The Celts: a people invented Mario Moir
In the years between 1100 and 1200 it spread to Europe, the myth of the Holy Grail. Studies carried out on the history and literature of those times led to a radical review of the whole problem, documenting source east of the Persian area, with the addition of a leading player, Parsifal, based instead on the figure of a saint Tuscan Galgano Montesiepi.
Referring to the full text of this topic, here are some significant steps, dealing with the problem of the connection between the alleged Galgano and Celtic culture.
Scholars of the Holy Grail rush for over eight centuries, to prove that everything 'regarding the Round Table comes from the tradition of the Celts. To the extent that Galgano is approached, even in mildly and subject to Matter of Britain, can not 'miss the temptation to involve him in the Sagas of the North.
Approaching to the "Celts" opens an important question about what they were really the Celts and their historical existence. We approach the problem step by step and we assume that they really existed, with its own set of cultural symbols and historical events.
Note, for more 'parts, that the location of Montesiepi, where stands the monastery of San Galgano, perhaps alludes to a sacred place, surrounded by hedges, hidden to outsiders, who could not participate in secret rites. This tradition of fencing holy places (we continue to support) was typically Celtic. It follows that the rock, where he planted the sword of the saint, could be the center of an ancient sacred worship, probably Celtic.
As the argument is tenuous or insufficient 'shown by the fact that this tradition belongs to the customs of all peoples. Even the Italian word "paradise" derives from the Persian "pair - daeza" or "walled garden" brings to this custom spread to the east.
track But the presumed Celtic has more elements.
The old name of Montesiepi Cerboli was, reminiscent of the Deer, a sacred animal to the Celts identified with the god Cernumno, involving the nearby town of Cerbaia. Again and 'hard not to notice that a deer park and' expensive even to Buddhist tradition and not 'undisputed prerogative of the Celts.
Near Montesiepi then there is the location 'of Brenna with roots similar to Bran, the Celtic hero, or "brenna" ritual sacrifice of drowning victims celebrated, it is said, by the Druids.
Some say that the circles also consist of white stone and red brick, the roof of the Rotunda, and 48 are reminiscent of the circular Celtic decorations, adding a marginal way in which these circles may be connected with a representation of "waves form ", ie positive and negative radiation emitted by an architectural structure.
Not far the Rotunda, there is still a striking Celtic cross, carved in stone, prepared or revised in recent times, that stands in a field, visible from the adjoining road.
You want to find something at any cost Celtic, in short, in this sunny corner of Tuscany.
Actually 'with the connection between Celtic culture on the one hand, Galgano and the Holy Grail or the other, must be reviewed from different angles.
The possible presence of so-called Celts, as well as' symbols of Celtic culture and the alleged nell'etrusca Tuscany There should be no surprise. Transit and transfer of cultural or artistic elements between the regions of medieval Europe and 'well known and accepted. The charming church of Sant 'Antimo, not very far from Chiusdino, presents graphic tracks belonging to the category of "nodes" known as Celtic.
find traces of such elements or around Europe, including Irish fairy tales, in the decorations of a Romanesque portal in the poetry of Aquitaine, in Breton legends, like the Grail, it should not be a reason surprise nor evidence of belonging to the Celtic tradition, with its wealth of magical rituals or bloody. Hard to believe that in most Christian church will celebrate Sant'Antimo Celtic rituals with sacrifices of animals, based on the presence of Celtic knots on some side door of the church.
We could even go more 'in the' does not mean that, in the story of Dionysius (this is the mother of Galgano and are given the sentences she uttered in the process of canonization ed), lies a truly traces of pagan rites and, because 'no', the Celtic tradition.
- My son, cold and 'excessive, intense hunger, the almost inaccessible place: how do you go?
"As we get closer, my son, that place is inaccessible because 'fenced and interdict those who do not belong to the sect who practice their faiths? "
All this' may have a meaning and an explanation, if it were instead established that the Celts, as such, never existed.
Although not strictly a matter related to this text, the problem of the existence of the Celts allows important considerations.
It should be observed, paradoxically, that a huge number of historians and writers talk about the ancient Celts.'s worth name a few:
* Hecataeus of Miletus (540 - 475 BC)
* Herodotus (490-424 BC)
* Plato (428-348 BC)
* Aristotle (384 - 322 BC)
Teopompo * (378-300 BC)
* Ephorus (fourth century BC)
* Diodorus (IV century BC )
* Callimachus (320 - 240 BC)
* Polybius (205 -120 BC)
Poseidonio * (135-50 BC)
* Julius Caesar (102 - 44 BC)
* Strabo (63 BC - 20 AD)
* Livy (59 BC-17 AD)
* Propertius (47a.C - 16 AD)
* Dio Cassius (155-235 AD)
AVIEN * (sec IV AD)
In spite of all these, not 'difficult to prove that the Celts did not exist as a nation or as a people, and those who were called Celts, however, did not know of it.
