PAGAN/CHRISTIAN TIMELINE

[Stanley]

PAGAN/CHRISTIAN TIMELINE.

This timeline is the result of reading whilst in Northfield in September/October 2001. The books consulted were:

Religion and the Decline of Magic. Keith Thomas [KT]
The Celtic Churches. John T McNeill. 1974. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-56095-3. [JM]
The Pagan Religions of the British Isles. Ronald Hutton. Blackwell. 1991. ISBN 0-631-17288-2. [RH]
History of the English Church. The Venerable Bede. [VB]
The Isles. Norman Davies. 1999. Oxford. ISBN 0-19-513442-7. [ND]
Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1961 edition. [EB]

Where dates can be assigned the notes are placed in the timeline in date order. If no date applies, the notes are in the second list in alphabetical order, the precedence being taken from the major subject of the note.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL AGES
The dates assigned to archaeological ages vary with geographical location. These are the dates I have chosen to use after reviewing the article in EB on the subject. I have used them in the timeline and the text simply as rough indications of timing.
To8000BC Palaeolithic
8000 to 2700 Mesolithic
2700 to 1500 Neolithic
1500 to 600 Bronze Age
600 Start of Iron Age
TIMELINE.

BC500,000. Man has been present in north west Europe for the last 500,000 years. They were present before after and in between the Ice Ages. [RH]

BC80,000. Burials appeared in Europe about this time. [RH]

BC30,000-5,000. This was the period of the Old and Middle Stone Age. [RH]

BC30,000. Carvings on objects are found in Europe from about this time. [RH]

BC25,000c. A grave has been found in the Goat Cave on the Gower Peninsula in Wales. It is of a young man, covered in red ochre and with a mammoth skull nearby, probably as a grave good. This has been dated at approximately 25,000BC, before the last Ice Age. Wall and cave paintings are found about this time in Europe. [RH]

BC23,000-12,000. The British Isles were under the last Ice Age. [RH] (It used to be thought that there was no possibility of any habitation during an ice age but a recent discovery (2001) in Scandinavia suggests that there may have been previously unknown pockets or micro-climates which allowed the possibility of habitation. SCG.)

BC10,000 –8,000. c. Start of Agriculture in the river valleys of the Near East.

BC6,000-5,500c. The land bridge to mainland Europe sank beneath the rising sea. Previous to this the Isles were a peninsula of mainland Europe and the Celts, who were the major presence in Europe, were able to migrate into England as the climate warmed up. (SCG)
BC5,000. The record up to this point gives plenty of archaeological evidence but we don’t really know what to make of most of it. For instance, the scattering of red ochre over bodies appears to have been common but we do not know why it was done. [RH]

BC5,000-3200. The New Stone Age. (Neolithic) Previous segments were Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. [RH]

BC4,300-4,100. Centuries before temples in Mesopotamia and 1,500 years before the Pharaohs in Egypt Western Europe was building monumentally, stone tombs or megaliths (large stones). Tombs have been found in England dated 4,300BC, in Ireland 4,200BC and in Scotland 4,100BC. This is about when agriculture started to permeate the society and may have triggered settlement rather than nomadic life. It might also have been the start of a culture of veneration of the dead. [RH]

BC4,000. Rise in sea level. Agriculture starts to percolate into the Isles. Reaches the furthest parts by BC2,000 Agriculture triggered the Neolithic Revolution. This was more than a simple transition from the concept of a tribe or family group living in an area and ranging that area as semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers living off the land and moving to where the current resource was situated. The first seed corn and domesticated animals that arrived in the Isles in the South started a revolution. Cultivation = settlement = concepts of ownership = boundaries = paths and tracks. Society changed, specialisation became important, different skills and different responsibilities. Stock-keepers, cultivators, hunters, warriors, craftsmen, miners all became separate crafts and skills. Story-tellers, priests and keepers of wisdom grew more important. Concepts of care for elderly and infirm became possible. At this time, if there was ever a cult of birth, life, death and sustenance from natural sources this shifted to sun, rain, season and fertility of fields. England at this time had a climate similar to the South of France but more rainfall and better soils, perfect conditions for a wheat based agriculture. The rich conditions ensured success for the new technology. We should take note that there is evidence of Late Neolithic herding of domestic deer on uplands. Agriculture wasn’t entirely new. [ND]

BC3,800-3,500. Carn Brea in Cornwall built. This was a Neolithic fort protected by stone walls. [RH] (Evidence of concerted defence, probably more than one family, evidence of a social structure. SCG.)

BC3,795c. Evidence of large (20 feet square) houses of timber and wattle and daub built on stone foundations. By BC1500 houses were being built in the Far North of stone with drains and internal stone furniture. [ND p15.]

BC3,000. Some common design elements seem to have emerged about 3,000BC in the Carpathian Mountains. These were the cross in the circle, the many spoked wheel and concentric circles. We tend to think about the Celtic Cross as purely British but this is not the case. Other less common designs were wavy lines (water?), spirals and what appear to be footprints. At Woodhouse Crag, near Ilkley in West Yorkshire a design was found which suggests a swastika. This is the first known use of this design in Europe. [RH]

BC3,000. Around this date, the existing types of tomb, Barrows, passage graves and mounds ceased to be made and their place was taken by rings, sometimes accompanied by flat burial. These rings could be circular or oval enclosures defined by a ditch or bank and sometimes both. These are described as ‘ring ditches’, ‘ring banks’ or, if they had both, ‘Henges’. It is significant that 90% of henges have the ditch inside the bank and so were not intended for defensive purposes. Stonehenge is one of these. There are over 300 known henges in Britain ranging from the Orkneys to Cornwall. Most are in valleys and so are associated with water. Some regions don’t have any, Welsh Marches, Yorkshire Wolds, East Anglia and much of the south and west midlands. All the henges have been dated from 3,000-2,200BC. [RH] In the later circles and henges there seems to be evidence of alignment. The midsummer solstice at Stonehenge rises directly above the heel stone at an azimuth of 51 degrees. Alignments can be as simple as three stones in a row or be far more complicated. It is easy to see how a calendar could be constructed from midsummer, midwinter and the two equinoxes, vernal and autumnal. There seems to have been a discontinuity at about this time. Tombs were blocked up, camps abandoned and fields allowed to go to waste. Perhaps the rise of chieftainship was causing local quarrels and large scale tribal warfare. Whatever the cause, some stress in society is evident. [ND. Pp19/20]

BC2,500. By this time mines in Sussex, Wiltshire and Norfolk were producing flints for much of England. ‘Factories’ at Great Langdale in Cumbria, Craig Llwydd in North Wales, Mounts Bay and the Cheviot Hills produced axe heads for use all over the Isles and almost certainly some export overseas as well.

BC2,200-600. The Bronze Age. By the end of the Neolithic, metal extraction, copper, gold and tin, was emerging. This led to the Bronze Age. Tin was being used by BC1500. Later, iron became workable. There is little doubt that the existing export trade in unfinished flints and stone axe heads continued and was augmented by metal and finished metal artefacts. Sea transport must have been more sophisticated than we have hitherto suspected. One example of this is the transport in BC1700c of 82 fifty ton blocks of stone from South Wales to Stonehenge. [ND. P15] Track through Barlick was used to carry gold from Ireland to the East Coast for export to Baltic area. [SCG]

BC2,100. Stonehenge was started and work ceased on it about 1,500BC. Basically, we have no idea what it was used for or what it is. One thing that seems certain is that its construction extinguished all other forms of monument near it.

BC2000. The advent of the ‘Beaker People’. There was more personal ornament even neck bands (torcs) of gold.

BC1,800. From about this time the climate started to deteriorate. Up until then, during the early Neolithic period, Britain was probably as warm as the South of France is today. From about 1,400BC the climate grew cooler and wetter until about 700BC when it started to improve. This was the period when large areas like the North Yorkshire Moors, The Pennines, the uplands of Ireland and Wales and many other areas were de-forested and became moor and bog and were denuded of top soil. [RH p134]

BC1700. Bronze weapons come into the evidence, axes, long daggers and stone clubs.

BC1,500. There is no evidence that ceremonial structures were built anywhere in the British Isles after this date. By 1,200BC all the existing ones seem to have been abandoned. In Ireland, some megalithic monuments seem to have been used until 900BC in Kerry and Cork. Any round barrows built for burial were small and interment in flat cemeteries became the norm. There is no evidence that society became less poor or industrious, energies seemed to be channelled into other activities such as making field boundaries and agriculture. Some of these boundaries cut straight through what had been important features. [RH p132]

BC1400. The first ‘Urn Burials’. This era saw the introduction of barley and flax and a refoinement of the earlier crafts in flint, stone and metals. [ND. P23.] When I was in Germany at a farm museum I saw one of the earliest grains which was called ‘dinkel’ and wondered whether this could have been brought into the country. I think it is a form of barley.

BC1,200-onwards. Religion. We know that burial appeared in Europe 80,000 years ago, there is archaeological evidence. However, the problem with religion is that in the absence of writing we have no evidence on which to make sound conclusions. We can speculate about objects found in tombs and no doubt they indicate some sort of folk belief but whether this amounts to ‘religion’ is another matter.

If the Celts had a coherent theology of death and the afterlife, it has not survived. [RH] What we can say is that there was ritual that is supported by archaeological evidence. This was the casting of votive objects into watery places such as rivers, pools and bogs. The trove of finds at Flag Fen is a good example. There is evidence of this ritual dating back to 1,400BC but there are many more finds dating from 1,200BC. The rivers that were used for this type of offering were always eastwards flowing, no deposits of this type have ever been found in a west flowing river.

Ritual slaughter of animals and possibly even humans was practiced. Quite often this was a body, ritually killed and then entombed in the foundation of a structure. This ritual death was often triple, pole axed, garroted and cut throat. All the evidence we have suggests that worship, ritual and venerated objects or places were local in character, probably part of a tribal structure, and were differentiated from other tribes practices.

BC1,200-1,000. First hill forts constructed. At this time, most of the societies of South Eastern Europe and the Middle East collapsed violently. At this time in Britain we start to see archaeological evidence of the armoured warrior, the hafted spear and the sword. There were close links between Southern England and France. [RH p134]

BC1100. First known example of a sea going ship in the Isles.

BC1000 onwards into the Roman Occupation. Right through this time from the start of the Iron Age, monuments were levelled for agriculture and field boundaries cut through many of the great features. It seems that whatever the culture of worship or religion was, it had become devalued and, in respect of the large monuments, was totally abandoned. [RH]



BC1000. By this date at the latest, horses were being used largely for riding and as pack animals but they were soon harnessed to wheeled vehicles, chariots and carts. We are seeing increasing numbers of weapons. Defended sites are becoming common, often in one corner of what we have previously thought of as a ‘hill fort’. This raises questions; was the population less and so defended sites smaller? Were the original structures ‘forts’ or places where gatherings took place for festivals or trade? Over 3,000 defended sites were built in the early part of the First Millennium. Mostly in southern parts and south Wales. Average size is 12.5 acres and each seemed to control an area of 100 to 150 square miles. By the time the Romans arrived some of these were large enough to be described as ‘oppida’ or towns by the invaders

BC1000-600. Continental Celts permeate the whole of the Isles. Hallstadt Celts in Ireland and La Tene in south of the mainland. This is supported by the differences between the Irish language and the Welsh. The permeation (once thought to be invasion but now generally disproved) started around 1000BC and was virtually complete by 600BC. They ruled unchallenged until c.100AD. It is not impossible that pockets of pre-Celtic culture remained until after the Roman invasion. The Celtic tribes who were well established in Britain by 1000BC were the original Ancient Britons. They spoke a variant of Gaelic and were closely related to the continental Gauls. The Brigantes tribe dominated Northern England. Their main fort was at Stanwick Hill in Yorkshire, this covered 750 acres and had ramparts six miles long. It fell to the Romans in 74AD. (ND says that the name Brigantes comes from the Celtic ‘Briga’ meaning hill, therefore, the Hill Folk. Other sources say that the name derives from ‘Brigid’ the Irish Celtic goddess.) We know quite a lot about some of the tribes because by 51BC they were striking their own coins. As far as we know the Brigantes never struck any coins.

