language blended with that of the local population and could be seen in the place names ending in -Thorpe, -by and - kirk. When they reached Wessex, however, they encountered opposition from King Ethelred and his brother Alfred. ALFRED THE GREAT When Ethelred died in 871, Alfred became King of Wessex (871-899). King Alfred defeated the Danish commander Guthrum at the Battle of Edington in 878. He reorganized the Wessex army, asking for one soldier from every Freeman farm as a tribute. He established his capital at Winchester and invited scholars from the continent. The Latin texts were translated into Anglo-Saxon and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was commissioned in 890. Church schools were opened and a new legal code was created. When Alfred died in 899, his son Edward and later his nephew Athelstan (924-939) succeeded to the throne. In 927, Athelstan set up a kingdom by establishing the idea of royal authority, law and currency. In 991 the Vikings organized a further attack, but the British responded by paying, or Danegeld, to be left alone. In 1015 there was another Danish invasion and the Viking Empire extended from Wessex through Denmark to northern Norway. This marked the beginning of the collapse of Saxon England. The last Anglo-Saxon king was Harold, Count of Wessex (1066). Harold succeeded in defeating the Danes in the north of England, but then had trouble walking south to fight William, Duke of Normandy, who claimed the throne of England. During the famous Battle of Hastings in 1066, Harold was killed and the Anglo-Saxons were conquered by the Normans. !! Highlands → nord Scozia → pastorizia di pecore, bovini → unica parte di altura (upland) in Gran Bretagna Hall → luogo all'esterno dove riunirsi → come l'agora greca TERRITORIAL ORGANISATION • Celtic culture is so closely linked to Ireland that it is hard to remember that once upon a time there were tribes of Celtic speakers in many European countries such as Germany, Poland, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and France (where they left an indelible mark) and one on the British Isles. In particular, they plundered village after village approximately 500 BC to 100 BC to extend their territories. They withdrew into farming communities in the relative safety of Ireland and quietly continued their unique traditions. While most people assume that the Celts came from Ireland, they may have originated near the Danube River in 1200BC ● APPUNTI VIDEO SUI CELTI CULTURE They managed to build an intriguing, spiritual and artistic culture, but the various tribes never managed to work together as a cohesive unit. ● • Have established flourishing trade routes, putting them in contact with other groups; However, anthropologists believe that the different groups of Celts were mostly foreign to each other and maintained their independence until they were integrated into other European cultures. In this way parts of Europe underwent a process of "celtization" in which various tribes appropriated or adopted the Celtic ways and their language. LANGUAGE • The Celts mainly handed down stories orally which for this reason were lost in time, so they left little on them in historical documents and historians tried to explain their culture by assembling the various fragments found. Thus, researchers can understand the Celtic culture by language tests. • The Celtic language is believed to have emerged between 1200 and 450 BC, from a Proto-Celtic branch of the Indo- European language family. This same branch eventually produced many current languages, including Italian, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. • The Celtic language was divided into the island group, which eventually became the languages spoken on the British Isles and the continental group covering the rest of Europe. The continental branch became extinct long ago, but the insular branch still exists today. GOIDELIC Irish Manx Scottish Gaelic CELTIC INSULAR BRYTHONIC Common Brittonic Ivernic Pictish CONTINENTAL Celtiberian Galatian Gaulish Lepontic Noric Breton Cornish Cumbric Welsh GALLIC WARS Already around 1200 BC, Celtic migration spread culture in the Iberian Peninsula. They crossed paths with the indigenous people of the region Celtized them. This mixed culture was distinctive. He drew from elements of the native Iberians and Celts, and later, of the Romans also because it is a land that often flipped-flop between the Roman property and the property of Carthage. In this regard, many of the Celtic tribes sided with Carthage and fought against the Romans. Over time, the Romans easily emerged as the dominant force in the Iberian Peninsula, defeating the Celtiberians. • Between 58 and 50 BC, Julius Caesar engaged his army in the Gallic Wars, a series of military battles against several Celtic tribes in the region known as Gaul, or present-day France and Belgium. The Celts had a significant and courageous army like the Romans, but lacked a central organization. However, they went head to head with the formidable Roman army several times, the decisive campaign that