Celtic British Warfare - Article Published

March 6, 2012 - PRLog -- In Part I the generic make up of the Celtic warrior and his weapons were discussed.

Here we take a closer look at the warrior, his image and the possible alternative underlying meanings of his weaponry, rules governing fighting styles and the socio-economic climate that may have contributed to an increase in inter-tribal warfare.

All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and as a result their appearance in battle is all the more daunting. They wear their hair long, and shave all their bodies with the exception of their heads and upper lip (Caesar V, 14).

They tattoo their bodies with various designs and pictures of all kinds of animals. This is the reason they do not wear clothes: so they do not cover up the designs on their bodies (Herodian III, 14, 7).

The Iron Age warriors of Britain were described as fighting naked except for the paint and tattoos adorning their bodies, they would wear torques around their necks, and there is some mention of iron hoops around the hips (Herodian III, 14, 7). Whilst it is also believed that fighting naked was seasonal and a ‘semi-ritual encounter’ (Ashbee 1978, 205). The designs and animals painted on the skin were understood to be magical or symbolic thus offering protection of the mystical kind to the warrior (Waite 2011, 37). By fighting naked the warrior is believed to show:

The ultimate display of courage and virility and, as well, a display of faith in the protection of his gods.... belief in the afterlife and his contempt of fear of death (Waite 2011, 37).

The warriors were known to have used lime to spike their hair and were apparently able to contort their eyes as to try and further frighten the enemy: ‘one eye should recede into the head .... while the other, as large as a cauldron bulges onto the cheek’ (Ashbee 1978, 216). Whether this is just an exaggeration on behalf of the classical writers or if it actually occurred, alas we may never know.

Over time, the Celtic warrior adapted to covering his body and wearing some protective clothing. The Gundestrup Cauldron, dated to between 200 BC and 300AD, depicts Celts wearing short trousers, and by the time of the Roman conquest, it was recorded that: ‘The warrior would wear either a mail shirt or just breeches’ (Waite 2011, 37), demonstrating a marked change not only in warfare but hints at changes in the social and religious aspects of Iron Age life.

One other item of clothing worn by the warrior was a helmet designed to protect the head. A description is given by Diodorus Siculus (60 - 30 BC), a classical writer:

On their heads they wear bronze helmets which possess large projecting figures lending the appearance of enormous stature to the wearer. In some cases horns form one piece of the helmet while in other cases it is relief figures of the fore parts of birds and quadrupeds (Diodorus Siculus V, 30, cited in Cunliffe 2010, 535).

To date ‘only two have been found in Britain: the horned helmet from the Waterloo Bridge and the helmet from the Meryrick Collection’ (Cunliffe 2010, 535), but these were different than those described above, demonstrating a wider variation, and possibly some other designs that are still to be uncovered. Helmets have also been depicted on coins, but most notably on the Gunderstrup Cauldron.

Whether all the helmets were made of bronze is not known, although it can be seen as relatively unlikely. Suggestions have been put forward of possible leather helmets being used (Cunliffe 2010, 535) and this may have been possible if worn by the majority of fighting men reserving the more elaborate ones for those of higher social standing and to be made easily identifiable on the battle field.

The weapons used by the warriors are also sometimes believed to have held ritual and magical properties. Gods were widely evident in all aspects of Iron Age society. There were Gods for water, plants, seasons, animals and in Sacred Groves. For a warrior to depict some symbolism of these Gods on his weaponry would have been just another way of expressing his personal identity, power and status.

The warriors Gods and beliefs were also part of the weapon production process and taking the raw ingredients of iron and transforming them into a weapon was held in high esteem,

In many cultures, ironworking is a mystical and highly-charged process ....the exact character of the transformation of iron-ore into metal items is not understood in terms of the chemical reactions and, often, iron production is imbued with beliefs about the social and ritual meaning of the act of creation (Hingley 2006, 217).

Therefore, with the production of swords, and other weapons, there would have been an element of ritualistic and mystical power attached to the finished product. We know that there is ‘evidence for a smith god in the Roman period’ (Hingley 2006, 216) and therefore highly likely that they existed within Iron Age Britain, with each tribe having their own choice of personal Gods.

The intricate designs and symbols upon the weapons would also have held specific meaning to the individuals that they were designed for and ‘others see every human intervention in material things as a symbolically constructive act’ (Robb 1998, 330). What the symbols and art work meant, will probably never be known, however, ‘heroes and Holy men were venerated in prehistory, and that, Celtic cult traditions and practices too were highly codified’ (Harding 2007, 261). The patterns and designs skilfully crafted onto the swords, shields and helmets, may have held meanings also to the Britons, for example, religious symbolism as they were often repeated:

Unsupported by written sources from the Celts themselves ....iconography is both ambiguous and potentially misleading. Nonetheless, certain features of Celtic symbolism are sufficiently distinctive to suggest recurrent patterns of religious thought processes (Green 1992, 1).

One of the best known symbols of Celtic art is the horse. Depicted on some Iron Age coins in Britain, the horse was a sign of power and ‘one of the most potent symbols of the ‘Celtic’ world’ (Creighton 1995, 286). Other symbols included circles, dots and crescents, which Creighton (1995, 292) questions may have had a relationship to ‘trance imagery’. If the warriors were able to work themselves up into a frenzy before battle, especially if  undertaking single combat, then the symbolism they carried on their weapons could be believed to have given them extra powers over their opponents, or even ‘may have had specific, perhaps apotropaic, meaning for warriors’ (Aldhouse-Green 1996, 356).

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