1. Alethia J Anderson
121: British history
October 25th, 2014
Romanization of Celtic Britian
Britian and the race against Roman civilization was a process that took
up a good chunk of time. Starting in 59 BC with Julius Caesar who had taken
control of Southern Gaul and Northern Italy and ending with St. Augustine of
Canturbury arriving from Rome in the 6th century. Though Rome was it’s
own empire it felt the need to take over Celtic Britian and try and civilize
what they thought was a barbarian culture.
Romanization in Celtic Britian was not a one-way street; Celtic culture
absorbed parts of the dominant Roman culture and over time a new hybrid
culture was born. Though the people of British Isles included both Celtic and
Angol- Saxon’s the main culture that changed was Celtic. Though by no
means was it purely Roman culture it was still a massive change to go from
barbarian tribal organization and behavior to that of Rome. Rome was

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organized and well thought out. The cultural differences were so drastic that
there was no way Celtic Britian could have taken on all aspects of Roman
culture.
Roman culture was thought to be more civilized, “Rome possessed an
urban-based culture; a system of education which used writing and the Latin
language to foster a sense of identity among the elite…” (Pg. 18 of James).
While the people in the Britons or in Gaul had a different system that was
not as civilized as the Romans. They had an oral culture instead of a written
one and because of this we tend to feel they were less civilized. Yet the
Britons and the Gaul’s still had their own cultural system. It was oral and
there was nothing written so it was harder to track as time passed.
“ Nevertheless, the fact that Rome held the greater part of the island for four
centauries was of crucial importance for the subsequent development of
civilization in Britian.” James wrote. What he didn’t realize is that he was
right (he later corrects himself saying Caesar was not all that essential to
Romanization). Caesar coming into Gaul was the first step in the process of
Romanization and his written descriptions of the Britons played an important
part in the way society viewed the people of the British Isles. Caesar was not

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a reliable source so we cannot count on his biased opinion to tell us about
Celtic society in a non-objective form. With writers like James and Caesar
where do we look for our information? We can look to people like Bede and
Gildas who were able to watch the events of the Celtic and Angol-Saxon
people unfold.
Bede and Gildas will come later on in the explanation of Romanization.
For now we can talk about Caesar and his inefficient take over of Gaul that
led to a huge chuck of the British Isles being Romanized. Caesar took Gaul
thinking it would lead him to a position of power back in the Roman Empire.
Once he took over Gaul Caesar turned his gaze to Britian. “Caesar’s own
description of the Britons made much of their primitiveness: they were
savages, who painted themselves blue with woad.” (Pg. 18 James) Knowing
that Caesars view was biased (and meant only to gain him more political
power) we can not say how much of his writing is actually true and because
of this there can be confusion as to what is fact and what is fiction. Yet
people believed this piece of his writing and later compared it with other
sources and ideas.

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Caesars great-grandson Claudius was later sent (after) Caesar (43 AD) to
make a more dominate Roman presence. The century after Claudius came
was spent (by the Britain’s) adjusting to Roman culture. Claudius was a full-
scale invasion while Caesar was just a ripple in the pond. Caesar was the
beginning of a slow process that would not finish until the sixth century.
After Claudius’s arrival Celtic culture went through a massive amount of
change.
“New governors had fresh threats to deal with…But the most serious
rebellion came from the client kingdom of Iceni. King Prasutgus had
hoped to make the Emperor co-heir to his kingdom together with his two
daughters, thus preserving the power of his family. But on his death
Roman Officials moved into his kingdom, evicting nobles from their lands,
plundering the kings household and, in the end, flogging the kings widow
and raping the two daughters.” James told us.
Tacitus in the Book of Annals that was written in 109 C.E also tells this
story. After reading the entire story we learn that the king’s widow was
named Boudicca and that after the rape of her two daughters she lead
the Celtic tribes in a rebellion against Rome (Boudicca won/kind of). After

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the battle Boudicca put an end to her life with poison. This story is still
after Claudius came to be and this proves that there was a more
prominent level of violence than there had been when Caesar showed up.
Before we can talk about the major changes in Celtic Britian we have to
talk about the state of the people who lived in theses Islands. James
writes about the Celts without giving us a lot of information. Caesar calls
them Barbarians and tells us they run around butt naked fighting with the
people of Rome who were organized and well structured (as well as
clothed). There were other writers like Gildas who wrote about the people
of the British isles in a semi-positive light, “This island, stiff-necked and
stubborn minded, from the time of it first being inhabited, ungratefully
rebels, sometimes against God, sometimes against her own citizens, and
frequently also, against foreign kings and their subjects. “Gildas was the
original writer (c. 504-570) to write about the Celtic and Angol-saxon
culture without a prejudice to power or place. Yet he was not a Celt. He
was an Angol-saxon, who wrote about Celts. That makes Gildas view
biased and only slightly less unreliable than James.

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James wrote about the physical and cultural changes of Celtic
culture;
” Furthermore, he educated the sons of chiefs in the liberal arts, and an
expressed a preference for British ability as compared with the trained
skills of the Guals. The result was that instead of loathing the Latin
language they became eager to speak it effectively. In the same way,
our national dress came into favor and the toga was seen everywhere.”
(Pg.31 James)
This meant that the longer the romans stayed the more cultural and
physical changes happened. Baths and buildings were added and for a
while it looked as though the Celts were acting like Romans yet they still
held on to pieces of their own culture.
Some changes were simple others were complicated (adding the Roman
church) and how they lived. These change although subtitle led to the
building of British culture and understanding. Because our sources are
limited it is really hard to say what happened when and where and that
creates questions for a lot of people.

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James admits that some of the sources we have are very one sided and
we can not always rely on them because of this, “Inn the case of Roman
Britian it is even more problematical, because of the very one sided
nature of our evidence.” Knowing this we can’t trust even the most
accurate sources (James not being one of them) to tell us what
happened and who was there. We as readers are left with lots of
questions and we may never get the complete answers to them.

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