Some recall concerning
the first millenary history of Gaule
1. GAULE, BEFORE THE ROMAN CONQUEST
It is towards 450 before J.C. that Gaule is invaded by east coming peoples bringing with them customs and new habits. The Celts, the skillful warriors, armed with very good weapons (steel-iron swords of very good quality) and having the number for them submerged the autochthons and settled down very quickly in all Gaule; it is from this moment that the Celtic civilization will reign until the Roman conquest. This Celtic civilization will evolve in a specific culture very fast, keeping a "wild" character, meaning close to nature, as indicates to us number of their rites and customs, while elaborating an advanced high technology and a complex mythology. We can approach this civilization only by the remaining archaeological vestiges and few texts, often biased and partial, from Latin authors (by e.g. " The war of Gaules " of Julius Caesar) .Their craftsmen skills brought them very early a robust reputation: from the very beginning of the first Age of the Iron they built four wheels chariots; after the conquest, it is in Gaule and in BELGIUM that the harvester was invented; they were also very good carpenters of vessels, but it is at the metal industry that they will excel. The numerous iron mines, Copper, Silver, Gold which their territory was provided with were intensely exploited , and their creations allied robustness and elegance. Their swords and daggers, of excellent quality, were richly decorated with curves (spiral, double spirals) and of fantastic animals. Finally it is said that "galvanization" was invented in ALESIA.
Their rich artistic imagination meets itself in a complex mythology and even nowadays badly understood. The professor J.J. HATT. proposed an attempt of interpretation by basing itself largely on the cauldron of GUNDESTRUP, and find in its engravings, the set of three function that G. DUMEZIL has revealing in all the Indo-European religions. So the function of sovereign power would be ensured by the terrible TARANIS, the god of heavenly power. The war function would be ensured, by TEUTATES, the god which has been the most celebrated by the Gauls, the god of the Gallic nation in her collective activities, the god of peace and war, the symbol of which was the bull. Finally the function encompassing at the same moment the transmission and the protection of the life, the production of goods, is ensured by ESUS-CERNUNOS; ESUS and CERNUNOS (always represented with deer woods) would represent two different forms, two states (connected to the seasons) of the same divinity. tOGETHER WITH this set of three: TARANIS, TEUTATES and ESUS, we find the cult of a goddess mother, fertile earth, source of all living beings lives. The cults and rites devoted to the divinities are rather badly known; we know nevertheless that the human sacrifice was practiced, either by hanging the sacrificed on a tree, or by plunging him, head first, into a tub of water until death (offered victim to TEUTATES). We find in the southeast of France, sacrificial wells containing rests of men and animals, cranes of dogs, objects of any kind, and trees or shrubs which were plunged still with their roots and with their leaves. Finally, a cult "naturist" was made to trees, pens, cliffs, lakes and sources; We found in the sanctuary of the sources of the Seine offerings of all kind and the engraved wooden statuettes. This religion with a complex mythology and rites, certainly precise and complicated, had "priests" whom the legends and the oral tradition transformed into cruel and wise, romantic and learned, senile and mysterious beings: THE DRUIDS.
Their role within the Gallic civilization was of an extreme importance: "priests", they presided over the sacrifices and were the deposit of the collective memory, all the traditions and the Celtic faiths which they passed on orally, the writing being formally prohibited, to their successors in hidden places, in the depths of forests or in caves, education which had to constitute a real initiation; but also judge and scholar, their judgments were without appeal, their power was increased by the fact that they were not bound to a tribe, and their very deep and comprehensive knowledge of healing plants.
But this cultural unity was weakened by intestine dissensions between tribes and, Cesar, prenteding to help the EDUENS (allied to Rome since 121 before J.C.) invades Gaule in 58 before J.C. When in September, 52, Alésia falls, GAULE is conquered and everything is ready for the romanisation of the Gauls.
2.
Gallo-roman
The first concern of the Roman emperors was to stabilize Gaule romanizing it gradually and by strengthening it's borders. The protection of the borders, especially the Northeast border was begun under AUGUST OCTAVE, continued under Claude who allied a policy of fortification and a policy of protectorates, and ended under Flaviens with the construction of the "limes". If AUGUST made efforts for administrating Gaule, it is CLAUDE who deserves emperor's title of the Gallo-romains. He developed new cities and gave a new run-up to the Gallic economy. Inside Gaule, he persecuted the druids so that they cannot be of use as catalysts to new revolts.
