70 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [ C H A P . V.
king Mmself liad no wife of Ms own, " sed per vicissitudines, in quamcumque commotus sit
usurariam sumit*." Indiscriminate conculiinage prevailed also in Ireland to a late period;
St. Jerome saying that in Ms day the Scots were -without wives, " sed ut cuique libitum fuerit
pecudimi more lasciviunt t-" Late even in the eleventh century, Ai-chbishop Lanfranc expostulated
with the Irish kings, Tm-lough O'Brien and Godred, on the practice of men abandoning
their wives at pleasure, and who even had the abominable custom of exchangiag them for those
of others;—"nonnullos suas aliis dare, et aliorum infanda commutatione reeiperet."
The psychical characteristics of the Britons were clearly similar, or rather identical with
those of the Gauls. Tacitus, who founds one argument for identity of race on this circumstance,
expressly states that the peoples displayed the same temerity in rushing into danger, and the
same timidity rn shrinking from it §. Their resentment of injuries was keen and hasty;
and it is clear that the rashness of resolve, the love of novelty, and addiction to revolution,
"infli-mitas Gallorum," which Cajsar ascribes to the Gauls, appUcd equally to the insular Celts,
at least those of the maritime states 1|. In their domestic manners, Diodorus attributes to them
a simplicity and integrity, which he contrasts favom-ably with the cunning and vice of the
polished nations of his time; and adds that their mode of life was frugal and without luxuryl".
That the vii-tue of a genuine self-government was to be attributed to them may be questioned,
when the intemperance in wine, which the more southern Gauls purchased with such avidity
fi-om the merchants of Italy and Massilia, is remembered; though the Belgic Gauls, who were
the most intimately connected with Britain, had less intercourse with merchants, and the
importation of wine was especially discountenanced by some of the tribes**. Ingenuity and
aptness for instruction are generally attributed to the ancient Celtstt. The Greeks of Massilia,
and subsequently the Romans, readily succeeded in commimicating much of their culture to the
people of Gaul, so that the arts and sciences of Greece and Italy made rapid progress among
them, and their manners were gradually assimilated with those of their conquerorsj J. The same
was observable in South Britain, even before the conquest of the country was completed; and
Agricola, who introduced Roman customs and arts, and encouraged the liberal education of the
youth, augured from the native genius of the people greater things than from the literary
culture of the Gauls§§.
infanticide, from what Caesar and Dion state, does not appear
to haye been one of them.
* Solinus, c. 22.
f Hieronym, Inc. cit. et Epist. Ixxxii. ad Oceamim.
% Usher, Vet. Epist. A.D. 1074. D'Alton, "Archbishops
of Dublin," 1838, p. 29. These adulterous practices must
have been very common and of a veiy flagrant description, or
they would scarcely have elicited the remonstrances of the
English Primate.
§ " I n deposcendis periculis eadem audacia; et, uhi advenere,
in detrectandis eadem formido."—Tacitus, Vit. Agric. c. 11.
Dion Cassius (lib. xxxix. c. 45) sums up the defects of the
Gallic character, in the three qualities of fickleness, timidity,
and rashness.
II Tacitus, Vit. Agric. c. 13. Strabo, hb. iv. c. 4. § 2.
Ceesar, B. G. lib. iii. c. 8, 10; lib. iv. c. 5. In these passages
Strabo and Caesar are writing of the Gauls, but history
justifies our asserting the same of the Britons. It has been
well observed, that two thousand years ago " the good and the
bad, the weak and the strong part of the Gallic character was
very much the same as it is now." G. Long, M.A..,s. v. " Galha
Transalpina." Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography," vol. i. p. 953.
^ Diodorus, lib. v. c. 21.
* * Diodorus, lib. v. c. 26. AthenEeus, hb. iv. c. 13. Caesar,
B. G. lib. i. c. 1 ; lib. ii. c. 15; hb. vi. c. 24.
f t Caesar, B. G. hb. vii. c. 22.
tt Strabo, l ib. iv.c. l .§5; lib. iv.c. 1. § 12; lib. iv. c .4. § 2.
