Celt

Celt (kĕlt, sĕlt) or Kelt (kĕlt).

1 One who speaks a Celtic language or who derives ancestry from an area where a Celtic language was spoken; i.e., one from Ireland, the Scottish Hebrides and Highlands, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, or Brittany.

2 A member of a group of peoples first found in SW Germany and E France early in the 2d millennium B.C., but perhaps much older than that. The Celts were a group of tribes speaking Indo-European dialects. Armed with iron weapons and mounted on horses, they spread rapidly over Europe, crossing into the British Isles, moving S over France, Italy, and Spain, fighting the Macedonians, and penetrating into Asia Minor, where they raided Hellenistic centers. The Celts introduced the newly developed iron industries. Their wealth from trade and from raiding helped to maintain their dominance over Central Europe during the Iron Age. The La Tène culture developed among the Celts. Greek influences that stimulated Celtic culture included the introduction of the chariot and of writing. Art flourished in richly ornamented styles. The Celts lived in semifortified villages, with a tribal organization that became increasingly hierarchical as wealth was acquired. Priests, nobles, artisans, and peasants were clearly distinguished, and the powers of the chief became kinglike. The Celts believed in a demonic universe and relied on the ministry of the druids. Much Western European folklore is derived from the Celts. By the 4th cent. B.C. they could no longer withstand the encroaching Germanic tribes, and they lost most of their holdings in the north and in W Germany. From that time on, Celtic history becomes confused with that of the many unsettled tribes in Europe. Celtic language and culture were variously dispersed among peoples of little historical identity, and until the 20th cent. historians obscured the very important differences among these groups by naming them all Celts. Further confusion has resulted from the designation of the Celts as a racial group. To the Greeks and Romans, the Celts were tall, muscular, and light-skinned, but it is believed that these were qualities of the Celt warriors rather than Celts in general. The term Celtic is actually a cultural one, unrelated to physical heredity. It implies a cultural tradition maintained through many centuries of common history in the same general area. See also Iron Age.

Bibliography

See N. Chadwick, The Celts (1970); D. Adam, The Edge of Glory: Prayers in the Celtic Tradition (1988); A. McBain, Celtic Mythology and Religions (1988).

---

Celt

Any member of an early Indo-European people who spread over much of Europe from the 2nd millennium to the 1st century BC. They were absorbed into the Roman Empire as Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, and Celtiberians. Early archaeological evidence (c. 700 BC) comes from the Hallstatt site in Austria. People of this Iron Age culture controlled trade routes along the Rhône, Seine, Rhine, and Danube rivers. As they moved west, Hallstatt warriors introduced the use of iron, which helped them dominate other Celtic tribes. By the mid 5th century BC, the La Tène culture emerged along the Rhine and moved into eastern Europe and the British Isles. Celts sacked Rome c. 390 and raided the whole peninsula, then settled south of the Alps (Cisalpine Gaul) and menaced Rome until they were defeated in 225 BC. In the Balkans, they sacked Delphi in 279 but were defeated by the Aetolians. They crossed to Anatolia and looted until they were subdued by Attalus I about 230 BC. Rome controlled Cisalpine Gaul by 192 and in 124 took territory beyond the Alps. In Transalpine Gaul, from the Rhine and the Alps west, the Celts were pressed by Germanic tribes from the west and Romans from the south. By 58 Julius Caesar had begun campaigns to annex all of Gaul. Celtic settlement of Britain and Ireland is deduced from archaeological and linguistic evidence. The Celtic social system comprised a warrior aristocracy and freemen farmers; Druids, with magico-religious duties, ranked higher than warriors. They had a mixed farming economy. Their oral literary composition was highly developed, as was their art; they manufactured gold and silver jewelry, swords and scabbards, and shields inlaid with enamel.

---

Celt, Kelt

1. a person who speaks a Celtic language

2. a member of an Indo-European people who in pre-Roman times inhabited Britain, Gaul, Spain, and other parts of W and central Europe
www.ibiblio.org/gaelic/celts.html
http://celt.net/Celtic/celtopedia/indices/encyintro.html