BC600 Generally regarded as the start of the Iron Age. Early in the Iron Age we start to see coastal salt pans. This seems to indicate a rising demand possibly from rising population or a greater need for salt for preserving meat and fish. This is the start of a significant trade in salt all over the country. [ND. P29/30]

The Iron Age Celts differed from their ancestors in that they left some written records. Unfortunately these have been polluted by forgery and romanticism.

The Reverend Dr William Stukely (1687-1765) was rector of Stamford and ‘revived’ the cult of the Druids. He had visited Stonehenge and had convinced himself that Druidism was the original religion of the Isles. He laid out a druidical ‘temple’ in his garden centred round an apple tree that had mistletoe growing on it. He was the pioneer of all the ‘druidical’ and ‘bardic’ orders that were to follow. He was an amiable eccentric but his publications promoted the trend towards the Celtic revival. [ND. P90]

Edward Williams (1747-1826) gave himself the name Iolo Morganwwg. He was a failed business man, a stonemason and romantic poet. He fabricated a 14th C poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym, in order to sell his poetry and he fabricated documents which ‘revived’ the Order of Bards and the first Gorsedd was held on Primrose Hill in 1792. It is recorded that he took a pocketful of stones for the stone circle.

Between 1760 and 1840 other writers set out to ‘re-construct’ druidism. Rowland James, John Clelland, William Cooke, D James, Edward Davies and William Blake all participated.

The Ancient Order of Druids was ‘revived’ in 1781 by a London carpenter called Henry Hurle. From the late 19th C until 1989 Hurle’s ‘order’ was allowed to perform rituals at Stonehenge but this branch was always an elite. Williams’ Order of Bards was taken up by Welsh Nationalism and the Eisteddfod movement and is now the ‘official’ version and supported by the Monarchy.

A succession of oddballs and romantics culminating in Lewis Spence further muddied the waters and ‘Druidic’ and ‘Celtic’ lore was held to be the equivalent of the German myths of the Teutonic Knights. In 1944 Robert Graves wrote historical novels. One of these ‘The White Goddess’ became a cult classic and was used as literal truth by what eventually became the New Age movement. The position made even worse when the ‘Goddess’ myth was taken up as a feminist icon. In 1980, scholars went back to the original texts and effectively blew popular Druidic and Celtic lore apart but it was too late to stop the ‘heresy’. In a perverse way, all this proves that the genuine Celtic material and the contributions by Greek and Roman writers do not contain enough evidence to reconstitute the religion. What truth there was was found unpalatable by Williams, Hurle et al and they did not use it.

BC350. Appearance of artificial islands in lakes formed by floating rafts out and sinking them by placing stones and soil on them to form foundations. This produced an easily defended site and they were called ‘crannogs’ A good example was at Glastonbury and was 2.5 acres. It functioned until Roman times. [ND. P28]

BC325. Account by Pythea of Marseilles describes a voyage he made to what is now SW England as a trader seeking to barter for tin.

BC150-AD100. Most of the Greek and Roman texts on the Celts were written at this time. They are numerous but on close inspection are either writing polemics for or against the Celts or describing specific tribes in Europe. Many of them quote from each other. On the whole, the evidence they contain is of little value. There is a problem with the original British and Irish texts as well, they were all written after the country was converted to Christianity. The material may have been written by people hostile to the Celts and pagans. Basically, by 1980, it became clear that almost all of what had been regarded as genuine Celtic documentation was actually much later, largely 8th and 9th C monastic writing. What was left was a few fragments of original writing and the archaeological evidence.

BC54/55. Julius Caesar makes two expeditions to the Isles drawn their by reports of surpluses of wheat and metals such as copper, tin and iron. Contacts were made with tribal chiefs and trading links established. This was not a ‘conquest’.

AD37c. Gildas states that Christianity entered Britain during the reign of Emperor Tiberius who died in AD37. There is no firm proof of this and it seems surprisingly early. [JM]

AD43. Roman Invasion of Britain. Julius Caesar mounted two expeditionary campaigns in 55 and 54BC. He came because he knew the islands had resources he needed, grain and metals. He also regarded the Celts of ‘Britannica’ as a threat to the submission of Gaul. He came, he saw but he did not conquer and was killed in 44BC. The invasion proper came in 43AD under Claudius. It is important to realize that by this time some of the tribes in Britannica had strong trading and political links with Rome. There was trouble and unrest in the land and some of the tribal chiefs appealed to Claudius, the Emperor for help. Claudius didn’t see Britannica as a threat but he wanted a triumph so he sent in the legions. This was not an expedition like Caesar’s incursion of 55/54BC, this was an invasion, the Claudian Conquest of 43AD. [ND. p84]

The Vanity Invasion. Claudius, Emperor of Rome had been granted an honorary triumph by the Senate but wanted a real one. There was only one way he could get it, for a notable conquest. This was the basic reason for the invasion of the Isles in AD43 according to the most reliable Roman source literature. Aulus Plautius led the invasion with about 50,000 troops. Once he had established a beachhead and was ready to attack Camudolunum (Colchester) he held his men back, and sent for the Emperor Claudius so he could be present and claim the victory. Claudius came, watched the battle and the taking of the town, spent 16 days touring the district and then went back to Rome to claim his triumph. From then on the conquest proceeded for 40 years. At this point, the Brigantes of the north kept out of the fighting by accepting the authority of Rome and thus retained their independence. Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes co-operated with the Romans but her consort, Venitius would have nothing to do with them and made his last stand at the great fort of Stanwick Hill in 71AD. [ND. P106]

It is important from now on when considering Roman influence on the Celts to recognise that Roman Civil Rule never extended beyond the southern half of England. The rest of the country was subject to military rule which, whilst having an influence on the Celtic culture and way of life, was not as intrusive as the Civil Rule. [SCG] Hutton says also that we should make a clear distinction between pre-Roman Southern British and pre Christian Irish and Northern British cultures. There was obviously a north/south divide even in those days.

The first difficulty is that there is not a single written account of Pagan Roman Britain surviving. The Druids seem to vanish at the conquest, most likely reappearing as Romano/British priests. The Romans never persecuted them unless they fomented opposition to the Emperor. Casting votive offerings into rivers and wells continued to be common but not the rivers used before the conquest. Wells were venerated and often sanctified by incorporating human bones into the structure. There is evidence that this was sometimes done when a well was capped. Roman Paganism seems to have had no problem co-existing with Celtic Paganism. It probably reached its peak in 300AD, certainly, until then, it had no serious rival.

AD56c. There is reasonably firm evidence that at this time, Glastonbury was populated by refugees from Armorica (present day Brittany). They had been driven out by the Roman invasion of Gaul. They lived on two small crannogs. (artificial islands) Glastonbury was a seaport on the Severn estuary and, if Christianity was trade-borne, would be an ideal candidate for entry as it was well-placed to be evangelised early. They had trade links with Gaul and produced pottery which carried a mixture of Christian and Pagan imagery. [JM]

AD60/61. The rise of the tribe of Iceni in the reign of Nero brought the Roman’s hold on Britannia near to collapse. The governor, Suetonius Paulinus, put down the rebellion which was led by Boudicca. He then turned his legions loose on the population and 80,000 were slaughtered in addition to the 70,000 who had died in the rebellion. Roman rule was reasonably just in times of peace as they had learned that conquest by co-operation was more efficient than confrontation. They did not impose their ways or gods on the population, all they demanded was obedience. However, when roused to anger, terror was a weapon they used freely to cow the survivors. [ND. p110]

AD63. There is a legend that Joseph of Aramathea was sent to England by St Philip in AD63 and that he founded a church at Glastonbury. This is almost certainly false but has persisted in modern thought. William of Malmsbury, writing in 1126AD was convinced that Glastonbury was the first church but didn’t support the ‘Joseph’ legend. [JM]

AD77/78-83/84. Julius Agricola was governor of Britannia and set out to subdue the whole of the Isles. In AD78 he reduced the Ordovices (Central Wales), the last tribe holding out against them in the west. In AD79 he set out from the garrison town of Deva (Chester) to subjugate the Caledonians. He met them in battle somewhere in the highlands and defeated them. He was recalled to Rome before he could start on Ireland. The Roman Conquest of the Isle could be said to be complete but at a terrible cost. [ND p160.]

AD115-120. The northern tribes rose and attacked the Romans. Hadrian arrived in the Isles in AD122. He stayed a year and ordered the wall to be built. It was started in AD122 and from then on, the frontier with Caledonia was established until Antoninus Pius tried unsuccessfully to extend it.


AD140c. Antoninus Pius, Hadrian’s adopted son, (r.AD138-161) builds the earth wall from the Forth to the Clyde but this couldn’t be defended and was abandoned on his death. The legions retreated to Hadrian’s wall and rebuilt it in stone. This became the limit of empire. The lands of the Brigantes lay to the south of the wall. This territory was often called Britannia Secunda. They were overseen from the wall, Deva (Chester) and Eboracum (York). Their tribal capital was at Isurium (Aldborough, North Yorks.) on the east side of the Pennines. Some of the constituent tribes of the Brigantes were the Setantii, Lopocares, Gabrantovices, Tectovari and Carvetii, all Latinised names. The latter, ‘The Deer People’ lived in the NW corner of the territory, by AD200/300 they had established Luguvallium (Carlisle)


AD196. Picts overrun Hadrian’s Wall and are raiding into Northern England. Romans are driven back to York.

AD200c. Tertillian boasts that Christianity had spread beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire. As the Wall had been overrun by the Picts, this was almost certainly true. [JM] The lands of the Brigantes lay to the south of the wall. This territory was often called Britannia Secunda. They were overseen from the wall, Deva (Chester) and Eboracum (York). Their tribal capital was at Isurium on the east side of the Pennines. Some of the constituent tribes of the Brigantes were the Setantii, Lopocares, Gabrantovices, Tectovari and Carvetii, all Latinised names. The latter, ‘The Deer People’ lived in the NW corner of the territory, by AD200/300 they had established Luguvallium (Carlisle) [ND. p126.]


AD200c. At the end of the 2nd C the Emperor cult was anti-Christian and persecuted Christians in Western France. Armoria, present day Brittany, was never the subject of full Roman rule and the Celts who lived there escaped most of this persecution. [JM]

AD300c. St Alban martyred. [JM]

AD300-1,000c. Even if we had no literary sources, archaeology would show quite clearly that between 300 and 1200AD a completely new religion became established in Britain. Because of the literature, we know its name, Christianity. This change started in the 4th C and by 1400 had spread all over Europe. (Lithuania was the last country to be converted.) [RH]

AD312. The first official phase of Christianity was when Constantine was converted in 312AD. He became ruler of the Roman Empire and established Christianity as the Imperial religion. From 312 to 331 all religions were tolerated.

