Gender and Religion: Gender and Celtic Religions

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GENDER AND RELIGION: GENDER AND CELTIC RELIGIONS

The ways in which gender identities are embedded in religious rituals, symbols, institutions, and language reflect changing social and political power structures, especially in relation to women. One effect of this wider debate has been to look to the past to provide paradigms in which access to power and influence in the institutions of religious life have been more equally balanced. Since ancient Greek writers first identified the Celts as keltoi, this group has provided a powerful symbol of otherness for the perception of women and their function in religious contexts in Celtic society. The issue of gender, and how this shaped concepts of sacredness in the religious behavior of the Celts, has been a topic of discussion since the late nineteenth century, and ideas of Celtic pagan and Christian spirituality have played a prominent role in alternative spirituality movements since the second half of the twentieth century.

Historical Sources

The main sources for information about Celtic religion come from archaeological evidence, the testimony of classical writers, and narrative material preserved by western Celtic groups, such as the Irish, Welsh, and Scots. Because much of the context has been lost or the commentary has come from outsiders, these sources present certain difficulties. Classical authors give information on religion and gender roles, but they often used Celtic behavior to comment on themselves. A number of mythological narratives are preserved as later written texts, but the time gap between them and a more ancient past means that themes in medieval texts cannot be assumed to reflect the survival of ancient religious practices. Another factor is the changed attitude to the nature of Celtic culture. Whereas once scholars assumed similarity and continuity between ancient Celts and later cultures in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany, since the 1980s there has been less emphasis on folk migrations and on supposed connections between continental and insular Celts and more emphasis on the effects of literacy and the introduction of Roman culture and Christianity. It is more difficult, therefore, to argue for Pan-Celtic deities or long-term continuance of religious behavior. The picture to emerge from this reassessment suggests that there was no centralized Celtic pantheon, although some deities had extensive spheres of influence. Participation in religious life also seems to have been more varied. The druids were an elite religious caste functioning in western areas of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, and their role overlapped with that of bards and poets in the post-Roman world. The organization of religion in other areas such as Galatia or Celt-Iberia is less well known. However, despite these limitations, it is possible to consider some of the gender issues as they related to religion among groups of Celts in the ancient world and in the early cultures of insular groups such as Ireland and Wales.

The Roman geographer Strabo (64 bce–24 ce) makes the tantalizing suggestion that gender tasks among the Celts were the reverse of those among Romans. In the context of religion, writers mention druids, and a few suggest the presence of female druids. According to the Roman historian Tacitus (c. 55–120 ce), black-robed, screaming women accompanied the druids during the Roman assault on their stronghold on Mona (Anglesey) in 60 ce. The fourth-century ce Historia Augusta has three references to female druids in Gaul. Two utter spontaneous prophecies to two emperors, whereas the emperor Aurelian (c. 215–275 ce) consults Gaulish druidesses directly. Even if these women were stereotyped figures of prophecy and magic, the links among druidry, power, and women are clear.

Women appear elsewhere in religious roles. The Greek writer Plutarch (before 50–after 120 ce) mentions Camma, wife of a Galatian ruler and priestess of a goddess identified with Artemis who shared a poisoned drink with a suitor to avenge her husband's death. Although the drink of milk and honey had underworld associations and the rite took place in the temple where Camma was a priestess, the passage emphasises her loyalty as a wife, rather than her religious role. Two Roman historians, Tacitus (c. 55–120 ce) and Dio Cassius (c. 155–235 ce) described the revolt led by the famous British queen Boudicca in 60 ce. Boudicca's comment that it was unusual for Britons to follow a woman war-leader may reflect Roman unease about women, rather than her actual words. The fact that she offered a hare to the tribal goddess before battle, combined with the after-battle atrocities such as cutting off the breasts of captured women, may indicate that Boudicca's leadership had a religious dimension.

