New book tells the story of Celtic Christianity’s centre of learning
1,500 years ago, the Welsh town of Llanilltud Fawr was regarded as the cradle of Celtic Christianity. The story of its monastery has now been told in a new book published last month.
Book Excerpt: Warriors and Kings The 1500-Year Battle For Celtic Britain by Martin Wall
For those of you looking for something Celtic to read this spring, author Martin Wall brings us Warriors and Kings: The 1500-Year Battle for Celtic Britain.
The Medieval Magazine: (Volume 3, Issue 5)
The latest issue of the medieval magazine! The Legacy of St. Patrick, Florence – Part II: Visiting the Duomo, How King Arthur became one of the most pervasive legends of all time, A look at Ireland’s mysterious medieval round towers
Druids, deer and ‘words of power’: coming to terms with evil in medieval Ireland
Our focus is on medieval Irish literature—one of the earliest written vernaculars in Europe. Within this rich tradition, the face of evil changes according to genre.
Early Medieval Celtic Art in Britain and Ireland: A Curator’s Perspective
Martin Golberg, Senior Curator at the National Museums of Scotland, travelled to the British Museum to give audiences perspective on the various pieces in the exhibit as well as an introduction to what constitutes “Celtic” art.
Celtic Mythology in the Arthurian Legend
The aim of this thesis is to find out whether there are some aspects, themes or symbols of the pagan Celtic mythology that appear in the Arthurian legend and if so, what role they play there and to what extent they influence the legend.
Who Were The Celts? The British Museum Offers Answers with New Exhibition
The British Museum just opened its latest exhibit, Celts: Art and Identity this past Thursday, covering 2,500 years of Celtic history. The exhibit explores Celtic identity and how it eveolved from the time of the Ancient Greeks to the present through art, culture, daily life, religion and politics.
5 Cool Celtic Things at the British Museum
I attended the opening of the British Museum’s, Celts: Art and Identity exhibit on Sept 24th. It showcases stunning art, jewellery, weaponry, daily and religious objects to tell the story of the Celtic people.
Researchers create genetic map of the British Isles
Many people in the UK feel a strong sense of regional identity, and it now appears that there may be a scientific basis to this feeling, according to a landmark new study into the genetic makeup of the British Isles.
ARTICLES: The Deflation of the Medieval in Joyce’s Ulysses
For James Joyce, Irish nationalism, with its appeal to patriotic emotionality and promotion of interest in the archaic and medieval Irish past, was suspect.
Britain and the Beginning of Scotland
Until recently it was generally held that Scotland first began to take shape with a union of Picts and Scots under Cinaed mac Ailpín, who died in 858.
The Economy of Early Medieval Ireland
The Old Irish law tracts have been the subject of many serious studies. In the early twentieth century the forensic philology of the great European Celticists, such as Rudolf Thurneysen or Kuno Meyer, prepared the ground for later philologists, such as Daniel Binchy and Liam Breatnach.
Sex and obscenity in medieval art
When researching early or ‘forbidden’ historical subjects it can be a considerable challenge finding primary sources that give a first-hand experience of contemporary events.
The Early German Settlement of North Eastern Moravia: and What the Pied Piper of Hamelin Had to Do with It
Long ago, primordial forests, dark and impenetrable, surrounded the mountainous frontier, which today separates northeastern Bohemia from large parts of northern Moravia in the Czech Republic. This area was situated north of the sparsely populated flatlands of the March (Morava) River. The stillness of the forests remained largely undisturbed by man.
St. Ninian of Whithorn
My interest here is in finding usable information regarding the centuries before Bede and in the way in which new data, especially the outstanding recent archaeological discoveries at Whithom in Wigtownshire (which is certainly the site of Candida Casal. might support and add to his picture of St. Ninian and the importance of his church at Candida Casa.
War dogs among the early Irish
In the Celtic world, as elsewhere, canines were admired for their senses of sight, smell and hearing. Dogs were used on hunting expeditions and to guard homes, as domestic pets and as a source of food
BOOKS: Happy St. Patrick Day! New reads to celebrate Medieval Ireland!
BOOKS: Happy St. Patrick Day! New reads to celebrate Medieval Ireland!
Faerie Folklore in Medieval Tales: An Introduction
Defining the term ‘faerie’ is not easy; some definitions include only specific, pre-Christian types of mythological creatures while other definitions include all of the spirits, angels and supernatural animals as well as the souls of the dead. I will take a middle road and include the spirits and the souls of the dead, since the dead and the faeries have an intimate connection in the folklore of the British Isles.
From Paganism to Christianity: Transition of the Insular Celts As Seen Through The Archaeological Record
These centuries of tension and adaptation provide the evidence for the interaction of Christianity and Celtic religions, but one must use caution when examining Celtic religion because of potentially biased evidence.
Property Rights in Celtic Irish Law
Unfortunately, many historians not specializing in the study of the ancient Irish law tracts have been unaware of the textual inaccuracies of the O’Curry – O’Donovan translations and have continued to incorporate their older unscientific work, and that of their editors, into their own work.
What can written sources, sculpture and archaeology tell us about Pictish identity and how this might have changed between the sixth and ninth centuries?
Arguably one of the biggest changes in how the Picts portrayed themselves is understood through their use of sculpture. The earliest is thought to date to around the fifth century (Historic Scotland, 2012) lending itself to the Class I typology.
The pattern of settlement on the Welsh border
The attempt made in this paper to answer these questions will be based almost entirely on Welsh evidence. The English evidence, examined and re- examined since the late nineteenth century, is already sufficiently familiar to members of the British Agricultural History Society.
The Arthur of the chronicles
Even if we cannot accept the claim made by Geoffrey in his introduction that his putative source was ‘attractively composed to form a consecutive andorderly narrative’, he certainly made extensive use ofWelsh genealogies andking-lists.
Lofty Depths and Tragic Brilliance: The Interweaving of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Mythology and Literature in the Arthurian Legends
Arthur and his knights are set apart from other literary heroes because of their unique construct, a blending of two cultures into one legend.