AD313. Constantine issues the Edict of Liberation. [JM]

AD314. At the Council of Arles, three of the signatories were English bishops. [JM]

AD337-340c. Evidence that Christians and Pagans shared a church at Lullingstone in Kent. [JM]

AD343. British bishops attend the Council of Sardica. (Modern name is Sophia, capital of Bulgaria. This council, attended by 170 bishops was convened to attempt to solve the Arian Controversy. The main result of it was that it confirmed the Primacy of the Holy See, the power of the Pope. SCG) [JM]

AD359. British bishops attend the Council of Ariminum. (Present day Rimini) [JM]

AD361. The last of Constantine’s family, Julian, started to restore the old cults but by 363 he was dead and the army chose a Christian as emperor. This lasted until 391. Eugerius, a usurper, seized the western empire, he was pagan but on his defeat four years later by Theodosius the Great, the Empire reverted to Christianity and from 395, stayed that way. [RH]

AD367. Picts, Scots and Saxons all invaded Britannia from the north, west and east. Further incursions occurred in AD396. [ND]

AD397. Ninnian builds the first stone church in Britain at Whithorn Priory in Galloway, Scotland. [ND p230]

AD400c. Christianity in mainland Britain was seen by Rome as being affected with the ‘Pelagian Heresy’. Pelagius, a Welsh Priest, rejected the doctrine of Original Sin. [VB]

AD407. According to Bede, this was the date when the Romans finally left Britain. He says that the country fell into ruin. [VB]

AD410c. In effect, the Romans abandoned Britannica. This was never officially acknowledged but the legions were withdrawn to fight in Europe and never returned. Some isolated units were left guarding the Wall. When the Romans pulled out of Britain the Celts reverted to the Brythonic language. This is an indication of how superficial the Roman contribution to the culture of Britain was, more a veneer than a deep influence. [JM] (It should be borne in mind that Roman Civil Rule only applied in the southern part of England, the rest of the country was under Military rule and the influence there would be even less. SCG)

We have no reliable sources for the 5th C but what seems to have happened is that the vacuum caused by the retreat of Rome left mainland England and Wales under attack by the Scots from Ireland and the Picts from the North. Vortigern, Ambrosius Aurelianus and Arthur emerge from Welsh legend and seem to be the names of political and military figures who attempt to rally the tribes against the invaders. Vortigern, in agreement with the other leaders seems to have invited the Saxons from the Elbe to come to help defend the country and they arrived not later than 428AD. Shortly after their arrival the Saxons turned against the Celts and started to drive them westwards. [JM] Gildas says the English economy didn’t suffer when the Romans left but we note that the quantity and quality of coinage diminishes. No coins were minted after AD410 and the production of high quality ceramics declined suggesting some measure of economic downturn. [ND. p160.]

Experience suggests that the withdrawal of the stabilising influence of the legions and their investment must have tended to cause social and economic chaos. It is likely that the citizens of Romanised Civil Britannica would fare less well than the autonomous tribes of the north who would have their own social and economic systems left intact. [ND p162]

The remnants of the army of the north stayed on the wall and the Pictish invasions must have been by sea round the end of the wall. The last Roman commander was called Coel Hen by the Western Britons and he is the origin of Old King Cole. It seems likely that the commanders who were abandoned would turn themselves into minor kings and some of these dynasties may have survived into the 5th and 6th C. [ND p162]


AD413. The early Christian church in Britain had a reputation for orthodoxy but early in the 5th C it produced one of the most famous western heretics, Pelagius. All we know about him for certain is that he was born in Roman Britain, was learned and travelled widely residing for some time in Rome and later in Egypt and Palestine. In 413 he uttered his heresy which denied the Doctrine of Original Sin, one of the major precepts of the church. This was taken up by Agricola, son of Bishop Severianus and the British church was corrupted. The orthodox bishops sought the help of the bishops of Gaul and they sent Germanus and Lupus to heal the schism. (Another source says it was Pope Celestine 1 who sent Germanus alone.) [JM] (Bede puts the earlier date of 400BC on this but his chronology is sometimes suspect. SCG)

AD429. Germanus and Lupus sent to Britain to combat the Pelagian Heresy. [VB] The embassy of Germanus coincided with the rising threat from the Germanic invasions. The British church was being isolated, these were hostile times. The reaction of the church to these troubles seems to have been to retreat into ascetic communities. For centuries to come, these were to be the centres of spirituality and learning surrounded by barbarous militarism. The ‘Monastic Ideal’ was so strong that by 550AD all churchmen of note, including the bishops, were monks. [JM] In ‘Life of Germanus’ written c.494AD it was stated that Germanus got the impression of a Christianity strong in towns but only surviving in rural areas. We can assume that the opposite was true about Paganism.

Germanus reported the helplessness of the Britons in the face of raiding Scots from Ireland and Picts from the North.

AD430c. There were some Saxon settlers on the east shore of the Isle by AD430c. There was war between Ambrosius Aurelianus (Emrys to the Western Celts) and Vitalinus (Vortigern. Nennius says he began his reign in AD424). Vortigern won the battle but faced by what amounted to civil war, compounded by incursions by Scottish, Pictish and Saxon raids, he called on Hengest who was a ‘Half Dane’ or Angle from Angeln which was situated between Jute Land (Jutland) and Saxony. Most sources agree that Hengest (Stallion) and Horsa (Horse) landed from three ships at Thanet in Kent, ‘The Bright Isle’. Bede says AD449 and Nennius says AD428. All the sources agree that after helping Vortigern in return for land in Cantium (Kent) and supplies, Hengest and Horsa sent to Angeln for reinforcements and turned against their host. Vortigern also brought the Votadini tribe south from north of the Wall to help defend the west coast against the Scots raiders from Eire. The Votadini became the Gododdin and ruled Gwynedd for 800 years. Much ink has been wasted on arguments as to which ethnic group Hengest and Horsa belonged to or if they even existed. The balance of probability is that Hengest did and Horsa might have. As for their tribe, they were sea rovers like the Scots from Eire and the Picts and could have been Half-Danes, Half Saxons, Jutes or even Franks. They were Scandinavian and their men could have been any tribe, basically they were pirates from the north out for what they could get. Hengest and Horsa were contracted to drive back the Picts who were advancing down the East Coast. Being sea rovers themselves they were well-equipped for the task. Dumfries, the ‘Fort of the Friesans’ dates from this time. [ND p164/167]

AD440. The barbarian rebellion started. Vortigern was defeated by treachery by Hengest. Saxons from the West ranged the country but never achieved conquest. Hengest’s men never seem to have broken out of Thanet. However this was a wild and unsettled period and seems to have been accompanied by a period of rising sea levels both on the Isles’ and the continental coast. There was a ‘Great Exodus’ of the Romano-British elite of the south who sought sanctuary in Northern Gaul which was still held by ex-Roman forces. They settled on the Lower Seine and there are still groups of villages all called Brettville. Christian Cantium (Kent) became Pagan again, the church of St Martin in Canterbury was abandoned. The last mention of Hengest is in AD473 when he was still fighting for gain and loot. Aelle, one of Hengest’s fellow pirates was the first Germanic invader to use the title of Bretwalda (Lord of Britain). It is important to realise that the claim they were making was that of lordship over ‘Britain’ as they knew it, the Lower Britannica of the Romans, the SE of the country. Even this was an exaggeration, they never had control. This was not England or Wales or Ireland or Scotland. Still less was it Great Britain. Neither were the invaders English even though the name derives from Angles. The most accurate description is probably Germanic. [ND p176.]

AD447. (JM says 444AD) Germanus comes to Britain for the second time to combat the Pelagian Heresy accompanied this time by Severus. [VB]

AD450c. Half way through the 5th C there was a mass migration from South West England and Wales to Armorica and the incomers were very influential. From this point on, the church in Armorica was most closely linked to that of Cornwall and Wales. [JM] (see Great Exodus above in AD440 section.)

AD449-500c. Further armed immigrations of Saxons, Jutes and Angles arrived. It was at this time that many Celts migrated to Armorica and swamped the original inhabitants. Wales, Cornwall and Strathclyde were the eventual refuges of the displaced Celts.

AD450-500c. The Scots from Ireland invaded the west coast but eventually consolidated in what is now Argyllshire. They drove the Picts out and founded the kingdom of Dalriada. [JM]

AD455. Rome was sacked by the Vandals attacking from North Africa. The Western Empire falls and Europe enters a state of instability which triggered Saxon migration to the west coast and beyond.

AD500-600. In the early 6th C, the church of Cornwall, Wales and Strathclyde (the Celtic rump) produced a number of monastic saints. At Llantwit Major, just over the Bristol Channel from Glastonbury, there were said to be ten monasteries founded by St Teilo. Between 450 and 550, Wales produced three major figures, David (Dewi), Gildas and Cadoc. David later became patron saint of Wales. He was an extreme disciplinarian, he banned drink and forced the monks to act as oxen and pull their own ploughs. Cadoc built a monastery at Llancarfan. Gildas, who was born in the Strathclyde region wrote much good history of the church, some of it in retirement at Flatholm, an island in the Bristol Channel. [RH]

AD500-682. 100 years after Hengest had landed, the Germanic invaders hadn’t reached the Dee, Solway or Severn. There was a turning point in c.500AD at the battle of Dyrham, in 600AD at Catreath (Catterick) in 616AD at Chester when the Welsh were cut off from their compatriots in Cumbria and in 682AD when Cadwaladr , King of Gwynedd was killed in Northumbria. Until 682AD an ultimate Britannic victory was possible but all the writers concede that this is the date when all was lost, the Germanic tribes had conquered Britannia

AD596. Pope Gregory the Great decides to send Augustine to England to complete the conversion of the Isles. [VB]

AD597. In the North, in Scotland, where even Roman Military rule did not penetrate, Paganism survived much later than it did in England. By Columba’s death in 597AD Christianity was established in the Western Isles and Highlands but was under attack by Pagan Norse raiders. St Donnan and his followers were massacred on Eigg in 617AD. There were later attacks on Iona and other monastic sites and these only ceased when Christianity reached the far north.

AD597. Augustine arrives in Thanet, Kent. [VB] Augustine preaches to Ethelbert, King of Kent who is converted. Augustine settles in Canterbury and creates the See of York. [VB] [JM] agrees with this date and adds that Augustine wasn’t very diplomatic. He presented the English clerics with a bald ultimatum, they must accept the authority of Rome and baptism or suffer the consequences. He was equally abrasive when he met the leaders of the Welsh church in 602. However, with the help of the followers of Saint Columba the evangelisation gradually succeeded.

AD597-683. Paganism after the Romans. The strongest proof that Paganism continued long after the Roman Occupation is the mission of Augustine to England in 597. Ethelbert was targeted for two reasons, first, on the Isle of Thanet he was accessible by sea and second, he had a Frankish wife who was Christian and had her own priest which ensured a linkage with the continental mainland. Ethelbert accepted the faith and used his authority as the strongest Anglo Saxon king to spread it as far as he could. The King of Essex was his nephew and the king of Northumbria his son-in-law. The future king of East Anglia was his foster-son. All accepted the faith (in itself proof that they hadn’t already been converted) and the Irish monks of St Columba came down to help spread the word. 87 years after Ethelbert was converted the Isle of Wight accepted the faith, the last place to do so. So, by 683, the whole of England was converted. There was of course, resistance. The king of Mercia, Penda, resisted and killed five neighbouring kings but we are not sure whether this was doctrinal or political. The latter is more likely to be the case because his chief ally was Cadwollon the Celtic Christian king. By the end of the 7th C all seemed secure but there was one last trial, the invasions of the Pagan Vikings. For the next 300 years they attacked and colonized England but their impact on religion seemed slight in the long term as they seemed to convert within decades of their arrival, probably the line of least resistance. This did not prevent the attacks on the Christian colonies on remote Isles such as Eigg and Iona. By the early 11th C Scandinavia was converted and the last threat to organized Christianity in England evaporated. [RH]

AD601. 17th June. Pope Gregory the Great writes to Abbot Mellitus about the tactics to be used in the conversion of the pagans in Britain. Temples to be preserved but the idols destroyed. Holy water to be sprinkled and relics placed. Slaughter of animals for sacrifice and building of bowers to be allowed but only as celebrations connected with festivals of the church or saints days. “It is impossible to efface everything at once from obdurate minds”. “He who wishes to rise to the highest place rises by degrees or steps and not leaps” [VB]

AD603. In a praise poem to Cadwallon dated AD603 a new word was used to describe the land of the Cumrogi, it was Cymru.