ended with a Roman victory. The battle might actually have gone to the Celts, but as the Celts leader Vercingetorix attested, the attempt to unify the tribes and create a single front against the Romans did not arrive in time. To this day, many historians agree that the Gallic Wars were fought to strengthen Julius Caesar's reputation and strengthen his political position. It is no coincidence that most of the information we have about the Gallic wars comes from a single source, Commentarii de Bello Gallico, written by Caesar. • It is unclear when and why the Celts spread to the British Isles, but from the first century BC, they were well established in Britain. The Britons adopted the Celtic language and rituals, but were much more tenacious than their European counterparts. They held off the Roman invaders for several years. • Even after the Roman conquest of the British Isles, the Celts' pockets remained independent in some of the northern regions. For this reason, Celtic culture survived the Roman occupation of the region. When the Romans ruled Britain, they tried to suppress Celtic culture. In fact, in the 6th century BC, after the end of the Roman occupation of the British Isles, a written version of the Celtic language was developed. For the first time, the rich oral stories of the Celts were recorded. Having a written language for the first time allowed the Celts to advance their mythology, customs and laws. BOUDICA During the Roman occupation of the British Isles, various Celtic leaders engaged in resistance campaigns against the Roman legions. Some of these accounts of rebellion provided the basis for Celtic legends and folklore, such as the story of Boudica. • According to legend, Boudica was married to the chief of the Iceni tribe, not far from the city of London. Her husband established an improvised alliance with the Roman invaders to keep his tribal lands intact. When he died, however, the Romans no longer respected the agreement, and the Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, set his eyes on the island of Anglesey, then called Mona, off the coast of Wales. • To protect the land of the Iceni, Boudica assembled the tribe's army and launched a massive assault on the Romans in 61 A.D. At first, Boudica succeeded. Under his command, the Celtic army defeated two Roman cities, Londinium and Verulamium, and burned them. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus gathered his defeated troops and prepared for another attack. ● Meanwhile, Boudica recruited men from nearby Celtic tribes to increase his number. Although the Romans were preparing for the battle in Rome, Emperor Nero was so worried about Boudica's initial defeat of his men that he considered pulling out all the Roman troops from the British Isles. • In their subsequent engagement, however, Suetonius's army quickly defeated Boudica to regain control of the area. Shortly after the battle, Boudica died, either by suicide or illness, depending on the version of his story. During the Victorian era, the British people rediscovered the history of Queen Boudica, and became a national folk hero. ● RELIGION • Like the gods and goddesses of the Greek and Roman pantheon, the key figures of the Celtic lord of religion over specific aspects of the natural world. Although there were venerated Celtic temples, many of the religious ceremonies were held outdoors, in sacred groves or under sanctified oaks or near rocky outcrops. • Historians of the past attributed the construction of Stonehenge in England to the Celts, but modern carbon dating of the site indicates that it was built at least a thousand years before the Celtic people arrived on the British Isles. • In Celtic society, the Druids belonged to the learned class; therefore, they presided over the religious rituals of the Celts. They provided spiritual guidance, administered sacred rites, and cast spells to ward off evil spirits. In addition, the role of the Druids remains largely unknown because the Celts left no written record. According to several historians, it is likely that the Druids supervised the rituals of human sacrifice and, perhaps, the headhunting. • In Celtic society, the Druids belonged to the learned class; therefore, they presided over the religious rituals of the Celts. They provided spiritual guidance, administered sacred rites, and cast spells to ward off evil spirits. In addition, the role of the Druids remains largely unknown because the Celts left no written record. According to several historians, it is likely that the Druids supervised the rituals of human sacrifice and, perhaps, the headhunting. • Historians have gathered some understanding of the religion of the Celts by examining Irish myths and folklore. However, this can cause an inaccurate look at Celtic religion. This is because the spiritual beliefs of the Celts merged with the Roman religion during the Roman occupation of the British Isles. Later, when Christianity was introduced throughout the island, the original myths took on a biblical slant. Without their own written language, many of the Celtic