''The Celts'' () is a 2000 television documentary series produced by Opus Television for the Welsh channel

S4C S4C (, ''Sianel Pedwar Cymru'', meaning ''Channel Four Wales'') is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speakin ...

. A book adaptation of the same name by John Davies was published in the same year by Cassell & Co. Also in that year, the programme was sold to the American cable network Celtic Vision.

Synopsis

The series examines who the

Celts The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

were, where they came from and what made their culture distinctive from other

European peoples Europeans are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the states of Europe. Groups may be defined by common ancestry, language, faith, historical continuity, etc. There are ...

; with dramatizations of major historical events and visits to modern Celtic lands. A number of archaeologists and scholars of

Celtic studies Celtic studies or Celtology is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to the Celts, Celtic-speaking peoples (i.e. speakers of Celtic languages). This ranges from linguistics, literature and art h ...

are featured in the documentary, such as , Peter Connolly,

Barry Cunliffe Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe (born 10 December 1939), usually known as Sir Barry Cunliffe, is a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been ...

, , Michel Egloff,

John T. Koch John Thomas Koch (born 1953) is an American academic, historian, and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory, and the early Middle Ages. He is the editor of the five-volume ''Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia'' ...

, Barry Raftery,

Colin Renfrew Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, (25 July 1937 – 24 November 2024) was a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, ...

, Peter Reynolds, ,

Bryan Sykes Bryan Clifford Sykes (9 September 1947 – 10 December 2020) was a British geneticist and science writer who was a Fellow of Wolfson College and Emeritus Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford. Sykes published the first repor ...

, among others.

Episodes

# "In the Beginning": Tracing the origin of the Celts. # "Heroes in Defeat": Examining La Tène era, heyday of the Celtic culture. # "The Sacred Groves": Looking at

ancient Celtic religion Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism, was the religion of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe. Because there are no extant native records of their beliefs, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco ...

, especially

Druid A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures. The druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no wr ...

ism. # "From Camelot to Christ": This episode claims that, after the collapse of the Roman Empire,

Vortigern Vortigern (; , ; ; ; Old Breton: ''Gurdiern'', ''Gurthiern''; ; , , , etc.), also spelled Vortiger, Vortigan, Voertigern and Vortigen, was a 5th-century warlord in Sub-Roman Britain, Britain, known perhaps as a king of the Britons or at least ...

King of the Britons The title King of the Britons (, ) was used (often retrospectively) to refer to a ruler, especially one who might be regarded as the most powerful, among the Celtic Britons, both before and after the period of Roman Britain up until the Norman ...

, invited the

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

into Britain to help fight the

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Scotland in the early Middle Ages, Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pic ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

was established during the Anglo-Saxon era. # "Legend and Reality": From the 8th century onwards Celtic lands were invaded by the

Vikings Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

and then the

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Franc ...

. Following the 16th-century

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

, Celtic communities in Wales, Ireland and

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

were marginalized in the push for political and religious unity. # "A Dead Song?": Examining the meaning and threats to the

Celtic identity The modern Celts ( , see pronunciation of ''Celt'') are a related group of ethnicities who share similar Celtic languages, cultures and artistic histories, and who live in or descend from one of the regions on the western extremities of Europe ...

. The struggle to define an identity still continues today.

DVD

The series has been released on DVD by Kultur International Films in 2010.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Celts, The 2000 British television series debuts 2000 British television series endings 2000s British television miniseries 2000s British documentary television series 2000s Welsh television series British English-language television shows S4C original programming Celtic studies

Synopsis

Episodes

DVD

See also

References

External links