617AD. St Donnan and his followers massacred on Eigg by Viking raiders.

AD625c. Gildas, writing in the early part of the 6th C castigates the rulers and society of the times for their sins but doesn’t mention Paganism. It seems that it was no longer seen as a threat to the church.

AD626. By this date, Anglo Saxon settlement, the Germanic invasion, had reached the Ribble and Dee estuaries. Barlick could have been under Saxon influence by AD600. [ND]

AD680. At the Synod of Heathfield, Theodore of Canterbury styled himself ‘Archbishop of England’. Canterbury and the Saxon churches gradually gained the upper hand and Wales and Scotland fell into line by 1200AD. The Norman Conquest was the final factor that ensured homogeneity in the British church and the acceptance of the authority of Rome. [JM]

AD684-700. The Augustinian conversions. Kent, Essex and Wessex, 634, Mercia 655, Northumbria 680, East Anglia 700, Sussex 709.

AD700. Until the end of the 6th C, all the main territories of the Britannic Celts were linked. Still very conscious of their Roman heritage, they called themselves ‘Cumbrogh’, ‘Fellow Citizens’ or ‘Compatriots’. The Germanics called them the Welsch, ‘Strangers’.

AD757. Offa, King of Mercia (r.757-796) was the first king in the former Britannia to call himself ‘King of the English’.

AD789. Norse land in Portland. They came from Hordaland, the area round Hardanger Fjord in SW Norway.

AD793. 8th June, Holy Island (Lindisfarne, Northumbria) attacked.
AD794. Jarrow attacked. In the Sudreyjar (Hebrides) the arrival of the Norsemen interrupted a long conflict between the Picts and the Dalradians. By 850 serious colonisation had begun. Norse control of the Isle of Man came after the Hebrides. They established Tynwald, one of their democratic meetings. Various parts of Ireland were attacked, Dublin in 981 and Limerick in 965.

AD795. Monkwearmouth, Rechru and Iona attacked.

AD806. Second attack on Iona. The Norsemen established a staging post on Hjaltland (Shetland) the most northerly part of the Picts territory. The Norse influence can be seen there to this day. Orkney and Shetland were ruled by Norway until 1472. Caithness and Sutherland were settled by the Norsemen. Thurso=Thor’s River, Scrabster = Skaraboldstadr = Homestead on the edge. Wick = Vik = Bay.

AD800. The stage had been reached where the nations of Welsh, Scots and English could start to crystallise.

AD835. Danes establish a toehold on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

AD836. Egbert fights the Danes at Cernemude in Kerno (Cornwall). The Welsh join with them in AD838.

AD839. Egbert dies and during the following years more Danes came. They were having a successful campaign in continental Europe and every now and again turned their attention to Britannia. These incursions were far more extensive than any of the Germanic invasions 400 years before. Effectively, the greater part of Britannia was conquered. The Norsemen left no record of their activities in this period and the West Saxon accounts are biased as they only mention their successes. What seems obvious is that the Saxons had no answer to the Norse sea power.

AD840-886. The Danes conquer the Saxons. Alfred, the young king of Wessex (r.871-899) made a treaty with the Danes which set a boundary between Wessex and the Danelaw which gave the Danes control of London and its sea trade. Alfred was generous to the Mercians by amalgamating laws, laying boundaries for the shires and putting what remained of Saxon London under Mercian control. This laid the foundation of co-operation which was the precursor to the later unification of the kingdom.

AD899-924. Edward the Elder, King of Wessex conquered the whole of Danelaw south of the Humber.

AD911c. The king of France, Charles 3 (the Simple) had a problem. He was weak and was having trouble with his Norse squatters at the mouth of the Seine. Under the aegis of the new concept of feudalism, he met Gongu Hrolph (Hrolph walker. He was so big no horse could carry him and he had to walk) Charles 3 made him a Duke of France and gave him control of all the land in the Seine Valley between the rivers Epte and Bresle. In return Hrolph agreed to become the King’s vassal and in order to take the oath he converted to Christianity. The Latin scribes registered his name as Rollo and called his estate Normandia (The home of the Norsemen) His neighbours called him Rollon le Pieton. His followers were baptised, took Frankish wives and he built a castle at Rouen and a church at Bayeux. This founded a dynasty that was to last 250 years. When the last of the French Carolingean kings died in 987, the Normans were quick to support the new dynasty founded by Hugh Capet.

AD915. The Norsemen fought the Danes at Corbridge and took over the kingdom of Jorvick (York). The 10th C saw the limits of Norse power, they controlled an area in Argyll, the Rheged territory between the Mersey and the Ribble and possibly Anglesey.

AD924-939. Athelstan, King of Wessex took the Welsh princes under his wing and, after raiding deep into Caledonia he took the title Basileus = Emperor. In the same year he defeated the Danes at Bromborough.

AD937. The Celts and the Saxons united under Athelstan to fight the Norse at Brunanburgh and beat them. We are not certain where this was but Bromborough on the Wirral looks a likely prospect. This wasn’t the end of the Norsemen in Britain but it was the start of a unified kingdom of Wessex. Meanwhile, the Danes, who had been raiding down the coast of continental Europe were repulsed by Charlemagne at Hamburg and concentrated their energies on their bases on the mouths of the Rhine and the Seine. From here, they turned their attention to Kent and the South Saxons. [ND p257)

AD939. The Wessex kings gave the country a new name, Engla Land and it stuck. This was not a re-conquest because there had been no entity before, it was a unification. England was born.

AD965, A new wave of Norse incursions into NW Britannia started. They established a base on the Wirral with the Mersey Estuary for a harbour.

AD980. The Second Viking Age. Cheshire was devastated and there were landings in 1003, 1014, 1066 and 1098. If we bear in mind that the Norman Conquest was not a French, but a Norse invasion, this could be seen as the start of the final phase of Scandinavian domination of the Isles. Norse Normandy was to become a separate entity when Rollo accepted the authority of Charles the Simple and would repulse the Northern Norse in the end but at this stage, this was not clear.

AD978-1016. Reign of Aethelred (‘the Unready’ or, more accurately, ‘the Ill Advised’) This reign saw many problems reappear. He had to start paying Danegeld again to bribe the raiders to go away.

AD1002. Aethelred attempts a massacre of all Danes in England. He fails and this causes a general uprising.

AD1003. Sveyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark lands at the Humber and inside ten years had re-taken the country. Aethelred was in exile. This looked like the dawn of a Danish/British empire but it never consolidated.

AD1014. Sveyn Forkbeard dies and divides the Kingdom between Harald (Denmark) and Knutr (Britain)

AD1014-1035. Knutr (Canute) reunites the kingdom. He defeats Aethelred’s son, Edmund Ironside, at Assandun (1016) and married Aethelred’s widow Emma (1016). He divided England into four earldoms, Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia and Wessex. His attempts to found a Danish/English empire fail. Dies 1035.

AD1035. The death of Canute and Duke Robert of Normandy coincide and William the Bastard succeeds to the dukedom of Normandy.

AD1035-1040. Canute’s son, Harald 1 is king. Dies 1040.

AD1040-1042. Harthacnut, Canute’s younger son is king, neither he or his brother had children.

AD1042-1066. Edmund Ironside’s son, Edward the Confessor becomes king. Edmund was half Norman.

AD1066. Edward the Confessor dies childless and Harold Godwinson (Harold 2) takes the Wessex throne. Harold immediately faced a problem, as far as the Norsemen were concerned, Harold 2 was a usurper and the Norse spoils in England were up for grabs. Sveyn 2, Canute’s successor in Denmark was sure it was his. Harald Hardrad (The Ruthless) King of Norway was sure it was his and William the Bastard likewise. Harald Hardrad set sail for Northumbria as soon as he heard of the Confessor’s death. On 26 September 1066 he was met at Stamford Bridge by Harold Godwinson and defeated. William the Bastard sailed from France on 28th September and Harold’s men marched south, 250 miles in 12 days. William had landed at Pevensey and on 14th October Harold and his men waited for the onslaught on the crest of Senlac Hill. They were defeated. William, now the Conqueror, was crowned in Westminster Abbey on December 25th. His way of holding the country was to build castles and terrorise the surrounding country. The Tower of London was the first.

AD1067. The West Country is ravaged.

AD1068. Wales is ravaged.

AD1069. William marches against his Norse cousins in Jorvick (York) Northumbria wasn’t conquered but it stopped them attacking William. The Church was purged and became French and Latin speaking. The country was divided up between his Norman nobles and castle building commenced.

AD1086. The Domesday survey registered every land holding in the country and assessed them for Danegeld at Edward the Confessor’s death and then.(1086)

AD1087. William the Conqueror dies fighting for the French king.

AD1087-1096. William’s son Robert held Normandy and Rufus, William’s younger son becomes King of England. These were years full of rebellion on both sides of the channel. Rufus dies (accident/assassination?) 1096.

AD1096-1135. Henry 1 holds English throne.

AD1093-1103. Magnus Barfoot (Barefoot) King of Norway. In 1098 he invades England via Anglesey. He was met by two Marcher Lords who had been put in place to guard Wales. Hugh de Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury and Robert of Rhuddlan. Magnus slew Hugh in personal combat and after defeating this force he went to Scotland where he forced the Scots Court to re-confirm him as Lord of the Isles.

AD1100 onwards. History in England was now written by monks in Latin. The Norse invasions were belittled as Pagan Incursions. Celts in Wales, SW England and Cumbria and the last remnants of the Old Celts in the North kept their heads down. Ireland was undisturbed. English history as we know it could start.

AD1589 and 1678. Sacrifice. See Religion. Oxen were killed in honour of Saint Benyo at Clynnog Fawr in Wales as late as 1589 and Saint Maelrubna in Wester Ross until 1678. Both customs were stopped by reforming churchmen.







ALPHABETISED LIST.

Agriculture. Starts in valleys of the Middle East about 10,000BC, enters Isles c. 4,000BC and reaches furthest parts by about 2,000BC. Agriculture triggered the Neolithic Revolution. This was more than a simple transition from the concept of a tribe or family group living in an area and ranging that area as semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers living off the land and moving to where the current resource was situated. The first seed corn and domesticated animals that arrived in the Isles in the South started a revolution. Cultivation = settlement = concepts of ownership = boundaries = paths and tracks. Society changed, specialisation became important, different skills and different responsibilities. Stock-keepers, cultivators, hunters, warriors, craftsmen, miners all became separate crafts and skills. Story-tellers, priests and keepers of wisdom grew more important. Concepts of care for elderly and infirm became possible. At this time, if there was ever a cult of birth, life, death and sustenance from natural sources this shifted to sun, rain, season and fertility of fields. England at this time had a climate similar to the South of France but more rainfall and better soils, perfect conditions for a wheat based agriculture. The rich conditions ensured success for the new technology. We should take note that there is evidence of Late Neolithic herding of domestic deer on uplands. Agriculture wasn’t entirely new. [ND]

Angles, Saxons and Jutes. It isn’t true to say that these were the three groups of Germanic invaders in the 5th C. There were more like six or seven. Bede and the early historians have perpetuated this myth but it is more likely that these names represent what the invaders called themselves after they had become entrenched. They all came by sea and were aided by the fact that no part of the mainland of Britannica was further than two days march away from the coast. Also, the rivers gave their shallow draught boats easy access to the hinterland. The Mercians gained access to the Midlands via the Humber and Trent to found their dynasty. [ND p192] (see Saxon Invasions)

Brigantes. (see Celts. Roman Invasion of Britain. Walls)


Bells. Use of as charm against thunderstorms and practice of christening them. Also use of blessings for enhancing or protecting non-human objects. These and other similar practices could be seen as the remains of Paganism embedded in the Christian religion. See Puritans.