folk tales were first recorded on paper by Christian scribes, who injected the tales with Christian morality. CONSIDERATIONS Many aspects of Celtic culture remain shrouded in mystery simply because the Celts did not have a written language Despite the lack of textual evidence, we know that Celtic culture was once widespread throughout the European continent. While they had pure numbers, they failed to organize into a central group. They remained a collection of tribes, each with its own army. Through their interactions with the Romans, Greeks, and other civilizations, we learn about their military prowess, traditions, and territory. Their disorganization contributed to their decline until they were transferred to the British Isles. ● ● • While the Celts have influenced European cultures, they are more closely related to the Irish and Welsh, who still speak a Celtic language. ANGLO-SAXON But first what is an Anglo-Saxon? Well, by about 50AD England and Wales had been incorporated into the Roman Empire, but due to the small problem that they were being invaded by just about everyone, Rome left the British Isles around the year 400, never to return. Britain's native peoples, the Britons (a term which describes a whole bunch of similar though certainly distinct people groups) were suddenly free to rule themselves. Though, the power vacuum left by Rome's absence made them a tempting and fairly easy target for anyone looking to seize land and glory for themselves. And that is where the AngloSaxon's come in. The Angles and Saxons were two Germanic people groups native to northern Germany and southern Denmark who migrated to Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries and eventually drove the Britons out of everywhere bar Wales. The period from the arrival of the AngloSaxons to the year 927 is usually referred to as the Heptarchy meaning rule by seven, because of the seven major Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms that ruled England at that time. Though keep in mind that as one gets closer to the year 927 more and more of those Kingdoms were absorbed into others. Also in 793 the monastery Lindisfarne in Northumbria was raided by Scandinavians, Vikings, beginning the Viking age and drastically changing the dynamics of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. AETHELRED In 847AD, in the Kingdom of Wessex, an Anglo-Saxon prince named Alfred, later Alfred the Great, was born. In the year 865 his elder brother Aethelred became King of Wessex, which now looked like this, and Alfred entered public life for the first time as his designated successor. Incidentally, unlike in traditional royal succession, Aethelred succeeded not his father, but his elder brother, who himself had been preceded by another brother. This was allowed because under West Saxon law, succession was not guaranteed by birth order, and a council of West Saxon nobles ultimately decided which royal would become the new king. It's for this reason that the adult Alfred was made Aethelred's successor and not the King's own young son. Also in 865, a Danish force, the Great Heathen Army, landed in East Anglia, whose King promptly gave them horses in exchange for short lived peace. We don't know the exact size of the Great Heathen Army but it was much larger than any Viking raiding party that came before it because this time, the Northmen had come to England not just to take wealth, but to conquer the now four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms; Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia, and of course Wessex. By 868 Northumbria and East Anglia had both fallen to the Vikings and under the leadership of the warrior-king Ivar the Boneless, they were making incursions into Wessex's neighbour, and ally, Mercia. Aethelred, accompanied by Alfred rode out to defend Mercia from the Danes but by December 870 the invaders had reached Wessex itself. The West Saxons and the Vikings fought a series of engagements across Wessex notably the siege and then Battle of Reading on January 4th, the Battle of Basing on January 22nd and the Battle of Merton on the 22nd of March. All three were Viking victories. Interestingly the leader of the Vikings invading Wessex was a man called Halfdan Ragnarrson, the brother of Ivar the Boneless. According to legend they in particular, as well as several other brothers, were motivated to invade England because their father Ragnarr Lodbrok, the King of Denmark and Sweden, had been thrown into a pit of snakes by the Aella the King of Northumbria after a failed raid on England. In April, 871 Aethelred died, possibly from injuries sustained at the Battle of Merton. ALFRED THE GREAT He was succeeded by Alfred who promptly lost to the Vikings again in May, but he wouldn't lose to them again, instead Alfred paid the Danes off in exchange for peace. So did the Mercians the next year, but by 878 the Vikings had invaded again and took control of the Kingdom. The rest of Anglo-Saxon England was also firmly within the influence of Viking lords, the most powerful of whom was the new King of East