"A woman who lived in Dorset, in the fourth century BC, a pagan priest in Ireland, the second century BC, a warrior of the Belgians in the first century BC, a child of the court of Hywel Dda in 950, a breeder of the Scottish Highlands in the sixteenth century AD, it would be highly surprised to be called Celts. " (1)
to indicate a people or a nation, or any aggregate of people, the term "Celtic", as used by the writers listed above, has a good 'little different ethnic by "barbarians", or "infidels," or "gentle", or any other term used to describe a vague jumble of people considered "alien" but not specifically identifiable.
name, first, not a trustworthy source and defined. That great cloud of people we are talking about was called by the name of the Celts in the west, and the Galatians, to the east. The one and the other shared name with the word "Galli" the presence of two letters, or KL GL.
This' has prompted experts to derive their name from an ancient Indo-European root kal-(Sanskrit Kalay) does not fall far from Italian, meaning to get there, or from the root-gal, which in greek and 'associated with milk and white things (Italian Galaxy). (2)
We are in a rather wide range of meanings that range from invading white men, with endless possibilities' in between.
A quick survey about their characteristics can say, at least, that:
* did not possess common physical characteristics: some people, "Celtic" were high, some low, some blondes, other brown;
* did not have the common linguistic characteristics, than those found in the common Indo-European and also found in the greek, and Judaism, nell'assiro Babylonian, Persian, Sanskrit or Latin, did not leave traces that can be defined literary
* did not religions, divinity ', common myths, homogeneous and shared were found in area "Celtic", over four hundred deities';
* did not have well-defined style of artistic expression: the archaeological (Hallstatt, La Tène , Golant, ...) to show more 'that the local people were suffering the effects of diffusion and imitation between a people and another;
* There is no 'agreement even on the list of tribes' or groups that can be included or excluded by the Celtic group: the debate as to whether Iberians, Aquitaine, Liguria, Veneto and even the Germans (just to give few) are considered "Celtic" or not;
* The set of costumes and customs included the range most 'complete with funeral (cremation, buried right, buried in a fetal position, data fed to the vultures, ...), drank some wine, some not, some were opposed to the Romans, some not, some cared for the aesthetics, some not.
If we consider then that they had no consciousness of belonging to the great Celtic nation, real or imaginary, we should ask ourselves: can 'be defined as "Celtic" (or whatever) that a people scattered and not', does not know it and has no interest in the issue?
First arises, at this point, two questions:
* On what evidence and alleged 'the whole castle was built of the Celts and their united 'ethnicity?
* Apart from general statements of the authors listed above, who and 'was the author and creator of those Celts in which many now believe?
The first question may 'receive a prompt and concise answer: the tests were falsified in part and in part based on undoubted common cultural roots, which are certainly shared by the Celts as well as alleged by all other peoples of Europe and Asia.
is known to scholars that the entire geographic arc ranging from India to the Iberian Peninsula, ranging from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, shares common cultural traits, called Indo-Europeans.
Witness an infinite 'elements of history, artistic, archaeological and, especially, language.
It is found, for example, in the Latin word veritas, Italian Truth ', which contains the root Rt-Indian, Old Persian Arta, or in the Latin word Nomen, Italian name, English Name, Persian Namah.
Even the name has its roots in Paris nell'assiro Parisu Babylon, a place that separates, while the word Magus has its roots in a root from which the Indian Mak-German Machen, make, and ' Make similar English. (3)
The flow and movement of peoples and ideas, since prehistoric times, resulted in a significant and documented the spread of common elements from India to Europe, to the islands of Europe, England, Ireland and Iceland. Beyond 'of every possible phenomenon of mass migration and violent invasion, the natural transmigration of ideas and ways of life and' traceable and documented fairly accurately.
In other words, beyond the 'Alps, beyond the borders of the world greek or roman, someone there and they moved the people, or Celts were others who shared the common Indo-European roots.