Bronze Age. This is generally accepted as being 2,000-600BC but it should be remembered that the use of flint, bronze and iron must have overlapped and the advent of the new technologies was affected by many factors leading to different rates of take-up in different parts of the Isles.

By the end of the Neolithic, metal extraction, copper, gold and tin, was emerging. This led to the Bronze Age. Later, iron became workable. There is little doubt that the existing export trade in unfinished flints and stone axe heads continued and was augmented by metal and finished metal artefacts. Sea transport must have been more sophisticated than we have hitherto suspected. One example of this is the transport in BC1700c of 82 fifty ton blocks of stone from South Wales to Stonehenge. [ND. P15] Track through Barlick was used to carry gold from Ireland to the East Coast for export to Baltic area. [SCG]

Burial. Up to 3,000BC Barrows and passage tombs were common. These were often single body, high status sites but some were multiple or cumulative burial and many were interred in the same chamber. We think that the bodies were exposed first and only the bones were interred, often disarticulated.

Caledonia. (Alba) The land to the North of Hadrian’s Wall has a complex history. The Picts, the ancient people, are a puzzle. We now think they were probably Celts and not a separate race. Angles penetrated the east coast of Caledonia by sea from their bases in north east Upper Britannia. Only the Britons in the south west corner (Strathclyde) were Christians. The Scots from Eire had founded Dalriada in the Western Isles and what is now Argyll. (Ar Gael=The Land of the Gaels/Irish) When Roman Britannia collapsed after AD410, these groupings had nothing in common and it took 400 years of turbulence to produce what we now know as Scotland. Dalriada was founded in the first half of the first millennium AD by Scots or Scotti. This was the Roman term for the Irish Sea-borne migration to Britannia and the name stuck. The original Irish base of Dal Riata was overrun eventually by Norse raiders and ceased to exist. (see Dal Riata) [ND p182]

Calendar. There is evidence of appropriation of Pagan festivals in the spiritual calendar of the church. Remembering Gregory’s letter to Abbott Mellitus (602AD) in which he instructed him to use the existing structures, festivals and rituals but convert them to Christian use we can see that this was indeed done. The Feast of the goddess Eostre was in April and celebrated the first appearance of green after the winter. Once the Christian church got its act together over the date of Epiphany, this festival became Easter. Modranicht was the great festival of the winter solstice in December and marked the beginning of the year. [VB] (Curiously, Bede doesn’t make any mention of what must have been one of the most important Pagan festivals, the summer solstice. SCG)

Celtic Cross. BC3,000. Some common design elements seem to have emerged about 3,000BC in the Carpathian Mountains. These were the cross in the circle, the many spoked wheel and concentric circles. We tend to think about the Celtic Cross as purely British but this is not the case. Other less common designs were wavy lines (water?), spirals and what appear to be footprints. At Woodhouse Crag, near Ilkley in West Yorkshire a design was found which suggests a swastika. This is the first known use of this design in Europe. [RH]

Celtic deities, nature of. This is a complicated and obscure subject. There are a few major names which have wider resonance than just the Isles such as Lugh who had currency all over the Celtic world. His name is the basis for the Roman names of Carlisle, Leiden in Holland, Lyon in France and Leignitz in Silesia. Brigid, Brig or Brid who was appropriated by the early Christians as the Mother Saint of Ireland had multiple names and spheres of influence. She was worshipped in England under the name Brigantia and the Brigante tribe may have been named after her. (other opinion is that the tribe was named after ‘briga = hill’.) However, it appears that there were many minor deities which were important to one tribe or even family. These could have overlapping attributes and could be as important to that particular group as the more well known ones. (see Worship) In Celtic/Romano paganism, Verbeia was the deity of the River Wharfe and Belisima of the River Ribble. These could have been Celtic deities originally.

Celts. The application of the name ‘Celts’ is actually a modern one. It derives from the Greek word ‘Keltoi’ which means strangers but it was originally only applied to people living in the Eastern European interior in the first millennium BC. It did not apply to the people of the west. The Romans used the word ‘Galli’ to describe the Celts and this is closer to Gaelic which is how the modern Celts describe themselves. It is incidentally the reason why the Romans called what is now western Europe, ‘Gaul’. ‘Gallic’ is used to describe anything French in modern usage and comes from the Roman root. The earliest modern Celts we know of inhabited land around the upper reaches of the Danube, Rhone and Rhine. The excavations at Hallstadt gave the name to the first phase of Celtic culture c.800-700BC. The second, at La Tene lent its name to the phase starting c.450BC. The modern Celts weren’t confined to these regions. Later finds place them in Slovenia, Silesia, and southern Poland. One group of Celts crossed the Alps into N. Italy and sacked Rome in 390BC. Another group sacked Delphi in Greece in 279BC. The Celtic tribe of Helvetii populated what is now Switzerland. [ND. pp51/52] BC1000-600. Continental Celts permeate the whole of the Isles. Hallstadt Celts in Ireland and La Tene in south of the mainland. This is supported by the differences between the Irish language and the Welsh. The permeation (once thought to be invasion but now generally disproved) started around 1000BC and was virtually complete by 600BC. They ruled unchallenged until c.100AD. It is not impossible that pockets of pre-Celtic culture remained until after the Roman invasion. The Celtic tribes who were well established in Britain by 1000BC were the original Ancient Britons. They spoke a variant of Gaelic and were closely related to the continental Gauls. The Brigantes tribe dominated Northern England. Their main fort was at Stanwick Hill in Yorkshire, this covered 750 acres and had ramparts six miles long. It fell to the Romans in 74AD. (ND says that the name Brigantes comes from the Celtic ‘Briga’ meaning hill, therefore, the Hill Folk. Other sources say that the name derives from ‘Brigid’ the Irish Celtic goddess.) We know quite a lot about some of the tribes because by 51BC they were striking their own coins. As far as we know the Brigantes never struck any coins. [ND. Pp59/73]

Charms. See Holy Water, Host, Prayer, Bells,

Climate change. BC1,800. From about this time the climate started to deteriorate. Up until then, during the early Neolithic period, Britain was probably as warm as the South of France is today. From about 1,400BC the climate grew cooler and wetter until about 700BC when it started to improve. This was the period when large areas like the North Yorkshire Moors, The Pennines, the uplands of Ireland and Wales and many other areas were de-forested and became moor and bog and were denuded of top soil. [RH p134]

Consecration. See Bells, Puritans,

Dal Riata. The kingdom of the Riata, a Celtic tribe. It used to be on the Northern tip of Ireland. After the Ice Age there was a land bridge across to West Scotland. The Scots of Eire had several colonies on the west coast of Britannia, Dalriada (now Argyll), Isle of Man, Dyfedd, The Lleyn Peninsula and even in the SW peninsula. Dal Riata was eventually submerged by Norse incursions into Ireland but Dalriada survived and eventually became the root of modern Scotland. [ND p180] (see Caledonia)

Deities. If the sacred ones of the Neolithic had been seen largely in the skies, those of the Bronze Age were seen in the rivers, lakes and forest. Natural springs commanded attention and have done right up to the present day. Consider the well-dressing ceremonies in Derbyshire which are still regarded as festivals.

Druids. BC600. Generally regarded as the start of the Iron Age. The Iron Age Celts differed from their ancestors in that they left some written records. Unfortunately these have been polluted by forgery and monasticism. The modern concept of ‘Druids’ is a case in point.

The Reverend Dr William Stukely (1687-1765) was rector of Stamford and ‘revived’ the cult of the Druids. He had visited Stonehenge and had convinced himself that Druidism was the original religion of the Isles. He laid out a druidical ‘temple’ in his garden centred round an apple tree that had mistletoe growing on it. He was the pioneer of all the ‘druidical’ and ‘bardic’ orders that were to follow. He was an amiable eccentric but his many publications promoted the trend towards the Celtic revival. [ND. P90]

Edward Williams (1747-1826) gave himself the name Iolo Morganwwg. He was a failed business man, a stonemason and romantic poet. He fabricated a 14th C poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym, in order to sell his poetry and he forged the documents which he used to ‘revive’ the Order of Bards. The first Gorsedd was held on Primrose Hill in 1792. It is recorded that he took a pocketful of stones for the stone circle. Williams’ Order of Bards was taken up by Welsh Nationalism and the Eisteddfod movement and is now the ‘official’ version and supported by the Monarchy.
Between 1760 and 1840 other writers set out to ‘re-construct’ druidism. Rowland James, John Clelland, William Cooke, D James, Edward Davies and William Blake all participated.

The Ancient Order of Druids was ‘revived’ in 1781 by a London carpenter called Henry Hurle. From the late 19th C until 1989 Hurle’s ‘order’ was allowed to perform rituals at Stonehenge but this branch was always an elite.

A succession of oddballs and romantics culminating in Lewis Spence further muddied the waters and ‘Druidic’ and ‘Celtic’ lore was held to be the equivalent of the German myths of the Teutonic Knights. In 1944 Robert Graves was writing historical novels. One of these ‘The White Goddess’ became a cult classic and was used as literal truth by what eventually became the New Age movement. Graves never intended this and repeatedly asserted that the book was fiction. The position made even worse when the ‘Goddess’ myth was taken up as a feminist icon. In 1980, scholars went back to the original texts and effectively blew popular Druidic and Celtic lore apart but it was too late to stop the ‘heresy’. In a perverse way, all this proves that the genuine Celtic material and the contributions by Greek and Roman writers do not contain enough evidence to reconstitute the religion. What truth there was was found unpalatable by Williams, Hurle et al and they did not use it. (see Prehistoric History) [SCG. This romantic revival raises an interesting thought. Suppose that the forces which drove these romantic fantasists to invent a modern Pagan religion were the same as those which triggered its inception. Personally I doubt it but the possibility exists and should not be dismissed lightly.]

Earth Mother. For many years, the existence of a cult of the ‘Earth Mother’ or ‘Earth Goddess’ has been accepted as part of Celtic culture. In 1968 and 1969, two scholars, aided by improvements in carbon dating techniques and close study of Egyptian and Sumerian texts exploded this theory. This forced pre-historians to re-evaluate the archaeological evidence. [RH p37] [SCG. One confusing factor could be that there seems to be a possibility that when making a small ritual figure it was easier to make a hole and insert a wooden penis than carve a stone one. Over the years, the wood rotted away and left a hole. Some experts believe that many ‘female’ figures are actually males who have lost their phallus.]

Ecological impact. In terms of damage to the ecology, there is little to choose between the Pagans and the Christians. After 1400BC when the climate changed the Pagans were responsible for much damage of the uplands by deforestation. There is little doubt that in their efforts to destroy Paganism, the Christians may have felled the odd sacred grove and demolished a temple. However, against this must be set the fact that very little of the early Christian building remains as it was predominantly made of timber. Time might have destroyed the Pagan temples in the same way. [RH]

Festivals. See Calendar. Gregory’s letter to Abbott Mellitus in 602 shows that he believed that the Pagans built shelters of branches near the sacred site and sacrificed oxen. These sacrifices were allowed by the Christians but assigned to Christian festivals. ‘Deck the halls with boughs of holly’ reminds us that the church still advocates green decoration. Is the practice of decorating the church with flowers a remnant of this practice? Whilst I was in Germany in 2000 on the Rhine at Schonburg I saw a church being decorated on the outside with Birch branches. I was told it was the festival of Maria Himmelfart. (Mary going to heaven) and am struck how closely it resembles Gregory’s description. The practice of decorating the interiors of houses at Christmas with Holly and Mistletoe could be a remnant from the same root.

