Celtic Britain

Ancient Peoples and Places

by Nora Kershaw Chadwick

Archaeological evidence supports a discussion of the Celtic civilization in Britain

Genres: History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Nora Kershaw Chadwick, CBE, FSA, FBA, married to Hector Munro Chadwick, published widely on the Celts and Oral Literature.

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nora Kershaw Chadwick's The Celts and The Celtic Realms are two of the most popular books to be published on Celtic History. Both works focus on the Celts throughout Europe, Britain and Ireland. The scope of this work is much narrower in view, focusing its attention on mainland Britain between the departure of the Romans and the conquest of the English.

The introduction and first chapter set the scene and introduce the reader to Roman Britain and its eventual collapse. The next couple of chapters detail the Saxon invasions and formation of Scotland and Wales by using texts such as Nennius, Gildas and the remnants of Welsh heroic poetry, which Chadwick uses to introduce the reader to characters such as King Arthur and Urien of Rheged. The final chapters explore social customs, the church, art and literature.

A good but somewhat dated overview of an interesting chapter of British history.

[Ben Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but very brief. Covers a lot of topics in a very short book so everything is, by necessity, explored quite superficially. Now want to read something more detailed.

[Flint Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I had a passive interest in Celtic culture, I at one point turned to this book. The maps give you a great feel for the period, and Nora Chadwick was excellent at providing a thorough overview of the culture and the people. It is not very academic, and is too concerned with the broad strokes to worry about many details, but the book would make for a good reference for anyone interested in learning more about the Celts.

[Eliseo Pinto]

Awesome!... A lovely work...an all time source for research!