THE CELTIC CROSS

From the editor The Celtic tradition is one of the most recognizable elements of contemporary European culture, and it is also one of the most ancient. Celtic tradition can trace its roots back over 2,700 years. The ancient Greeks gave the barbarian peoples who lived to the north of them the name Keltoi. Although these central European Celts were not a genetically coherent ethnic group, or a political union, nevertheless they formed a specific, recognizable culture, with shared elements of language, religious beliefs and artistic outlook. Around 650 BCE, the Celts were influenced by Greek and Etruscan culture, and, by adding and adapting these elements to the Hallstatt culture, the charac­teristically Celtic style came into being. The first recognizably Celtic civilization emerged' around 500 BCE in northeast France and the middle Rhine, which is called the `early La Tene period', after the place where the characteristic artefacts of the period were discovered.

Early in the fourth century BC, the Celtic tribes expanded westwards into what is now France and the British Isles. They moved southwest into the Iberian peninsula, south into northern Italy and east through the Balkans into Asia Minor.

This expansion of the Celts was not permanent, for, from the first century BCE onwards, they suffered reverses. They were expelled from eastern Europe by Slavic tribes, and conquered by the Romans first in northern Italy and then in the rest of Gaul, modern Switzerland, southern Germany and Austria. In the first century CE, the Romans conquered most of Britain. In the third century CE, the Celts in south­ern Germany were overwhelmed by the Alamannic peoples. Today, many centuries later, despite many further historical vicissitudes, Celtic culture has not been eliminated from Europe. It has left its mark in England, France and Switzerland, parts of Austria, Germany, Hungary...

Pages: 160
Special Interest: Celtic History, Study, Catholicism, Mysticism, Christian Influence, Ritual.

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