Many Christian festivals were placed so as to obliterate Pagan festivals. There is no calendar for these in the scriptures, they were purely pragmatic. The Nativity of Christ was a replacement for the ‘Imperial Feast of the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun’ or Winter Solstice. The decision to do this was taken in 4th C but it took 200 years to get it universally accepted. Easter was indicated in the New Testament as following the Hebrew Passover but it took 400 years before the whole church could agree on the date. Easter became universal in the 8th C. Midsummer’s Day, the Summer Solstice, became the Feast of St John the Baptist. ‘Gospel Oaks’ remembered in place names may simply be an appropriation of Pagan Grove worship. [RH]

Freedom. What must be conceded is that by insisting on one god and one code of conduct the early Christians constrained choice, debate and individual freedom. Belief in the power of anything other than God was heresy and of course, this included magic. Even the Pagan Romans would not tolerate the use of magic for evil purposes. The early Christian church totally banned it. (Except of course for the ‘magic’ used by the church.) The Christian Emperors were even more severe. They banned the use of all magic, even amulets and charms. However, they didn’t persecute Pagans, only their places of worship and practices. This was a tremendous change from the well-documented persecution of the Christians by Pagan Emperors. The Christian laws against witchcraft and magic allowed persecution of witches but as in Pagan times, this was often largely a matter of getting rid of rivals or settling old scores. In some parts of Europe, especially where the Germanic tribes were prominent, the Church actually stopped the tradition of hunting and killing witches. A good example of this is the Lombard Code of 643AD which stated that nobody should kill female slaves as witches on the grounds that it was not possible (to do magic) nor should it be believed by Christian minds. In 789AD Charlemagne imposed Christianity on Saxony and decreed that whoever burned witches should themselves be executed. It seems that the early church cannot be blamed for the later excesses of the ‘witch craze’. The change from Paganism to Christianity seems to have been fairly peaceful and spread over a long period. It was tolerant and was helped by the general invasions of 360AD which disrupted much of life anyway. [RH]

Gods. Anglo-Saxon Pagans had Woden as equivalent to the Celtic Lugh. Six of the Anglo Saxon royal houses traced their ancestry from him and the fourth day of the week was named after him. Tiw, a war god gave Tuesday, Thor gave Thursday, Frigga or Freya gave Friday.

Hadrian’s Wall. See Walls.

Historians. Gildas and Bede are interesting but inaccurate. Bede improves when he gets to AD597 because he is dealing with events within living memory. [ND. P160.]

Holy Water. Locked cover on the font to prevent theft of Holy Water for use in charms. KT, p35. See Host,

Host. Mention of Host being put straight into communicants mouth as opposed to hands to prevent it being taken from the church and used in charms. KT, p35. See Holy Water,

Iceni. tribe of, AD60/61. The rise of the tribe of Iceni in the reign of Nero brought the Roman’s hold on Britannia near to collapse. The governor, Suetonius Paulinus, put down the rebellion which was led by Boudicca. He then turned his legions loose on the population and 80,000 were slaughtered in addition to the 70,000 who had died in the rebellion. Roman rule was reasonably just in times of peace as they had learned that conquest by co-operation was more efficient than confrontation. They did not impose their ways or gods on the population, all they demanded was obedience. However, when roused to anger, terror was a weapon they used freely to cow the survivors. [ND. p110]

Ireland. (See Prehistoric History) Ireland had important resources of copper and gold and this ensured a lot of activity in the Bronze Age. It has been estimated that only 1% of the metal extracted has been accounted for in the country. The rest has either been lost to sight or exported. The Bronze Age track through Barlick was one route for this trade. It makes sense if the destination was the Baltic as the route across the Isle through the most northerly low level crossing of the Pennines at Kildwick was the shortest way. The only major discontinuity in Ireland was the advent of Christianity and so the mythology is more complete.

Iron Age. Generally agreed to have started around 600BC.

Language. (see Prehistoric History)

Ley Lines. This and other alternative theories have gained popular acceptance in modern times but have been comprehensively disproved by serious scientists and archaeologists.

Liturgy. Even in the Celtic church, the Mass was always said in Latin, never in the vernacular. [JM]

Magic. (see Freedom) In many ways, Christian religion can be said to have appropriated magic in much the same way as it appropriated sacred sites and festivals. Magic was converted to the church’s own purposes. Prayers could be said to be charms, especially when chanted repetitively. The transubstantiation of the Host is pure magic. Ironically, some of this magic appropriated by the church was in turn re-appropriated by practitioners of magic. Holy water, the Host and repetitive prayer were used in spells. A Requiem Mass for the living was a death curse. Wells which were sacred to the Pagans were given saints names but pilgrims still threw votive offerings into them. Walling up of animals and perhaps even humans in foundations persisted and an example was even found in Chichester Cathedral recently. The latest date we can be sure of for this practice is the 13th C. [RH]

Mass. Use of mass as an instrument of magic. Singing Mass for the living as a curse. KT, p34. See Transubstantiation, Host,

Megaliths. (From the Greek. Mega=great. Lith=stone) ND gives six different types of megalith. Chambered tombs, passage graves, Cromlechs, alignments, menhirs, dolmens. Chambered tombs had different alignments in different parts of the country Builders seem to have made an association between the sky and the dead. There were apertures in some to let the light of the summer solstice sunrise in but this was obviously for the benefit of the occupants of the chamber. In the later circles and henges there seems to be evidence of alignment. The midsummer solstice at Stonehenge rises directly above the heel stone at an azimuth of 51 degrees. Alignments can be as simple as three stones in a row or be far more complicated. It is easy to see how a calendar could be constructed from midsummer, midwinter and the two equinoxes, vernal and autumnal.

Middop. I have always made the assumption that the structure at Middop was a Bronze Age settlement or fort. This need not necessarily be true as I have no evidence. I was struck when reading Hutton that it looked similar to the ‘causewayed enclosures’ he describes on p44-51. These appear to be places of seasonal or ritual gatherings but Hutton says none have been found in Northern England. They appear to have fallen out of use or to have been fortified around 3,200BC and it has been suggested that this might be due to some sort of stress on society perhaps due to a deteriorating climate. (SCG)

Miracles. See Science and religion.

Modern Magic. Fortune-telling, technology, superstition, blessings and curses.

Northumbria. When the Angles flooded into Britannia in the 5th C they settled either side of the Humber and rapidly spread north along the coast to the Wall and beyond, into Caledonia. In early centuries there were two dynasties or tribes, the Bernicia with headquarters at Bamburgh and the Deira with headquarters at Ebacorum. (York) In the 7th C the Bernician dynasty took over from the Humber to the Forth when the Deiran dynasty died out. c600AD there was a battle between the Gododdin of Dunedin (Edinburgh) and the Bernicians at Catreath (Catterick) Cumbria was split from Strathclyde. Eventually, Kenneth Mac Alpin, a king of Dalriada (r.840-857) Lord of Kyntire, seized Pictland and imposed a hereditary monarchy calling it Scotia. He brought a stone from his homeland and installed it in the church a Scone, ‘The Stone of Destiny’. [ND p184.]

Paganism after the Romans. The strongest proof that Paganism continued long after the Roman Occupation is the mission of Augustine to England in 597. Ethelbert was targeted for two reasons, first, on the Isle of Thanet he was accessible by sea and second, he had a Frankish Christian wife who had her own personal priest which ensured a linkage with the church of the continental mainland. Ethelbert accepted the faith and used his authority as the strongest Anglo Saxon king to spread it as far as he could. The King of Essex was his nephew and the king of Northumbria his son-in-law. The future king of East Anglia was his foster-son. All accepted the faith (in itself proof that they hadn’t already been converted) and the Irish monks of St Columba came down to help spread the word. 87 years after Ethelbert was converted the Isle of Wight accepted the faith, the last place to do so. So, by 683, the whole of England was converted. There was of course, resistance. The king of Mercia, Penda, resisted and killed five neighbouring kings but we are not sure whether this was doctrinal or political. The latter is more likely to be the case because his chief ally was Cadwollon the Celtic Christian king. By the end of the 7th C all seemed secure but there was one last trial, the invasions of the Pagan Norsemen. For the next 300 years they attacked and colonized England but their impact on religion seemed slight in the long term as they seemed to convert within decades of their arrival, probably the line of least resistance. This did not prevent the attacks on the Christian colonies on remote Isles such as Eigg and Iona. By the early 11th C Scandinavia was converted and the last threat to organized Christianity in England evaporated. [RH]

Place names. The possibility is raised in my mind that the association of a name with a place may not always be that of an inhabitant or founder but the name of a deity as a divine protector. (See Lugh) In Ireland, where we have a literary record of the minor deities we know that this is true. The absence of such a list for England does not mean they didn’t exist but that they are concealed. [SCG]

Hutton says that place names might be one of the last repositories of the names of local deities and associations with Pagan religion in England. We have generally ascribed them to a founder or a proprietor as in Bernulf’s Wick as a precursor for Barlick. We have evidence that this wasn’t universal. Traces of memory of sacred places are scattered across the map of England in the place names as far North as the Humber. Ealh = temple and is found twice in Kent. Hearh = hilltop sanctuary and occurs across the Midlands and SE England. Weoh = sacred space and is common. We are reasonably sure that Pagans saw high places, groves of trees and wells as being sacred places. Gumeninga Hearh is now Harrow on the Hill and was the sacred place of the Gumenings who were a local tribe. Legh or Leah = a cleared space associated with Woden or Thunor, two Norse gods. It appears that the place was more important to Iron Age Pagans than a building. If there were buildings these may well be submerged under early churches. Pope Gregory’s letter to Abbott Mellitus in June 602 is strong evidence that this could have taken place. The Venerable Bede in his History of the Church confirms that this happened in Northumbria.

Picts. After the revisionist research of the 1980’s it became generally accepted that the Picts, who until then had been regarded as a separate race, were actually early Celts.

Pope. The name ‘Pope’ is actually a nick name, ‘Daddy’. The proper title is ‘Pontifex Maximus’ which was the title of the chief Pagan priest of Rome. (This is why the Roman Emperors often carried the same title.)

Prehistoric history. On the whole, the prehistoric history of the Isles shows great chronological and geographical variations. Basically, the further from the south coast, the later the development and this was further modified by climate and geography. The Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages overlap, there was still a use for flints in the Iron Age and highly finished stone axes which were never made for practical use were prized. Another distortion was that sea-borne trade was far easier and so coastal regions progressed faster than inland regions as a rule. They were far more accessible than the interior. There was a copper mine on the Great Orme in Wales in BC1700 and this is a good example of this. It seems isolated and hemmed in by high ground but not by sea. Ireland benefited from sea routes and could have been populated just as easily from the Atlantic coast of Europe by sea as via the land bridge. A well-documented site at Mt. Sandel in Kerry dating from BC7500/6500 would seem to support this. Two things can be said with absolute certainty about Prehistoric History in the Isles; it wasn’t English and it wasn’t British, neither of the concepts existed.

Priests. Caesar and other Greek/Roman writers agree that the Celtic intellectual elite were divided into three classes; Bards, Druids and Vates. The last two were the religious sects. The Druids were said to rank before the king. Caesar also said that the source for the religion, even in Gaul, was Britain. The priests were male, references to females in the priesthood must be regarded as suspect. Very often, the king seems to have filled the office of priest and was seen to be sacred. [RH]

Puritans. Protestant objections to consecration of buildings for worship, hence Quaker Meeting Houses. (see Bells)

Prayers. Use of as charms. Repetitive chanting of prayers. Could be a defence against accusations of witchcraft. KT, p42.

Religion. We know that burial appeared in Europe 80,000 years ago, there is archaeological evidence. However, the problem with religion is that in the absence of writing we have no evidence on which to make sound conclusions. We can speculate about objects found in tombs and no doubt they indicate some sort of folk belief but whether this amounts to ‘religion’ is another matter.

If the Celts had a coherent theology of death and the afterlife, it has not survived. [RH] What we can say is that there was ritual that is supported by archaeological evidence. This was the casting of votive objects into watery places such as rivers, pools and bogs. The trove of finds at Flag Fen is a good example. There is evidence of this ritual dating back to 1,400BC but there are many more finds dating from 1,200BC. The rivers that were used for this type of offering were always eastwards flowing, no deposits of this type have ever been found in a west flowing river.