The second question (who created the Celts?) Demands a more 'complex, which here we will try' to summarize in a short sign up for what 'and that' happened in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and France. We note first of all, as a common element, that until the end of the first millennium AD in Europe there are significant processes of identity formation of 'national in form and manner that today allow us to speak of ethnicity'. Only reality 'in some way unifying and identifying and' the Roman Empire, with its culture and its gradual conquest. Attenuatesi disrupted the Roman Empire and the incursions of peoples from the east, at the beginning of the second millennium begin to form the first national aggregations in the modern sense, even under the pressure of those kings or rulers who wanted to establish and consolidate its own kingdom.
This process, which will suffer 'a further important development and consolidation in the XVII, XVIII, XIX, also demanded that members of a certain "nation" had a clear perception of the concept of the concept of We and others, perhaps Enemies .
The relationship with the Roman past, which had been the bearer of civilization ', was somehow denied and lived with a hostility' cultural ostentatious. In any case, in order to give an identity ', it was necessary to distinguish them from unifying and all-encompassing culture that for too many centuries was the company's Latin and Roman. It was necessary to break with this decision report (while retaining all the benefits liabilities) which was felt like an umbilical cord too long tolerated. You need to rebuild their own autonomous history, even at the cost of falsifying history. And the confusing cloud Celtic was an opportunity not to be missed.
In France, at the end of the first millennium, had now lost the momentum-European Charlemagne, who had chased unlikely cultural projects extended to the whole continent, with the help of Alcuin of York.
In a context marked by the rise of kingdoms and dominions, came suddenly an oriental tale, perhaps Persian, the name can Parsifal Namah, the story of Parsifal. The story, duly translated, arouse 'curiosity aroused' in small European courts in training, that they too wanted to be refined, educated and mature as the Persian court at the time. Chretien de Troyes task 'rewriting of the story in favor of the court of Aquitaine, and seeking' likely to give more body to the figure of the hero, seizing the life story of a character who told the pilgrims who came from Tuscany, some Galgano. And the protagonist of the story were made Persian assume the role of the saint of Tuscany. Someone (Wolfram Eschenbach vn) would have to say, but while the game was done: the Breton area had built its own model and its coupling with an alleged past. With the help the Cistercian order and the consent of the Church.
resized and deleted the Cistercians, the Templars, too supranational to the new times, France effort 'to reaffirm and consolidate their identity' and its pre-eminence, even trying to move the papacy to Avignon.
the threshold of the Romantic period the abbot Paul Yves Pezron in 1730, interpreting the will 'francocentric wrote a work that, for our purposes, it is revolutionary and fundamental: the ancient' language of the nation and gallica. In this work, the Celts, that 'the Gauls, that' the Franks, that 'the French seized much body, tracing its genealogy to Gomer, the son of Japhet, son of Noah, 'genealogy in which they are also the Titans, Saturn, Uranus, the Spartans.
The Gauls - Celts are so 'nos Ancetres now, our ancestors in all directions and with all the trappings, and the operation will continue' during the revolution, then by Napoleon I and Napoleon III, reaching the current political class, which continues to encourage the consolidation of the Celtic genre. And Rome had lost any right of paternity 'cultural, winning the title only of imperialist invader.
Wales hung on a complex situation, linked to a number of factors that would affect not just the official culture.
The first element 'consists of the already' said Godfrey or Geoffrey of Monmouth. This is a historical figure of uncertain origin, who speaks of himself as Gaufridus or Galfridus or Gaufrido de Monem, which enables the 'scholars has resulted in a more' reassuring Geoffrey of Monmouth, country allocations' Welsh. ( 4) Godfrey, or someone he had just invented a Welsh tradition (5), by deriving the name of prehistoric Britons from Brutus, pleasantly similar to that Brutus had stabbed Caesar.
Secondly, in early 1700, the writings of Paul Yves Pezron had attracted the attention of Edward Lhuyd, an Oxford scholar, who dreamed of a possible derivation of the Welsh language from a hypothetical, charming Celtic. And on this hypothesis had written pages that had left its mark in local thought, arguing that the Welsh and Britons descended from these, in turn, by the Celts.
He then added, in 1849, another text, now considered fundamental, made by Lady Charlotte Guest. It was an anthology of medieval Welsh tales, in which the author gave the name of the Mabinogion, often cited 'cause, among its pages, identify stories and figures that may have similarities with those Knights of the Round Table.
Lady Guest was part of a group of dedicated experts on the subject, or revitalize an image that shaped the historical and Welsh folk fictional but fascinating.
In this environment materialized:
* The myth of descent from Noah ', (6)
Apparel * the definition of witches; (7 )
* identification between druids and bards, (8)
* trying to build or reconstruction of an ancient Welsh language. (9)
part of this work 'cultural Seeking' configuration to provide consistency and even the figure of King Arthur '.
