Celt

Celt or Kelt . 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 BC, 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. BC 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 / kelt; selt/ • n. a member of a group of peoples inhabiting much of Europe and Asia Minor in pre-Roman times. Their culture developed in the late Bronze Age and reached its height in the 5th to 1st centuries bc before being overrun by the Romans and various Germanic peoples. ∎  a native of any of the modern nations or regions in which Celtic languages are (or were until recently) spoken; a person of Irish, Highland Scottish, Manx, Welsh, or Cornish descent.

Celt (or Kelt) A member of a group of west European peoples, including the pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain and Gaul and their descendants, especially in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Man. The Celtic language is a sub-group of the Indo-European language group, divided into two groups, Goidelic (consisting of Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx) and Brythonic (consisting of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton).

The Celts occupied a large part of Europe in the Iron Age. Their unity is recognizable by common speech and common artistic tradition, but they did not constitute one race or group of tribes ethnologically. The origins of their culture can be traced back to the Bronze Age of the upper Danube in the 13th century BC, with successive stages represented by the urnfield and Hallstatt cultures. Spreading over western and central Europe from perhaps as early as 900 BC, they reached the height of their power in the La Tène period of the 5th–1st centuries BC. The ancients knew them as fierce fighters and superb horsemen, with savage religious rites conducted by the DRUID priesthood. They were farmers, who cultivated fields on a regular basis and had developed ox-drawn ploughs to use in place of manual implements, a revolutionary advance that permanently affected people's way of life. But Celtic political sense was weak and the numerous tribes, continually warring against each other, were crushed between the migratory Germans and the power of Rome, and were ejected or assimilated by the former or conquered outright by the latter.