The Roman geographer Strabo quoted a description from the Greek writer Posidonius (second–first century bce) of an all-female cult among the Samnitae tribe. The women, identified as worshipers of Dionysos, inhabited an island off the western coast of France and only left to have sex to produce children. An annual rite of reroofing a temple occurred during daylight hours on a single day. Any woman who dropped roofing material was torn to pieces. The description hints that the sacrificial victim was chosen in this way, because the account notes that the victim was jostled. Pomponius Mela (first century ce) mentions an island on which a male deity sleeps while nine women priests attend a perpetual fire under a cauldron. There is a striking parallel between these early accounts and two later references. One occurs in a medieval Welsh poem, "The Spoils of Annwn," which describes a supernatural journey to a land where nine women keep a fire burning under a cauldron. The other, from medieval Ireland, claims that the site of Saint Brigid's Church at Kildare incorporated a pre-Christian sanctuary where women tended a sacred flame.

The archaeological evidence includes images of female deities and inscriptions addressed to them. Men, who controlled the wealth, dedicated most of these monuments, but women also feature as dedicatees. Most inscriptions date from the Romano-Celtic period (first century bce–fourth century ce) and indicate the importance of female deities rather than the position of women in religion. Devotion to deities did not follow strict gender lines, and men and women alike left votives at shrines dedicated to both male and female deities. In so far as deities such as the dea nutrix were associated with childbirth or pregnancy, her devotees and perhaps officials were likely to be female, but the goddess Epona, associated with horses and horse craft, was popular among the Roman cavalry. A number of Romano-Celtic statuettes of women suggest female religious activity, although it is unclear, given the date of this material, whether the activity was specifically Celtic. However, a bronze statuette of a veiled woman from South Shields (Tyne and Wear), a naked bronze female dancer from Neuvy-en-Sullias (Loiret), and a wooden image of a veiled woman wearing a torc from Chaumelières (Puy-de-Dôme) are associated with Gaulish or British religious sites and could depict devotees or officials. Chaumelières was the site of the sanctuary of Sequana, goddess of the source of the Seine, and an important healing center with an extensive dormitory and hospital complex for those seeking cures. Women probably played a role in both religious and healing activities here and at similar shrines. Religion was an aspect of public life open to women in the ancient world, and other continental iconography depicts women, either as devotees or officials, worshipping at altars or in processions. The names of Gaulish and British women priests are recorded in connection with classical cults, and at least one Gaulish woman dedicated a temple altar to a native Gaulish goddess.

Interpretation of Sources and Later Developments

Religion, particularly an aspect like gender, is difficult to reconstitute from archaeological evidence. However, it is possible to infer some ritual significance from the placement of burials, such as the woman interred within a ritual enclosure at Libeniçe in Bohemia (fourth century bce) or two distinctive female burials from Wetwang Slack in Yorkshire (third century bce)—one buried with an elaborate chariot and the other with a sealed bronze box. It has been suggested that native British rites continued as a countercultural religion designated as witchcraft after the introduction of Christianity and continue into the twenty-first century. There is no basis for such an extreme position, but possible negative gender roles are indicated from a small number of burials, mostly older women, in which the heads or jaws have been removed and placed beside the corpse. A striking occurrence of bnas brictom (Gaulish, meaning "women of magic") is inscribed on a lead curse tablet from Larzac in France (c. 90 ce). The exact meaning is unclear, but this, unlike other curses, indicates that the women themselves have power to harm.

Irish literature features female figures with supernatural powers such as the Morrígan, Eriu, and Danu, who may be late reflexes of Celtic land or sovereignty goddesses. In medieval Welsh literature, the character Rhiannon from a medieval Welsh tale, whose name means "Great queen" (Rigantona), has been linked with the Gaulish and British goddess Epona. Female druids and seers are mentioned in Irish sources and druidic imagery clusters significantly around some of them. Fedhelm from the Ulster cycle (seventh to eleventh centuries ce) studied in Alba, a reflection of the druid's long apprenticeship as mentioned in classical sources, and appears with the sole purpose of uttering prophesies. Although this material cannot directly reflect Celtic religion or women's roles in it, the pattern presented by the classical authors is one in which women participated in, rather than were excluded from, ritual activity. Taken as a whole, archaeological evidence and narrative texts support rather than contradict this.

Between the third and sixth century ce, Christianity was introduced to Gaul, Britain, and Ireland. The degree to which the new religion absorbed, subsumed, or coexisted with pagan culture is a complex topic linked to the controversial concept of a distinctive Celtic Church. The cult of the holy well has been the focus of much speculation on pre-Christian survival, but even here there is little direct archaeological evidence for continuity between pagan deities and later saints. Nevertheless, hagiographers endowed both male and female saints with pseudo-divine characteristics, and the complex cult of the Irish Saint Brigid of Kildare suggests that a pagan site was transferred to a holy woman, Brigid, who died in 524 ce. Women exercised considerable power and influence in early Christian foundations in Ireland and Wales, although here too it is not clear how much of this carried over from pagan structures and how much was the result of increased status introduced by the new religion.

