Britons (historic)

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This article is about the ancient ethnic groups of Great Britain. For other uses, see Briton.
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The Britons (sometimes Brythons) were the indigenous Celtic inhabitants[vague] of most of the island of Britain before the Anglo-Saxon conquest.[citation needed] They were speakers of the Brythonic languages and shared a common culture[citation needed]. The entire British Isles was mainly Celtic[vague] during this period, although only the island of Britain was inhabited by Brythonic Celts[citation needed]. The inhabitants of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Hebrides were Gaels or Gaelic Celts who spoke Goidelic languages.

It is not known whether the Picts of northern Britain were a Brythonic people[vague]. A number of scholars argue that the unknown Pictish language was Brythonic, but by sub-Roman times the Picts were distinguished as a separate group, as were the Gaels of Dál Riata. Therefore, the term "Briton" or "Brython" traditionally refers to the inhabitants of ancient Britain excluding the Picts, because many Pictish cultural traits (for example their sculpture, pottery and monuments) differ from those of the Britons.

The Britons are also referred to as the British tribes, Brythonic tribes, ancient Britons and ethnic Britons.

Contents

[edit] Etymology

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The word Brython was borrowed from the Welsh language[citation needed] to differentiate between this purely ethno-linguistic meaning and the word British in the modern sense. It comes from the terms Bruthin[citation needed] or Priteni, which were used during the classical era in geographer's texts[citation needed] such as those of Pytheas from 320 BCE, which describe the peoples of the British Isles as the Πρεττανοί (Prettanoi).[1][2] The term derived from "Celtic languages"[citation needed] and is likely to have reached Pytheas from the Gauls,[2] who may have used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands.[3] The Romans called the inhabitants of Gaul (modern France) Galli or Celtae. The latter term came from the Ancient Greek name Κελτοί (Keltoi) for a central European people, and 17th century antiquarians who found language connections developed the idea of a race of Celts inhabiting the area. However this term was not used by the Greeks or Romans for the inhabitants of Britain or Ireland.[4] Etymologicum Genuinum and Parthenius[5] mention the Bretannus (Ancient Greek: Βρεττανός) as the Celtic forefathers of the Britons. Priteni is the source of the Welsh term Prydain (Britain) and has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne which referred to the early Brythonic speaking inhabitants of Ireland and, in Scottish Gaelic, to the Picts.

[edit] Language

The Brythonic languages which have survived to the present day are Welsh, Breton and Cornish. The Brythonic language was also the ancestor to the now extinct Cumbric language.

[edit] Territory

Britain, c. 500 AD.
Britain, c. 500 AD.

The extent of territory of the Britons in pre-Roman times is unclear, but is generally taken to include the whole of the island of Great Britain except (possibly) for the territory of the Picts. The Pictish language is unknown and its study is based on very little information, mainly place and personal names. Probably a majority of those studying it favour it being a P Celtic (or Brythonic) dialect, but other conjectures include a pre-Celtic remnant language or a mixture of the two.[6]

The territory of the Picts was bounded on the south-east by the Votadini (later called the Gododdin), a British tribe whose territory included an area around Stirling and the lands south of the River Forth / Firth of Forth. To their west, the British Kingdom of Strathclyde extended as far north as Arrochar, then to the west of Loch Long the Epidii, who may have been Brythonic, inhabited Argyll and Kintyre.

The territory is generally taken to exclude the island of Ireland which is perceived as territory of the Gaels, though early inhabitants of Ireland known as the Cruithne were Brythonic-speaking at this time.

By post-Roman times, the Picts were seen as a separate group, and the territory of the Epidii had become the Goidelic Celtic territory of Dál Riata. The English historian Bede made the wildly exaggerated claim that by 642 Oswald, king of Northumbria, had "brought under his dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into four languages, to wit, those of the Britons, the Picts, the Scots and the English."

[edit] Famous Britons

[edit] References

  1. ^ Snyder, Christopher A. (2003). The Britons. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-22260-X. 
  2. ^ a b Foster (editor), R F; Donnchadh O Corrain, Professor of Irish History at University College Cork: Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland (1 November 2001). The Oxford History of Ireland. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280202-X. 
  3. ^ Encyclopedia of the Celts: Pretani
  4. ^ The earliest Celts in Europe | WalesPast
  5. ^ Patrhenius, Love Stories 2, 30 [1]
  6. ^ The Birth of Nations: SCOTLAND. Stephen J. Murray. From Dot to Domesday: A History of Britain, from its creation by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age, to, the product of William the Conqueror's great survey of his kingdom, the Domesday Book.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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