Ritual slaughter of animals and possibly even humans was practiced. Quite often this was a body, ritually killed and then entombed in the foundation of a structure. This ritual death was often triple, pole axed, garroted and cut throat. All the evidence we have suggests that worship, ritual and venerated objects or places were local in character, probably part of a tribal structure, and were differentiated from other tribes practices.

Roman Britain. C. AD43 to 410. In AD43 the Romans invade Britain. It is important from now on when considering Roman influence on the Celts to recognise that Roman Civil Rule never extended beyond the southern half of England. The rest of the country was subject to military rule which, whilst having an influence on the Celtic culture and way of life, was not as intrusive as the Civil Rule. ( [SCG] Hutton says also that we should make a clear distinction between pre-Roman Southern British and pre Christian Irish and Northern British cultures. There was obviously a north/south divide even in those days.) The Roman tide across Europe culminating in the invasion of the Isles in AD43 progressively diluted the Celtic culture as it advanced. In Eastern Europe this was almost total but the influence gradually waned towards the west. The Isles were never completely Romanised and the west side was almost untouched. The SW, Wales and most of Scotland and the Irish were never polluted. Brittany in France also escaped. The Erse, Gaelic, Welsh and Breton languages have survived and Manx has only recently died out. These languages are all related to ‘proto-Celtic’ and have the same root. Kaspar Zeuss (1806-1856) showed that the Celtic languages are part of the much wider Indo-European family. It’s important to realise that the Celts are not a national, ethnic or racist entity. Their common link is the language. They had a bardic tradition which resisted writing as they saw the oral tradition as being important. All the ancient commentators on the Celts agree on this. Unfortunately, this means that all their lore perished with the Bards and was never recorded. All modern ‘Bardic’ and ‘Druidic’ lore is fabricated. (See Druids)

Roman Invasion of Britain. Julius Caesar mounted two expeditionary campaigns in 55 and 54BC. He came because he knew the islands had resources he needed, grain and metals. He also regarded the Celts of ‘Britannica’ as a threat to the submission of Gaul. He came, he saw but he did not conquer and was killed in 44BC. The invasion proper came in 43AD. It is important to realize that by this time some of the tribes in Britannica had strong trading and political links with Rome. There was trouble and unrest in the land and some of the tribal chiefs appealed to Claudius, the Emperor for help. Claudius didn’t see Britannica as a threat but he wanted a triumph so he sent in the legions. This was not an expedition like Caesar’s incursion of 55/54BC, this was an invasion, the Claudian Conquest of 43AD. [ND. p84]

The Vanity Invasion. Claudius, Emperor of Rome had been granted an honorary triumph by the Senate but wanted a real one. There was only one way he could get it, for a notable conquest. This was the basic reason for the invasion of the Isles in AD43 according to the most reliable Roman source literature. Aulus Plautius led the invasion with about 50,000 troops. Once he had established a beachhead and was ready to attack Camudolunum (Colchester) he held his men back, and sent for the Emperor Claudius so he could be present and claim the victory. Claudius came, watched the battle and the taking of the town, spent 16 days touring the district and then went back to Rome to claim his triumph. From then on the conquest proceeded for 40 years. At this point, the Brigantes of the north kept out of the fighting by accepting the authority of Rome and thus retained their independence. Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes co-operated with the Romans but her consort, Venitius would have nothing to do with them and made his last stand at the great fort of Stanwick Hill in 71AD. [ND. P106]

Roman subjugation of Britain. (see Iceni) AD77/78-83/84. Julius Agricola was governor of Britannia and set out to subdue the whole of the Isles. In AD78 he reduced the Ordovices (Central Wales), the last tribe holding out against them in the west. In AD79 he set out from the garrison town of Deva (Chester) to subjugate the Caledonians. He met them in battle somewhere in the highlands and defeated them. He was recalled to Rome before he could start on Ireland. The Roman Conquest of the Isle could be said to be complete but at a terrible cost. [ND p160.]

With the consolidation of the conquest, the Isles settled into four parts; Eire (Ireland, home of the Scots) remained free. The High Kings ruled on at Tara, the Druids officiated over Pagan rituals and tribal quarrels and cattle stealing continued unabated. Caledonia (Scotland, home of the Picts and Celts) was attacked but never subjugated. Lower Britannia (England and Wales) could be divided into two parts; the southern lowlands were under Roman Civil Rule and developed differently than the northern uplands which were under military rule. There were significant differences.

Civil Britannia was more heavily populated than the rest of the country. Even so, it is hard how the Romanised Celts could make up more than a quarter of the whole population of two or three million in the province. Roman occupation left no legacy of note, a few roads and remains, some genes and Christianity.

Roman Withdrawal from Britain. AD410c. In effect, the Romans abandoned Britannica. This was never officially acknowledged but the legions were withdrawn to fight in Europe and never returned. Some isolated units were left guarding the Wall. When the Romans pulled out of Britain the Celts reverted to the Brythonic language. This is an indication of how superficial the Roman contribution to the culture of Britain was, more a veneer than a deep influence. [JM] (It should be borne in mind that Roman Civil Rule only applied in the southern part of England, the rest of the country was under Military rule and the influence there would be even less. SCG)

We have no reliable sources for the 5th C but what seems to have happened is that the vacuum caused by the retreat of Rome left mainland England and Wales under attack by the Scots from Ireland and the Picts from the North. Vortigern, Ambrosius Aurelianus and Arthur emerge from Welsh legend and seem to be the names of political and military figures who attempt to rally the tribes against the invaders. Vortigern, in agreement with the other leaders seems to have invited the Saxons from the Elbe to come to help defend the country and they arrived not later than 428AD. Shortly after their arrival the Saxons turned against the Celts and started to drive them westwards. [JM] Gildas says the English economy didn’t suffer when the Romans left but we note that the quantity and quality of coinage diminishes. No coins were minted after AD410 and the production of high quality ceramics declined suggesting some measure of economic downturn. [ND. p160.]

Experience suggests that the withdrawal of the stabilising influence of the legions and their investment must have tended to cause social and economic chaos. It is likely that the citizens of Romanised Civil Britannica would fare less well than the autonomous tribes of the north who would have their own social and economic systems left intact. [ND p162]

The remnants of the army of the north stayed on the wall and the Pictish invasions must have been by sea round the end of the wall. The last Roman commander was called Coel Hen by the Western Britons and he is the origin of Old King Cole. It seems likely that the commanders who were abandoned would turn themselves into minor kings and some of these dynasties may have survived into the 5th and 6th C. [ND p162]

After the Romans left, the Germanics and the Celtic survivors didn’t mix. The Celts who stayed in Britannia were submerged, the rest moved west to the SW peninsula, Wales and Cumbria.

Sacred places. See Place names

Sacrifice. See Religion. Oxen were killed in honour of Saint Benyo at Clynnog Fawr in Wales as late as 1589 and to Saint Maelrubna in Wester Ross until 1678. Both customs were stopped by reforming churchmen.

The Saxon Invasions. (see Angles, Saxons and Jutes)
AD430c. There were some Saxon settlers on the east shore of the Isle by AD430c. There was war between Ambrosius Aurelianus (Emrys to the Western Celts) and Vitalinus (Vortigern. Nennius says he began his reign in AD424). Vortigern won the battle but faced by what amounted to Civil war, compounded by incursions by Scottish, Pictish and Saxon raids he called on Hengest who was a ‘Half Dane’ or Angle from Angeln which was situated between Jute Land (Jutland) and Saxony. Most sources agree that Hengest (Stallion) and Horsa (Horse) landed from three ships at Thanet in Kent, ‘The Bright Isle’. Bede says AD449 and Nennius says AD428. All the sources agree that after helping Vortigern in return for land in Cantium (Kent) and supplies, Hengest and Horsa sent to Angeln for reinforcements and turned against their host. Vortigern also brought the Votadini tribe south from north of the Wall to help defend the west coast against the Scots raiders from Eire. The Votadini became the Gododdin and ruled Gwynedd for 800 years. Much ink has been wasted on arguments as to which ethnic group Hengest and Horsa belonged to or if they even existed. The balance of probability is that Hengest did and Horsa might have. As for their tribe, they were sea rovers like the Scots from Eire and the Picts and could have been Half-Danes, Half Saxons, Jutes or even Franks. They were Scandinavian and their men could have been any tribe, basically they were pirates from the north out for what they could get. Hengest and Horsa were contracted to drive back the Picts who were advancing down the East Coast. Being sea rovers themselves they were well-equipped for the task. Dumfries, the ‘Fort of the Friesans’ dates from this time. [ND p164/167]

AD440. The barbarian rebellion started. Vortigern was defeated by treachery by Hengest. Saxons from the West ranged the country but never achieved conquest. Hengest’s men never seem to have broken out of Thanet. However this was a wild and unsettled period and seems to have been accompanied by a period of rising sea levels both on the Isles’ and the continental coast. There was a ‘Great Exodus’ of the Romano-British elite of the south who sought sanctuary in Northern Gaul which was still held by ex-Roman forces. They settled on the Lower Seine and there are still groups of villages all called Brettville. Christian Cantium (Kent) became Pagan again, the church of St Martin in Canterbury was abandoned. The last mention of Hengest is in AD473 when he was still fighting for territorial gain and loot. Aelle, one of Hengest’s fellow pirates was the first Germanic invader to use the title of Bretwalda (Lord of Britain). It is important to realise that the claim they were making was that of lordship over ‘Britain’ as they knew it, the Lower Britannica of the Romans, the SE of the country. Even this was an exaggeration, they never had control. This was not England or Wales or Ireland or Scotland. Still less was it Great Britain. Neither were the invaders English even though the name derives from Angles. The most accurate description is probably Germanic. [ND p176.]

100 years after Hengest had landed, the Germanic invaders hadn’t reached the Dee, Solway or Severn. There was a turning point in c.500AD at the battle of Dyrham, in 600AD at Catreath (Catterick) in 616AD at Chester when the Welsh were cut off from their compatriots in Cumbria and in 682AD when Cadwaladr , King of Gwynedd was killed in Northumbria. Until 682AD an ultimate Britannic victory was possible but all the writers concede that this is the date when all was lost, the Germanic tribes had conquered Britannia.

Science and religion. 17th C scientists like Boyle and Newton openly questioned and rejected the concept of miracles. KT, p80.

Settlement. See Transport.

Stone Age. Generally accepted to have ended c2,000 to1500BC. Depending on location.

Stonehenge was started in 2,100BC and work ceased on it about 1,500BC. Basically, we have no idea what it was used for or what it is. One thing that seems certain is that its construction extinguished all other forms of monument near it. (Did henges have to have a use? Could they be simply demonstrations of status or power? SCG.) (See Bronze Age. Transport)

Superstition and the church. KT, p32.

Transport. The Neolithic period saw a refinement of the transport system in that there arose a system of tracks and refuges at regular intervals. This happened first in the south and then further afield. The refuges were probably small settlements, festival sites and trading places. They became defended refuges in times of trouble and often formed the basis eventually for villages in the modern sense.

Transubstantiation, miracle as opposed to magic. KT, p33.