Anglia, Guthrum. In 876 he invaded Wessex but Alfred's forces managed to hold him off. In 878 Guthrum invaded Wessex again, this time pushing Alfred south into the marshes of Somerset, but a few weeks after Easter, Alfred managed to raise an army and he defeated Guthrum at the battle of Edington in early May. With it clear that neither side could effectively defeat the other the two men agreed to a peace treaty that would formally be signed in 886. It split England between Alfred's Wessex, which received half of Mercia, and the Danelaw, a loose union of Viking Kingdoms led by Guthrum, which ruled the rest of the country. Importantly, Mercia was not annexed into Wessex but it did cease to be a kingdom, instead it became subject to Alfred and the new Lord of Mercia married Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd. Around this time Alfred also began to call himself the King of the Anglo-Saxons not just King of Wessex. So, with peace mostly secure Alfred set about reforming his Kingdom. At his heart, he was more of an intellectual than a warrior, but before he could focus on improving any of his subjects' lives, he first had to make sure that the Vikings weren't going to come back and take them. The most impactful of Alfred's reforms was the creation of the burh system. The burh's were more than 30 fortified settlements built across Wessex and Mercia that made it so that no one within Alfred's realm was more than a day's ride from the security of strong walls and soldiers. They also served as markets for England's primarily rural population and later as locations for England's royal mints. Each burh was given a value which determined how many soldiers it was expected to provide both for its own defense and to serve the King in times of war. This value, denoted as a hide, fluctuated over time, and what exactly the value of one hide was at any given time isn't always 100% clear. For example, if one hide was worth roughly one fully armed soldier, then Alfred's army would have consisted of some 27,000 men. A staggering amount for that time, but if 5 hides were worth one soldier, his army would have been closer to 5,500 men strong. Regardless, the burhs, combined with two other reforms of Alfred's: the creation of England's first standing army and a naval buildup, made defense of his lands considerably easier, and when much of the Great Heathen Army returned in 892, they were held off and repulsed. Back at his court, Alfred focused on turning his kingdom into a center for scholarship. He believed that Viking raids on monasteries, medieval Europe's most important intellectual organizations, had left England lacking learned men and so he invited many of Europe's brightest minds, including St. Grimbald and the monk Asser, to join his court. He was right to some extent but the existence of scholarly works from Mercia from around that time, as well as Asser who was from Wales (the princes of which had recently sworn fealty to Alfred) have created debate among modern historians as to exactly how much Viking raids affected learning in Britain. Alfred himself was undoubtedly intelligent though, he spoke both Anglo-Saxon and Latin, had a penchant for English poetry, and unlike most European Kings he encouraged teaching to be done in the common language, English rather than Latin. It was during Alfred's reign that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which documents English history from the arrival of Rome to well past the Norman conquest, courtesy of later writers, was written. It serves as one of our main sources of Anglo-Saxon history. In his personal life, Alfred was married to a Mercian Noblewoman named Ealswith with whom he had three daughters and two sons, including Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Alfred's successor Edward the Elder. He is described by Asser in The Life of Alfred as “more comely in appearance than his other brothers, and more pleasing in manner, speech and behaviour [and] in spite of all the demands of the present life, it has been the desire for wisdom, more than anything else, together with the nobility of his birth, which have characterized the nature of his noble mind." Admittedly though, Alfred was paying Asser, so draw your own conclusions. Alfred died in 899 of unknown causes, though he likely suffered from Crohn's disease and haemorrhoids for all his life. Alfred the Great was never given that epithet during his life, it was ascribed to him by writers during the Protestant Reformation who saw him as an example of a king uncorrupted by the Catholic Church and he also wasn't the first monarch to claim rulership over all England. In fact, his domain wasn't even the largest up to that time, but as King of the AngloSaxons, he ensured that England, or at least the parts he controlled, would be safe from Vikings, and would remain intellectually vibrant (at least for the middle ages). The house of Wessex, which he headed would, from his treaty with Guthrum onwards, rule progressively larger parts of England until his grandson Aethelstan fully united the Kingdom in 927.