Ireland enjoyed a special situation, very enviable.
The Irish had behind him a cultural tradition of respect. It was said that they had succeeded in its territory at least six ancient dynasties of heroes. The last two are fundamental to local history, were the Thuata de Danaan (the tribe 'of the goddess Danaan) and Goidels, true ancestors of Today's Irish.
In this environment had emerged some mythical champions, as Cu Chulainn and Fionn. (10)
These legends, then resumed in the following centuries, gave a certain independence and self-confidence 'to the Irish culture, making it less urgent the search for a hypothetical link with the Celts, the more so' if invaders.
The Irish monks, while filtering out the legends to the Christian view, played a crucial role in the recovery of local traditions. Far from Rome, isolated in the magic of their monasteries, they provided a valuable contribution to the culture of their land but also to the throughout Europe and the world, collecting precious traces of antiquity ', developing wonderful illuminated manuscripts, sending messengers everywhere their spiritual Columcille, Columbanus, Gall and others, who left substantial traces of himself' from the British Isles to the south of 'Italy, reaching Iceland, Greenland and North America.
was they, among other things, to refine and disseminate the precious art forms related to the decoration of the codes, which are now perceived as a Celtic style.
The historical events that followed, especially the difficult relations with the nearby Britannia, the pride repeatedly stimulated local, even in the Romantic period of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, trying to give substance to the alleged identity 'Celtic island.
A separate question the merits of the Druids, the existence of which is built 'a number of theories substantially inaccurate or false, giving them roles, rituals and clothing that have no objective evidence, before the century XVIII.
Scotland was no exception. Up to the eighteenth century it had been the poor relation, in all the UK regions. Marginalized in some way from the South Welsh or English, was vaguely connected with the neighboring Irish. Not own or shared traditions of great importance.
was so 'that in the eighteenth century and the twenty-first took place two phenomena:
1. what you can 'call a theft of traditions at the expense of Ireland;
2. the elaboration of a complex artifact of local elements, that would make the Scottish tradition autonomous and has its own unique folklore.
The result of these operations can 'be so' synthesized:
were * collected and transferred into the Scottish ballads, Irish, giving substance to the figure of the alleged bard Ossian; (11)
* were invented the kilt of Scottish clans and their colors, however, operation performed after 1700, (12)
* was definitively established the Celtic root (or alleged) of the Scots.
The operation was somehow justified by the English kings, from the military (which I adopt 'kilts and bagpipes) and the entire nation, which was involved in political events, military and cultural-based, indeed, on kilts and bagpipes, as well as' on clans, tartans, plaids and elements of folklore related.
Few today, in Britain and around the world doubt the genuineness 'and antiquity' of these alleged traditions.
Beyond 'the fantastic creations of time' or older, we can only repeat the question already 'made: it can' be defined as "Celtic" a hypothetical ancient people, dispersed over an entire continent, which has no evidence of identity 'and solid common and does not know it, however, has no interest in one's own identity' or supra-national, if not the occasional instrumental, produced by some jerk nationalistic or political?
Notes:
(1) the cue and 'Suddenly, with some modifications, by S. James - The Celts people op Atlantic. cit. p. 18.
(2) You can 'check the claims on works such as L. Rocci - Greek Italian Vocabulary - Ed Dante Alighieri
(3) The examples are displayed with a simplified way. It would be necessary, more 'correctly, report on studies done in relation to Sanskrit and its role in civilization' Indo-European, but that topic is beyond this text. See, for example. G. Semeraro - The origins of European culture - Florence 1984 - Olschki Ed, or HJ Stoerig - Abenteuer Sprache - Berlin 1987.
(4) See G. Agrati ML Magini (ed.) - Merlin, the enchanter - Ed Mondadori 1996, p.. 348
(5) As we 'that, see Prys Morgan - The hunt for the Welsh past in eta' romantic - in The Invention of Tradition - Torino 2002 - Ed.Einaudi
(6) See the above-mentioned Prys Morgan, p. 67
(7) ibid p.. 79
(8) ibid. p.. 62
(9) ibid. p.. 70
(10) Vladimir Grigorieff - Les Mythologies du monde entier - Marabout Alleur 1987 Ed.It. Armenia page. 119
(11) Hugh Trevor Roper - The tradition of the Highlands of Scotland - in: The Invention of Tradition op.cit. pag21 et seq.
(12) Ibid. p.. 23
