The Celts

I suspect most readers will have an impression of The Celts, but when you stop and think hard about what a Celt is, the edges of the definition blur and shift.¹

Part of the reason for this is that the Celtic concept has changed and evolved over the last few hundred years - despite being well documented in ancient Greek and Roman texts, the Celts were forgotten about ('gradually vanished from the textual record during the early Middle Ages') before being rediscovered in the context of the emergence of modern nation states, and often repurposed (or perhaps: purposed?) to reinforce national or regional identities.

The Celts as we now understand them became more clearly delineated in the period from about 1690 to 1710.

Ian Stewart, The Celts: a Modern History

Stewart's book details the development of the idea of the Celt in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, France and Germany from the 17th Century to now.

Who were the Celts?

Fundamentally the idea of Celticness rests on a group of ancient people, so who were these guys?

My understanding after reading this book is that they were a mostly iron-age folk hanging around in North-Western Europe (but not Germany) before the Romans. They spread as far East as Turkey, menacing Greek city states in the process. They can be identified by:

• 🖌️ their art, often involving spirals
• 👄 their language
• 🧔 their moustaches

Among Romans and Greeks they also had a reputation for martial prowess and courage bordering on stupidity².

All Gauls were Celts but not all Celts were Gauls

It was helpful for me to clear up that the Gauls were also Celts, hence the French connection and the link to Brittany (Armorica) where Asterix and Obelix held out against the Roman invaders in their little Gaulish village.

In fact, we can take a look at a particular statue of a Gaul in order to shine a light on some of the themes in Stewart's book. Here he is:

The Dying Gaul, Creative commons, image by antmoose

A Roman marble copy created in the first century BCE, this piece is thought to originally be part of a bronze victory monument dating to 220 BCE, made by Greeks in what is now Turkey. It shows a defeated Gaulish / Celtic enemy who died in the process of invading Anatolia.

The statue came to light in the early 17th century when it was unearthed from the grounds of a palace in Rome. It was immediately appreciated as a nice bit of art, but was initially known as The Gladiator, with no reference to Celtism. However when it was looted from Rome by Napoleon's troops and taken back to Paris in 1797, two eminent antiquarians independently agreed that it was a barbarian. One of them, Antoine Mongez, went further and 'on the basis of the figure's hair, moustache, and torque necklace' suggested it represented a Gaul. Over the course of the next hundred years the Gaulish interpretation became widely accepted.

The Dying Gaul's Gaulish moustache, Creative commons, image by Johnbod

This mattered because the Celtic Gauls had recently been promoted to chief French ancestors, in place of the Germanic Franks who - after the French revolution - were now recognised as oppressive overlords: aristocratic parasites rather than the true body of the people.

In short people cared that he was a Gaul, because Gauls were now emblematic of the nation.

Similar processes were underway in other nations too and often it was the language (for example Welsh, Irish or Briton) that was the focal point and the key tool to resurface and connect with the past.

Back to the Dying Gaul: while it is not absolutely certain that this chap is a bona-fide Gaul, the image has become so influential that this is now what we imagine Gauls in general to look like. And because we now know what they look like, we are satisfied that the Dying Gaul does indeed appear to be a Gaul.

The Dying Gaul works as a metaphor for modern Celtic identities more generally: buried and dormant for centuries then rediscovered. Intimately connected to emerging national stories. And sometimes hard to untangle from a Roman or Greek reflection of the real thing.

What's the book like to read?

The Celts is an impressive work of scholarship which showcases the breadth and depth of Stewart's knowledge and research. Or to put it another way: I found it pretty heavy going.

To be Frank, this feels like a work for academics in the field rather than the lay person.

There is a huge list of characters from 18th and 19th century literary life in Britain, Ireland and France, detailing almost any scholar or writer that expressed an interest in Celtism. This makes the book a fantastic source to mine if you are looking to find out more about a particular person or place through a Celtic lens. But it is rather impenetrable if you have a more passing interest and are reading it from front to back like I was.

The two star rating assigned therefore adopts a 'popular history book perspective'. If you are an academic or about to embark on an undergraduate history degree, don't let that put you off!

What I most appreciated

As a man on the street / tube, I think this book works best by flicking through and finding the bits that interest you the most. My highlights were:

• The national origin myths that were emerging in the 17th century. If your ancestors were Celts, where did they come from? Popular answers were the Phoenicians or Israelites.
• The development of the idea of 'nos ancêtres les Gaulois' in France (featuring The Dying Gaul although sadly not Asterix).
• The Nazi view of the Celts, and the uncomfortable links with Breton Celtic separatists.

I enjoyed this titbit from the Third Reich, reported by Stewart:

Refusing to believe that Jesus had been a Semite, [Adolf Hitler] ginned up an etymological connection between Galilee and Gallia, suggesting that Galileans were a colony of Gaülish legionaries. Incredibly, it seems Hitler's Jesus was Celtic.

Monologue im Führer-Hauptquarter, 1941-1944

The other thing that I appreciate is that even though I struggled with this book, the fact that 'we the public' have such easy access to the latest academic thinking on the subject - and can engage with it if we put in the effort - is definitely something to celebrate.

Conclusion

A magisterial tome that I would struggle to recommend to most ordinary people, the Celts provides a comprehensive overview of how the concept of a Celt and Celtic identity has developed over the last few hundred years.

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