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Semester 1

Celtic Civilisation 1A: Barbarians, Saints, and Scholars (CELT08025)

Subject

Celtic

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

1

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Course Summary

Celtic Civilisation 1A: Barbarians, Saints, and Scholars is a survey course concerned with the histories, languages, literatures, and cultures of the Celtic-speaking peoples from the Iron Age until the end of the Middle Ages. Its principal objective is to guide students to a fully contextualized understanding of the languages, nations, and material and artistic cultures that came to be considered 'Celtic'. Topics include: - Greek and Roman authors' description of 'Celts' (i.e., in central Europe, Gaul, and Britain) alongside those peoples' visible artefacts and literature; - The speakers of Celtic languages (e.g., Welsh and Gaelic) in medieval Britain and Ireland and their emerging intellectual culture; and - The ways in which Celtic-speaking peoples understood themselves or were understood by others, and how they related to each other. Students are introduced to the ancient Celtae and, from circa 400 AD, to medieval Celtic speakers in Britain and Ireland, discovering how their cultures developed, and how they were perceived by outsiders (and among themselves). From the wars of Caesar to the medieval bardic schools, from carvings in caves to the dawn of the print age, from the burials of Central Europe to the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, the course will introduce students to Celtic-speaking peoples from their emergence in the historical record to the close of the Middle Ages.

Course Description

This broad-ranging survey course considers the history, perception, cultural, and ethnic experience of peoples, languages, and objects presented and understood as 'Celtic' from the late Iron Age until the close of the Middle Ages (and the basis for that definition). The course consists of three units: Unit 1: The ancient Celtic world. This unit will introduce students to the peoples whom Greek and Roman writers considered to be "Celts", and explore the commonalites and divergences among these peoples that may be discerned from linguistic and archaeological sources. Using evidence from a wide range of primary texts/objects from place names and coins to Roman propaganda and burial sites - the unit will investigate intellectual, political, religious, and economic aspects of Celtic civilisations from the Iron Age to Roman conquest. Unit 2: The early medieval Celtic world. The changes that commenced with the formal end of the Roman imperial presence in Britain (410 AD) ushered in the early medieval period, profoundly altering not only the political and linguistic landscape of Celtic-speaking Europe, but also the nature of the sources available to study them. As the centralizing power of the Roman Empire faded, a new transnational institution, the Christian church, grew in prominence, reshaping not only religious but also literary, artistic, and political life. This unit will explore the process of conversion in the insular Celtic world, the formation of new identities in Ireland and post-Roman Britain, and the decline of the 'Old North' and ultimate formation of Scotland. It will observe the growth of literacy, such as the symbol stones of the Picts, ogham script, and, latterly, the flowering of astonishingly broad and vibrant literary traditions in Old Irish, Middle Welsh, and Latin. Finally, it will consider how the arrival of non-Celtic-speaking peoples - the English, the Norse, and finally the Normans - altered the cultural and political structures of Celtic-speaking Britain and Ireland. Unit 3: The later medieval Celtic world. The course concludes by exploring the transformation of the Celtic-speaking areas Scotland, Wales, and Ireland in the later medieval period.This was a time in which the growing political and military power of England impacted Wales and Ireland profoundly, while the changing balance of power in the Scottish kingdom was to have long-term implications for the nature of the Scottish Gàidhealtachd and its initially dominant language, Gaelic. It was also a period of rich cultural and literary growth, from the bardic schools of the Irish and Scottish Gàidhealtachd to the composition of the Mabinogi in post-Norman Wales, with the flourishing of Classical Gaelic poetry and the wider culture of the aos dána, the learned orders. Finally, we consider the impact of two profound changes that were also reshaping contemporary Europe: the Protestant Reformation and the dawn of the age of print. Student learning experience: Core content for each unit will be provided by a combination of lectures introducing new themes (two per week) and once-weekly 'case studies' focused on primary sources relevant to each week's main theme that also complement tutorial assignments. Small-group discussion-based tutorials are held once per fortnight (five in total across the course).

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

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