Concetti Chiave
- The original inhabitants of Britain were pre-Celtic people known as Britons, whose culture is linked to Neolithic monuments like Stonehenge.
- The Celts were Indo-European tribes with a society structured around clans led by chosen leaders, skilled in warfare and farming.
- Celtic culture included unique traditions such as body paint for warfare and a belief system featuring Druids as spiritual and legal leaders.
- Roman conquest began in 43 A.D., influencing Britain with urban civilization, Latin vocabulary, and integrating Celtic tribes into Roman ways.
- Roman withdrawal in the early 5th century led to Britain becoming vulnerable to invasions by Germanic tribes, reshaping its cultural landscape.
Indice
Gli antichi abitanti della Britannia
The original inhabitants of Britain were a Celtic-speaking people
called Britons, whose culture is a bit of a mystery as it dates back to the Neolithic period.
Pre-Celtic people in Britain had previously built a civilization of which the best known monuments are located in southern England: Silbury Hill, which is the largest man-made burial mound in Europe, and the world-famous circle of big stones, probably a temple, called Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain.
It was built some time between 5,000 and 4,500 years ago.
We do not know its exact function but apparently it was a sort of astronomical clock that was used to mark the passing of the seasons.
The Celts.
I Celti e la loro società
The Celts were Indo-European tribes from Europe and Asia Minor in pre-Roman
times.
The name Celts comes from the Greek word Keltoi which means barbarians.
The Celts who settled in England were split into many different clans, each ruled by a leader who did not inherit the title, but was chosen among the men sharing a blood relationship with the clan.
Leaders had to be strong warriors and good administrators to work out
disagreements with other clans and conduct trade. Members of a clan supported
each other and that is one of the major reasons why the Celts never developed an empire.
They were an advanced society: they made iron weapons, wove their clothes, and
were experienced farmers and hunters.
They lived in hill forts surrounded by strong walls. In battle the Celts used iron spears and swords, and they also carried long wooden and iron shields.
Blue paint was often used to draw designs on their skin to frighten their enemies.
Women could fight as well as men. Queen Boudicca was, in fact, one of the most
famous Celtic warriors who led an uprising against the Romans when they invaded
Britain.
La religione e l'arte celtica
The Celts believed that every natural element had a little deity living in it.
They counted on Druids who were believed to understand nature and the world
around them so well that they could predict the future and heal the sufferings.
Druids also acted as judges and doctors. Celtic art in Britain survives in a few
artefacts and monuments, but hardly at all in a literary form.
The earliest English written records are a few inscriptions that might have
had some magical function or meaning, expressed in strange characters known as
runes.
As time went by, runes continued to be carved in wood or stone into Christian
monuments or on practical objects such as the Ruthwell Casket (early 8th
century).Roman Britain
La conquista romana della Britannia
In 55 and 54 B.C. (Before Christ) Julius Caesar made military expeditions to Britain.
The Roman conquest of Britain, however, only began in 43 A.D. (Anno Domini, i.e., ‘in the year of our Lord’), under the Emperor Claudius, but remote areas of Scotland and the whole of Ireland never came under Roman control.
To defend Britain from the Celts, the Romans built a long wall in the north of
modern England in 121 A.D., called Hadrian’s Wall from the name of the emperor who had it erected. The Celtic tribes, who lived in Britannia (this was the name the Romans gave to their new province), adapted to Roman civilization, and became Christian in the 4th century.
L'eredità romana in Britannia
The Roman presence in Britain can still be traced in the names of some towns
ending in -chester and -cester (such as Manchester and Leicester), in the road
systems, in the foundations of some of today’s major cities (including London, at that time called Londinium), as well as, of course, in the latinate part of the English vocabulary.
The Romans brought their civic organization to Britain and created an urban
civilization on the Roman model.
The Celtic chiefs and leading families adopted the Roman way of life and had their sons educated in the Roman manner. Town planning was also radically changed by the Roman presence: walled towns were erected in the Roman style, some outside Roman fortresses and some on the sites of the old tribal centres.
In the countryside, older farm complexes were replaced by villas around which
rural life was organized.
The Roman armies managed to oppose the first Saxon raids in the late 3rd century, but oncethey were withdrawn in about 410, Britain gradually fell prey to the invasion by Germanic tribes on the coast of northern Europe
Domande da interrogazione
- ¿Quiénes eran los habitantes originales de Gran Bretaña antes de la llegada de los celtas?
- ¿Qué monumentos pre-celtas son conocidos en el sur de Inglaterra?
- ¿Cómo se organizaban los celtas en Inglaterra?
- ¿Qué papel desempeñaban los druidas en la sociedad celta?
- ¿Cómo influyó la presencia romana en la civilización celta en Gran Bretaña?
Los habitantes originales de Gran Bretaña eran un pueblo de habla celta llamado britanos, cuya cultura se remonta al período Neolítico.
Los monumentos pre-celtas conocidos en el sur de Inglaterra incluyen Silbury Hill, el mayor túmulo funerario artificial de Europa, y Stonehenge, un círculo de grandes piedras que probablemente funcionaba como un reloj astronómico.
Los celtas en Inglaterra se organizaban en clanes, cada uno liderado por un jefe elegido entre los hombres con relación de sangre con el clan, y no por herencia.
Los druidas en la sociedad celta eran considerados capaces de predecir el futuro y curar sufrimientos, además de actuar como jueces y médicos.
La presencia romana en Gran Bretaña llevó a los celtas a adaptarse a la civilización romana, adoptando el cristianismo en el siglo IV y cambiando la planificación urbana con la construcción de ciudades amuralladas al estilo romano.
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