Modern Revival

Issues of gender in Celtic religion and in early Christianity have been informed by the revival of interest in Celtic culture since the end of the nineteenth century. Romantic nationalism and Romantic feminism have undoubtedly over-interpreted the sources, but modern developments in paganism and Celtic spirituality draw crucial metaphors from images of a powerful goddess figure who embodied female power in a unified pre-Christian world and the idea that such a figure was intimately bound up with the cycle of nature. Since the middle of the twentieth century, women have become an important force in modern druidry and in the move toward a more inclusive spirituality. The popularity of modern paganism and Celtic spirituality is strengthened by the assumption that Celtic religion could survive domination by Roman culture and Christianity. Supposed survival, despite external domination, is an essential feature of countercultural rebellion, and the image of a united Celtic world in which women were given a voice in religion is powerful whatever the discontinuity between modern religious developments and historical sources.

Bibliography

There is no overall scholarly study of gender in Celtic religion from the ancient to modern period; however, Philip Freeman's WarWomen and Druids: Eyewitness Reports and Early Accounts of the Ancient Celts (Austin, Tex., 2002) makes useful comments on the relevant classical references. A. Pelletier's La Femme dans la societé gallo-romaine (Paris, 1974) considers the position of women in Gaul, whereas Lindsey Allason-Jones's Women in Roman Britain (London, 1989) covers British society. Miranda Green's Celtic Goddesses Warriors Virgins and Mothers (London, 1995) surveys both society and mythology into the early Christian period. Christina Harrington's Women in a Celtic Church: Ireland 450–1150 (Oxford, 2002) gives a detailed and authoritative view of religious life in Ireland, whereas Jane Cartwright's Y Forwyn Fair, Santesau a Lleianod Agweddau a diweirdeb yng Nghymru'r Oesodd Canol (Cardiff, 1999) examines images of the virgin, female saints, and nuns in medieval Wales. Elissa Henken's Welsh Saints, A Study in Patterned Lives (Woodbridge, U.K., 1991) examines the hagiography of gender, and Dorothy Bray's "The Image of Saint Brigit in the Early Irish Church," Etudes Celtiques 24 (1987): 209–215 considers the growth of this important cult, a theme developed by Elva Johnston's "The Pagan and Christian Identities of the Irish Female Saint," in Celts and Christians New Approaches to Religious Traditions of Britain and Ireland, edited by Mark Atherton, pp. 60–79 (Cardiff, 2002).

The study of gender in Celtic religion is linked to general attitudes to the Celts and to the concept of Celtic Christianity. Two articles by Wendy Davies, "Celtic Women in the Early Middle Ages," in Images of Women in Antiquity, edited by Averil Cameron and Amélie Kuhrt, pp. 145–66 (London, 1983) and "The Myth of the Celtic Church" in The Early Church in Wales and the West, edited by Nancy Edwards and Alan Lane, pp. 12–21 (Oxford, 1992), help to clarify the issues and define the parameters of the argument. Gearóid Ó Crualaoich's The Book of the Cailleach (Cork, 2003) surveys all aspects of the "divine female" motif in Irish. The Scottish journalist and folklorist Lewis Spence popularized the idea of Celtic religion as benevolent and magical nature worship in which women played an important role. Books such as Boadicea, Warrior Queen of the Britons (London, 1937) and The Magic Arts in Celtic Britain (London, 1945) have influenced popular approaches to the subject. Good surveys of modern Celtic paganism and Celtic spirituality are Ronald Hutton's The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (Oxford, 1990) and Marion Bowman's "Contemporary Celtic Spirituality," in New Directions in Celtic Studies, edited by Amy Hale and Philip Payton, pp. 69–91 (Exeter, U.K., 2000). Many Internet sites contain information drawn from secondary sources or personal experience. These sites attest to the enormous interest in women's spirituality and to the importance of Celtic images in providing metaphors for this to be expressed.