Celts, Gauls and Britons: A Basic Newbie Question

[Rob_bresnen]

Apologies if this is a stupid question but what is the difference between Celts, Britons and Gauls?

I know Gauls live in Gaul and Britons live in Britain, but is there much difference from a war gaming perspective. Some figure ranges are described as Celts, and others either Gauls or Britons? Are the figures interchangeable? Did Gauls use chariots? Did Britons have mounted cavalry?

[bigredbat]

I personally don't think there is much difference in terms of the warriors (in terms of performance or appearance) between Gaul and Britannia and my warbands are used interchangeably between the two.

The Gauls abandoned chariots long before the Britons did, perhaps because their horses were better bred and more suited to carrying riders.  The Britons did have some light cavalry, however.  The Caledonians were still using chariots long after the arrival of the Romans in Britannia.  Hope this helps.

[Luddite]

Britons lived in Britain, although they were actually a collection of dozens of different tribes and few would likely have described themselves as 'Britons'.  Each of these tribal groups may well have had different appearances and organisations but we don't really know.

Gauls lived in Gaul, although they were actually a collection of dozens of different tribes and few would likely have described themselves as 'Gauls'.  Each of these tribal groups may well have had different appearances and organisations but we don't really know.

Celts never existed.  This is a Victorian invention.  The closest historical references will be the generic Greek references to 'Keltoi' (sort of means 'barbarian', or 'non-Greek').  There were the Celtiberians, a tribal group that lived in the area of modern day Spain.

In terms of how the Britons or Gauls differed on the battlefield, its almost entirely speculative and comes from biased Roman sources, and interpretations from archaeological evidence.  

There's a lot of wargaming conventions that will apply, that says generally Gauls and Britons were impetuous warband infantry with chariots.

In general, figures are interchangeable across all of these Iron Age tribes.  

Chariots appear to have fallen out of favour and been replaced by cavalry around 100BC in Gaul, but carried on in use much later in Britain, although why is unclear.  These chariots were usually fast moving skirmishers.

In most cases it seems that the majority of British and Gallic tribes were mainly infantry (fighting unarmoured with shields and spears or swords), and they lacked developed tactics beyond the 'line up and charge' approach (which could be fiercely effective!)

[Steve F]

Celts never existed.  This is a Victorian invention.  

As best I recall from reading Simon James' classic The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People Or Modern Invention? (British Museum, 1999) a good few years ago, he traced the idea of a single Celtic people back to the 17th century, and confusion about why Bretons spoke a language similar to Welsh (the antiquarians of the time did not realise that there had been a migration from Great Britain to Little Britain in the post-Roman period).  But while James believes that the idea of a single Celtic "nation" is a misleading one, he does accept that there was a common material culture among the various tribes and peoples commonly lumped together under that label, which is, arguably, what matters for wargames figures, as Luddite points out.

Other distinguished historians and archaeologists specialising in Iron Age Europe - such as Barry Cunliffe - have continued to find "Celts" a useful concept - or they did when I last engaged with the subject.  I'd appreciate recommendations for up-to-date reading: I am particuarly intrigued by the hypothesis discussed in Francis Pryor's Britain AD that the eastern tribes of Britain may have spoken a Germanic language all along, and not a variant of Brithonic.

The closest historical references will be the generic Greek references to 'Keltoi' (sort of means 'barbarian', or 'non-Greek').  There were the Celtiberians, a tribal group that lived in the area of modern day Spain.

To borrow a summary from Wikipedia, "The first recorded use of the name of Celts – as Κελτοί – to refer to an ethnic group was by Hecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC, when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille). In the 5th century BC Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the head of the Danube and also in the far west of Europe … In the first century BC Caesar referred to the Gauls as calling themselves Celts in their own tongue. ... The Romans used Celtae to refer to continental Gauls, but apparently not to Insular Celts. The latter are divided linguistically into Goidels and Brythons … The name Celtiberi is used by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC, of a people which he considered a mixture of Celtae and Iberi."

[huevans]

The concept of "Celt" is useful. Even though "Celts" from Ireland and Wales speak different languages, the languages are distantly related. As well, there are cultural and political systemic similarities between the last surviving Celtic cultures - Ireland and Highland Scotland - which might indicate that clan structure was the common political structure among all linguistically related "Celtic" polities.

Due to lack of definitive information, there are a number of fascinating questions - i.e. did the Britons invade Britanny? Or was Britanny simply never "Latinized" like the rest of France and thus remained linguistically Celtic?

[Rob_bresnen]

Thank you. Those answers were most informative.