Vikings. This was the Old English name given to the ‘North Men’ from Scandinavia. (see below) They were not simply plunderers and rapists but fine seamen and traders. As for language, it is quite possible that a Norse speaker would be able to understand Old English, particularly in Upper Britannia and vice versa. At home, the Scandinavians as a whole lived a hard life but they were very skilled and able people. They were good smiths and excelled as carpenters. They had good tools and good wood and it showed in their ship-building. The Dreki, or ‘Dragon Ships’ was the best sea-going boat of the time. It was fast, had a shallow draught and was double ended. It was the ideal boat for a beach landing or maneuvering in a narrow river. Its large sail and oars made it fast. With ships like these the Norsemen crossed the Atlantic, the Great Ocean, to Newfoundland long before anyone else. The social system was built on subservient but able women who were quite capable of running the family farm while the men were away at sea. They had local kings and regular local meetings, an early form of democracy. It wasn’t until AD900 that Harald Harfagri (‘Fine Hair’) laid the foundations of a unified monarchy in Norway. Scandinavia was the last bastion of German Paganism. Like the Celts who preceded them, they believed in a vast array of Gods, spirits and local sprites.

One question we need to ask is why the Norsemen needed to seek new lands and conquest. It may be that favourable climatic conditions favoured population growth and that the limited amount of arable land between the sea and the mountains was no longer sufficient to support them. Once overseas expansion started the Norsemen of Denmark and Jutland tended to head south and exploit the Baltic and the European coast. The Norwegian tribes headed west into the Ocean. Orkney was two hundred miles, about two days sailing and from there they could head for Iceland, Greenland and the Americas or head south down the middle sea with Eire on the right and Britannia on the left. Traces of Norse influence can be found in Cornwall and the extreme south of Ireland. [ND p230]

Viking comes from the Old Norse word, ‘Viken’ which means ‘men of the fjords’. It was appropriated by the Old English to mean any sort of Scandinavian pirate. Dane comes from the same root as Old English Thegn or Warrior and was applied to the more organized later bands. When these eventually coalesced into a kingdom they called it Danmark. There is no doubt that all the Norse sea raiders were violent and used terror as a weapon. Rape and pillage were the tools of their trade. Being Pagans, it made no difference to them what religion their victims were, civil or monastic. They sacked Iona and Lindisfarne and killed Donnan and all his monks in the church at Kildonnan on the Isle of Eigg. We should take particular note of the Norsemen who settled around the moth of the Seine in AD900 and rapidly integrated with the local population. They became Normans and we shall meet them again in 150 years.

Vikings, Danes and Normans were all Norsemen but not every Norseman was a Viking, Dane or Norman. [ND p245]

Wales. In a praise poem to Cadwallon dated AD603 a new word was used to describe the land of the Cumrogi, it was Cymru.


Walls. Roman, in Britain. AD115-120. The northern tribes rose and attacked the Romans. Hadrian arrived in the Isles in AD122. He stayed a year and ordered the wall to be built. It was started in AD122 and from then on, the frontier with Caledonia was established until Antoninus Pius tried unsuccessfully to extend it. AD140c. Antoninus Pius, Hadrian’s adopted son, (r.AD138-161) builds the earth wall from the Forth to the Clyde but this couldn’t be defended and was abandoned on his death. The legions retreated to Hadrian’s wall and rebuilt it in stone. This became the limit of empire. The lands of the Brigantes lay to the south of the wall. This territory was often called Britannia Secunda. They were overseen from the wall, Deva (Chester) and Eboracum (York). Their tribal capital was at Isurium on the east side of the Pennines (Aldborough in North Yorkshire). Some of the constituent tribes of the Brigantes were the Setantii, Lopocares, Gabrantovices, Tectovari and Carvetii, all Latinised names. The latter, ‘The Deer People’ lived in the NW corner of the territory, by AD200/300 they had established Luguvallium (Carlisle)

Wells. Reference to practice of well-dressing, St Winifred’s Well at Holywell. KT, p70. (See Deities)

Witch Craze. At one time it used to be thought that this was the last struggle against Paganism. Of late (2001) convincing arguments have been advanced against this view. The reasons for the persecution and destruction of over 40,000 witches was more to do with economic and social factors than with paganism.

Witches. (see Freedom)

Women. Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that Pagan societies were any different to early Christian societies in respect of the status of women. Famous examples like Boudicca the warrior queen of the Iceni and Cartimandua were forced into leadership, and hence battle, by accidents of heritage. Gods included females but there is no evidence of female priests. The early Christians didn’t vary from this. Attitudes to chastity and marriage (whatever form this took) were the same. In practice husbands were allowed concubines but women were expected to stay monogamous. The surviving myths and legends of Ireland portray women as creatures who used seduction and sorcery to gain their ends. These are misogynist writings and it is very clear that men prevailed. Adomnan’s Law (697AD) prohibited women from attending armies while they were on campaign. This has been cited as banning female warriors but is more likely to have been a measure intended to make war less attractive to the men and therefore could have been aimed at promoting peace. In some ways, early Christianity was an advantage to women. The cult of the Virgin Mary gave them status and the concept of ‘Brides of Christ’, i.e. nuns could give them an escape route from poverty or a bad family situation. [RH]

Worship. There seems little doubt that the sun was important to the Celts. It would be surprising if it wasn’t. The wheel symbols may have been connected with the sun. We have one other piece of evidence. St Patrick, in his ‘Confessio’ said that all in Ireland who worshipped the sun would perish eternally. We have a similar problem with sacred places. We make many conjectures from the archaeological evidence but have no hard proof that any site was a ‘temple’ or ‘shrine’. It may be that if any existed, they were timber structures and have not survived. There is also the possibility that they could be buried under Christian structures, after all, in 602 Pope Gregory did issue instructions that they should be used and not destroyed, if nothing else, this suggests that they did exist. One other possibility that appears to have some value is that the pagans may have considered location more important than structure. Wells, springs, groves of trees and high places all have credence in this regard. [SCG]




Endnote.

So, is paganism dead? As an organized religion, yes, but during the course of this reading and organizing the notes I have continually thought of things which, with the benefit of hindsight, are almost certainly vestigial pagan practices and ritual. The modern versions based on romantic legend, flawed scholarship and a need for some sort of focus unsatisfied by modern religion may not be as ridiculous as they appear at first sight. Suppose the force which drove Williams and Hurle to re-invent the bardic and druidic aethos in the 18th C was the same force which drove men to invent worship in the first place?

We still use magic, a force with which we can control events or problems that otherwise would leave us powerless. Everything from throwing salt over the left shoulder to antibiotics and modern digital technology could be said to fulfill the requirements of ‘magic’. By this means, man does what he has always striven to do, overcome seemingly irresistible forces with charms and spells. There is much more to enquire into in this area!

SCG/October 7, 2001
17613 words.

[Stanley]

I've posted this despite the fact that I thought I had already put it on the site. I went searching for it this morning but couldn't find it.
Feel free to copy and paste to your own hard drive and use it as you will.

[Tizer]

Excellent Stanley! I've always had trouble remembering the early dates, especially because of the confusion caused by the two ways of expressing them - `years ago' versus BC.

[Stanley]

Thanks Tiz, glad you like it. I have exactly the same problem and that's why I spent six weeks in the library at Carleton College reading everything they had on the subject and assessing the results. I had to do it to get my mental map straightened out! Not perfect of course but it addressed the areas where I was confused and was a great help to me.

[Tizer]

I look forward to hearing your views on Pagans when you've read your new book. They always get a bad press through the media showing them as blood thirsty vandals sacrificing virgins on alters or at the very least slitting the throats of goats and the like. It's a shame because that came about through the intervention of the powerful priest class. Without the priests to corrupt things it was simply a matter of believing that everything had a god within it, or to put it another way everything should be treated with respect because it's all part of spaceship Earth, even the pebbles on the beach. Those early pagans were practising the science of ecology and it only got corrupted and turned into religion to suit the priests in their quest for power. That early primitive paganism is the nearest I would ever come to taking up religion.

[Pluggy]

Fabulous Stanley, missed it the first tome round, but fascinating reading.

[Stanley]

Thanks Pluggy, it has helped me a lot over the years. Funny thing is you'd have thought that something so simple would have been available long ago on the Web.
Tiz, the more I look at the subject the more I am convinced that stereotypes won't do. It's all far more complicated than that. The biggest job is to get the frame of reference right. Bit of a clue, I'm starting my new journey by looking at really fundamental things like the geology, water and climate. Somehow we have to get our heads round their world view.
Not totally relevant but one of my favourite examples of the thinking then is this:
"Bede gives us a very good clue as to how people viewed life and death in those days. When Edwin asked his nobles for their opinion on conversion one of them said that life was rather like being a sparrow on a wild and stormy winter’s night. By chance, the sparrow flies in through the window of a lord’s hall where there is a feast in progress. It flies through the warmth of the hall and out through a window at the other end into the storm. The noble said that the passage through the hall was a man’s life and that we knew nothing of the storm. If the new religion gave a better idea about what came before and went after, it was worth trying it out." This is rational argument, they were not ignorant brutes.

[Stanley]

Bumped for David. Worth doing just for the Bede quote in my last post.....

[plaques]

Just finished a book detailing the history of the native American Indian from the time of the Mayflower to present day. How the educated West stole, killed and enslaved them. A very disturbing read with parallels with the working class in the UK. Their 'Great Spirit' sounds much like Mother Earth of today's Gaia (basically Greek Paganism) that we are pressing as our salvation.

[Tripps]

Bumped for David.

Well - I certainly got my moneys worth. Thanks for the post and all the work that went into it.

I checked out William Stukely on Wikipedia - that's pretty comprehensive too, and confirms my life long career as a sceptic of nearly everything has not been wasted.

[Stanley]

Yes, he was a bit of an oddball. But then they all were and I love the fact the Royals fell for it and support the Eisteddfod.

[Cathy]

Thanks Stanley, really enjoyed that.
Can’t print it but I have bookmarked it

[Stanley]

Send your email address to scg1936@talktalk.net and I'll send you a MsWord file that you can print.

[Cathy]

Thanks very much Stanley but can’t print it anyway, as I only have my phone.

[Stanley]

[PanBiker]

Send your email address to scg1936@talktalk.net and I'll send you a MsWord file that you can print.

Just for the record Stanley and not that it matters in this instance you can see Cathy's email or any members for that matter in their membership record as a site moderator.

[Whyperion]

Interesting that the HS2 works that have demolished a church/yard, that have found roman remains underneath, (a) one wonders what they built on or chose that location, and (b) one wonders what lies under the masonery and foundations of other churches across england

[Stanley]

I had occasion to look something up in the timeline yesterday and it struck me it wouldn't be a bad idea to remind people we have it sat there available to us on the site..... Enjoy!

[Gloria]

I started reading this expecting it to be one of your bite size pieces, wrong Gloria, I shall put it aside and read it later when I’ve more time, it certainly looks very interesting.

[Stanley]

[Tripps]

I had occasion to look something up in the timeline yesterday and it struck me it wouldn't be a bad idea to remind people we have it sat there available to us on the site..... Enjoy!

I see that I was involved once, but have no memory of it. I have copied it with just a couple of mouse clicks to my 'Treepad' / cuttings / branch. I think I may be sole surviving user of what I regard as the most useful bit of software that I have.

A quick skim revealed "AD911c. The King of France, Charles 3 (the Simple) had a problem"

It seems that It was Karl Marx who said that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce".

[Stanley]

His problem at the moment is Andrew trying to get back into the inner circle.....What a family!

[Stanley]

I went searching this morning for one of my favourite quotes gathered over my years of reading books on esoteric subjects....
Not totally relevant but one of my favourite examples of the thinking then is this:
"Bede gives us a very good clue as to how people viewed life and death in those days. When Edwin asked his nobles for their opinion on conversion [to Christianity] one of them said that life was rather like being a sparrow on a wild and stormy winter’s night. By chance, the sparrow flies in through the window of a lord’s hall where there is a feast in progress. It flies through the warmth of the hall and out through a window at the other end into the storm. The noble said that the passage through the hall was a man’s life and that we knew nothing of the storm. If the new religion gave a better idea about what came before and went after, it was worth trying it out." This is rational argument, they were not ignorant brutes.
and found it in this research paper we have in the archive. I've been dipping in again and there's some good stuff in here!