#celticwarfare

Ancient Celtic Society

The society of the Celts in Iron Age Europe was made up of several distinct hierarchical groups. At the top were rulers and elite warriors, then there were the religious leaders, the druids, and then specialised craftworkers, traders, farmers, and slaves. Our knowledge of Celtic society is, unfortunately, fragmentary and reliant on secondhand literary sources and archaeology. Nevertheless, there are many features of Celtic society that we do know about, whether it be the status symbols of ancient Gauls or the fighting queens of ancient Britain.

The Constituents of Celtic Society

The Celts have left no extensive written records of their own and so we are obliged to study secondhand accounts by classical authors and piece together features of society from archaeological remains. We do know that most Celtic communities were rural and agrarian with a distinct hierarchy, at the top of which were kings or queens or an aristocratic group, and their kinsfolk whose wealth was based on land ownership. Below these were various groups divided by function and skills such as warriors, druids, specialist artisans and traders (including foreigners). The vast majority of the population were low-skilled craftworkers and farmers; at the very bottom of society were the slaves. Except for slaves, there is no evidence of any barriers for the child of one of these groups to eventually enter another group provided they acquired the necessary wealth (through valour in war, for example) or went through the required education or apprenticeship.

Within Celtic society there was a binding system where powerful individuals undertook to look after others - that is provide food, shelter, legal and military protection - in return for some sort of service, much like in the lord and vassal relationship of medieval feudalism. For the Celts, such a person was an ambactus, and the result was ties of loyalty were established to their lord and the wider ruling class and status quo. Some lords commanded the loyalty of thousands of kinsmen, retainers, and vassals. However, these are generalisations, and as with other areas of Celtic culture, it is important to stress that there were great variations both as the Iron Age period developed in Europe and in terms of geography. In short, Celtic societies in one part of Europe in 700 BCE were perhaps very different from those in another part of the continent, never mind compared to Celtic societies in 400 CE.