Will there be a couple of backwater provinces with the remnants of Celtic druidism somewhere in the Celtic world? Would be cool to restore pagan Eire or Britain.
Celtic Druidism
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Nah, historically Orkneys were solidly Norse that time. Mebbe somewhere in Eire? Just for the lulz. They have the Aztecs after all.
At the time when Bede completed Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum in 731, there weren't likely any significant pagan leaders left in the British Isles. Penda of Mercia was the last the last Pagan Hurrah, and he was dead by the end of 655. Gaelic conversions to Christianity occurred very quickly, with the Irish church incorporating many pagan customs into its practice, and converting many gods and land goddesses into local Saints.
That said, I agree it would be loads of fun, so I'd love to have the option when using the ruler designer.
Same thing was very common in Slavonic lands also.
For the sake of fun gamepaly they can make one of Irish/British provinces Celtic Pagan. Considering how the map is still a mess, this wouldn't derail the immersion too much.
At this time in history, Ireland and I believe other celtic areas, scotland, wales, and so on, were solidly christian. Ireland had a relatively quick and peaceful conversion to christianity. Though this time in history is when a good number of the myths were written down by scribes, instead of being passed orally. I actually like this time period in irish history and it is exciting. Though I would not mind a province or count being celtic pagan, it would be neat to play my own religion 
Ireland wouldn't really work, its history comparatively well known in 867. If they want to create an ahistorical ruler, the only place that would really work would be probably a Pictish ruler in Buchan. Historically the Picts had been Christian for centuries by this point, but eastern Scotland (I mean Scotland in a geographic sense) is poorly documented in 867, so that's really the only place they could sneak one in with a minimum of historical grumbling. (For the record I'd still grumble, but probably secretly enjoy playing that character
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Yeah, maybe not even a province, but a several noble Celtic Pagan families at the court of various rulers of the Celtic world. That's not entirely unhistorical. The devs wont even have to make a special mechanism for Celtic Druidism, just leave at as current generic pagan and add a special icon.
Sounds a bit like a waste of development time to make a religion for one or two dudes. This is what mods are for...
If they had been in Ireland the Irish Chroniclers would certainly have made mention of them! They could be quite the moralising bunch.
I'd love to see a mod that gives you a decision to try to restore Druidism if you're a Celtic ruler with a Celtic demesne. Since I'm presuming it's not going to be in the actual xpack.
Good work with the interview, mate! You quite professionally managed to get him to answer the most pressing issues. Kudos for the info about the Slavonic Paganism! I hope the devs would see my thread and that huge deal of concept art and info I provide in it.
That would be rather awesome, reclaiming back Lloegr for the Old Gods as some welsh count.
But alas there weren't any relevant celtic pagans (or pagans in general) in England at the time, so it could be work for mods.
All one could wish is the addition of a druidist religion into the base ones.
But alas there weren't any relevant celtic pagans (or pagans in general) in England at the time, so it could be work for mods.
All one could wish is the addition of a druidist religion into the base ones.
As I mentioned before, there were many semi-pagan warrior-cults going around, being roundly condemnly by laymen. Indeed, they may have been accompanied by a cáinte, or satirist which had strong pagan associations. To paraphrase Mr Adams "they hadn't gone away, you know". But certainly, there were no pagan rulers during the period.
Kind of depends on much stock you put in the faith practices of those called Picts in that period...
My first thought was Ruler Designer,... but that requires an appropriate pagan religion is available to assign, even if it isn't placed in the vanilla setup. And that I am less confident of seeing happen.
Cornwall could be made a pagan province with a Celtic Christian ruler. AFAIK Celtic Polytheism survived among the masses there for quite a while.
Kind of depends on much stock you put in the faith practices of those called Picts in that period...
You may find Adomnan's Vita Columbae to be quite illuminating. Strip away his aggrandisements and a certain degree of gullibility, and there's quite a bit of information to be gleaned from his work. Bede is another excellent source for belief during this period.
The Venerable Bede said:
Right, but I've just always wondered what culturally still made them 'Picts'. Recognizing that full conversion is often a long transition process, rather than a washing away completely, perhaps some Pictish/Druidic practices lingered - particularly on the Eastern side?
That and maybe claiming the complete conversion of all areas is a stretch, when the same account credits the conversion of some due to Columba facing and banishing Nessie.
(Though, I've always liked that story and have been curious about what prompted it in truth.)(Though, the Scottish specific issues have been hashed nicely in the Alba thread.)
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By 867, Celtic paganism was basically gone. There might be a handful of courtiers at the start, much like how in 1066 some Arabian courts have generic "Pagans", but I wouldn't expect much beyond that. The Celts almost all fell to Christianity in the 600s and 700s, well over a century and a half before the new start date.
Though its possible Cornwall managed to hold out a little longer, even to the early 900s... but the process had started there much earlier than that, and I'd be absolutely shocked if they weren't Catholic like the rest of the isles.
Though its possible Cornwall managed to hold out a little longer, even to the early 900s... but the process had started there much earlier than that, and I'd be absolutely shocked if they weren't Catholic like the rest of the isles.
The main issue that separated the Picts culturally was their language. Linguistically what little we know of Pictish indicates it was probably a P-Celtic language (as opposed to Q-Celtic languages like Gaelic). If we look at the distribution of placenames with surviving Pictish elements (for instance 'pit' as in say, Pitlochry) they lay predominantly along Scotland's eastern seaboard.
Artistically, there are certainly significant stylistic differences between their art styles and those of the Gael, though towards the later period these blend together as Gaelic absorbed the Pictish culture. The most famous of those are the Pictish standing stones, whose inscriptions we're only recently starting to decipher, being reasonably certain that specific images represent personal names, standards, or tribal identities.
Another issue is that any book written on the Picts from 2005 and earlier is fundamentally flawed. Alex Woolf's article Dún Nechtain, Fortriu and the Geography of the Picts has been a watershed moment in our understanding of the Picts. Relocating the kingdom of Fortriu to the North rather than the South solves so many problems that they're hard to enumerate. Needless to say, any book you read that doesn't take this article into account means that any evidence regarding Fortriu that they use in their arguments needs to be studied very carefully to ensure the argument is still valid.
In the end though, our understanding of their culture is fraught with assumption and the use of proxy evidence, which makes any generalisations without the backing of a primary source difficult to substantiate.
Your point regarding conversion being a long transition is an excellent point, the beliefs of the common people were rampant with vestigial pagan belief - and this can still be seen in traditional practices in Ireland, Scotland, and even Gaelic immigrant areas such as Cape Breton today. Even if they believed in a polytheistic version of Christianity that converted their landscape gods and goddesses into saints, they couldn't properly be considered Pagan in game terms. This last bit was speculation, we really have no idea what the average practioner in eastern Pictland believed at the time, except that it was at least nominally Christian, and that their ancestors a few centuries past converted rather quickly.
Chyll said:That and maybe claiming the complete conversion of all areas is a stretch, when the same account credits the conversion of some due to Columba facing and banishing Nessie.
(Though, the Scottish specific issues have been hashed nicely in the Alba thread.)
Hehe, I did say Adomnan was gullible didn't I? Nonetheless, the two major works we have from the period that describe the Christianisation of the Picts make no mention of any contemporary survival of Celtic polytheistic belief - and if anyone would make mention of it, it would certainly be either Adomnan or Bede. This doesn't rule out the odd survival in an isolated glen or say an isolated island like St. Kilda, but if any practitioners had been known they would have warranted mention.
And thanks for mentioning the Alba thread, for anyone interested in some of the issues we face when studying this period in Irish and Scottish history, it's a good thread to peruse.