Finally, by the assimilation of the Gallic gods to the Roman gods, without hesitating to modify them or to mutilate them as for Teutates for example, they tempted a romanisation of souls (the set of three TARANIS, TEUTATES, ESUS became JUPITER, MERCURY, HERCULE). Officially, as we can judge it according to the artistic manifestations, this attempt succeeded but it was not sufficient to erase totally, in campaigns in particular, the former traditions and faiths, and among the Roman gods, we shall see reappearing the ancient Gallic gods by their attributes: wheels, horns of deers, bulls, whereas an important cult was still returned to springs. We quote for example, the town of I.INGON, where we counted more than 170 deified springs. So, subjected to a double policy of repression and eclipse of past, while a peacetime settled down and while an economic improvement took place, the Gauls lost their freedom but knew how to protect with their language and their faiths, a cultural inheritance which had to be of use as cement to a new community and tracks of which we still see nowadays in our traditions.
Because of its late expansion, the Christianity did not too much affect the gallo-Roman civilization, although as early as the first or second century after J.C., some communities are indicated in Gaule (Lyon, Reims, Treves, Paris).
3. IVth and Vth centuries
As early as during the IIIrd and until Vth centuries, "barbarians" troops invade Gaule, ruining the Roman empire and establishing the new Merovingian order. Of this dark period, but how much important for the history of FRANCE, I will retain only two cultural aspects. There was at first a real spiritual revolution, the cults of Rome, of the emperor or of the twelve GODS, disappeared whereas the paganism could not have any more official spiritual vocation, so the Christianity appeared as the only base of a new ideology. The rallying of the emperors to Christianity from the year 320, strengthened it and endowed it with a structure organized into a hierarchy on the Roman model; its progress was very fast, especially in the years 367- 390 approximately and remain linked to the name of Saint Martin of Tours, and its progression was made without clashes and without violence. Furthermore, during the V th century, the role and the consideration of the monks increased, already announcing the middle-age. Finally, the barbarians, converted to the Christianity for political reasons, helped by the church, mixed very easily in the Gallo-roman substratum to give birth to the French people. At the same time as the beginning of the extension of Christianity, we see reappearing officially in the IV th century the druids, whereas the former Gallic gods reappear under their original names. This resurgence of the Celtic traditions, which were passed on only in a oral way, proves that islands of paganism resisted to the Roman influence. According to J.J.HATT the Celtic traditions were maintained in the shade of the big sanctuaries of APOLON, Granus or BELLENUS where was practiced, with the approval of the Roman authorities, the rites of the prophetic medicine and the divination inherited from the Greeks. So, chased by Claude in the first century, sunk into oblivion in the second century during the hellenisation and the orientalisation the druids and the Celtic traditions reappear officially but from a way which will be short-lived in the fourth century after J.C.
4. Religion during the VIth and VIIth centuries
In spite of the strong establishment of Christianity, the Frenchmen were still faithful to the pagan rites and practices, as show it monk's exhortations of this time; so SAINT CEZAIRE D' ARLES said to his believers: » Nolite ad raise voto reddere, nolite ad cast irons orare ». Whereas we read, in a sermon attributed to SAINT-ElOI: « that nobody made wishes the feet of temples, stones, fountains, trees, enclosures». On jewels, we see reappearing from decorations which are Celtic symbols: animal representations, horses, bulls, fishes.....
To try to make forget, disappear this paganism, the church tried to substitute for the pagan signs, the other religious signs which appeared too to protect the believers: Christ with the alpha and omega, crosses, ....... Replacement also of gods, or local goddesses by saints whose heroic deeds were in line with the history of the divinity; monsters and dragons of the paganism will be considered as so many representations of the devil. The places of the pagan cult springs, lakes, will be "got back" by the church, or, that she placed a saint's statue or Calvary, or, as reminds it saint Grégoire of Tours about a renowned crowned lake in which the inhabitants of the GEVAUDAN made offerings of fishes, wax, bread, that she diverted to its profit the customs of cult; so, in the quoted example, a basilica attributed to SAINT Hillaire was set up, and one recommended to deposit the traditional gifts there.
When the annexation of the local customs was impossible, the church tried to discredit it by considering them as emanations of the evil spirit.
It is significant that a whole region of the mountain BEGO, is dedicated to the infernal powers (Top of the devil, lake of the devils, devil pass, valley of hell) whereas opposes in the East a whole series of saints place-names (it's holly Mary Mountain, lake Ste Marie...). Bit by bit, the Celtic traditions were forgotten, or rather, the collective memory deprived them of the original contents while preserving them between the lines in numbers of legends and traditions which are a part of our cultural patrimony.
So the paganism shows through throughout the novels of the Knights of the Round Table, king Arthur, Merlin (sort of druid, fruit of the courtship of the devil and the virgin, the holder of the traditions and of the Celtic powers), we find the worship of cliffs (doubtless the origin of the word Graal) and of springs (the spring of BARANTON and its fantastic powers), in spite of the christianization which has been made during the tenth century.
Also according to J.J.HATT, the carnival, the associations deceived husband-wood of deer, non fidel women-cranes, would be in touch with the Celtic mythology (sacrifice of the deer in spring, analogy with CERNUNOS than leaves the goddess mother, punishments imposed on three unfaithful goddesses).
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