§§ Tacitus, Vit. Agric. c. 21. "Ingenia Britannorum studiis
Gallorum anteferre." The inhabitants of south-west Britain
had profited by their intercourse with the Phoenician and Greek
merchants, as those of Gantium and the south-east coast by
theirs with the traders of Gaul. Diodorus, lib. v. c. 22. Ciesar,
hb. V. c. 13, 14.
C H A P . V. ] HISTORICAL ETHNOLOGY OP BRITAIN. 71
BWEILINGS, FORTIFICATIONS, ABCHITECTURE, INTERIORS, ETC.
The houses of the Britons, resembling those of the Gauls, were mean habitations, constructed
chiefly of wooden planks, and of reeds or wicker-work: they were covered with a large
heavy thatch of straw; and, as Strabo teUs us, were circular in form*. Circular foimdations,
hoUowed out of the gromd or rock, to the depth of two, three and sometimes as much as five
feet, clearly the remains of ancient British dwellings {cutiaw of the Welsh), have frequently been
examined. These usually have openings for the door on the more sheltered or sunny side, and
traces of a central hearth for the fire have often been observed. Such hut-circles vary from five to
ten, twenty and even thirty feet in diameter, but dimensions exceeding these latter have rarely
been met with. On Danby Moor, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, are the curious remains of
a British village, the hut-circles of which, arranged in paraUel rows with a street between, have
a diameter only of about ten feetf. Those on Hampton Down near Bath, and a few of those on
Worle HiU near Weston, Somerset, are about twenty-five feet in diameter, which is the average
size of the circles formed of granite boulders, at Merrivale on Dartmoor, Devonshire. On the
summit of Ingleborough, in Yorkshh-e, are the low circular stone walls of ancient dweUings,
doubtless of the British period, having openings for the door on the south-east side, the
diameter of which is about thirty feet. These houses were probably but iU-provided either with
windows or chimneys, and the largest of them could hardly have afforded better accommodation
than do the dwellings of the most uncivilized tribes of the present day; to many of which they
must have borne considerable resemblance. There is no evidence that the abodes of the chiefs
difi'ered materially from those of the people: the residences of the former probably comprised a
number of such circular wooden dweUings, within one common enclosure J. Such may have
been the royal residence of a Boadicea or a Cassivelaunus. Caractacus seems to have referred to
his own dwelling, when, seeing the palaces of Rome, he exclaimed, " When possessed of such
things as these, why do you covet our humble cottages § ?"
Their towns were a mere coUection of such huts as have been described, in the centre of a
forest or marsh, or on a mountain height, where, enclosing a large space with feUed trees, or with
a palisade and ditch, " vaUo atque fossa," they formed a temporary home for themselves and their
cattle, which, if defeated in war, they abandoned for another station, or, in time of peace removed
from, in search of fresh pasturage for their herds and flocks H. Under the pressm-e of the Roman
invasion, they seem to have improved and strengthened the earth-works, which then formed
the defences of theii- stockaded viUages, or so-caUed townslf. The method of castrametation.
The dwelling of the king only differed in its more careful construction
; it was about thirty feet in diameter, and was placed
in the midst of a large enclosure containing as many as sixty of
such houses, inhabited by the wives, children, officers, and confidential
slaves of the king. (Golberry's "Africa,"vol . i i .ch. 17.
p. 89.) The houses of the people of New Caledonia, as represented
by the voyager Labillardicre (plate 38), are of identical
form.
§ Zonaras (who probably preserves a lost passage from
Dion), Ann. hb. xi. c. 10.
II Caesar, B. G. lib. v. c. 9, 21. Strabo, lib. iv. c. 5. § 2.
Dion apud Xiph. lib.lxii. § 5. Caesar, B. G. hb. ii. c. 17 ;
lib. vi. c. 30.
^ Dion apud Xiphihnum, lib. Ixii. § 5. According to the
L 2
* Ca:sar, lib. v. c. 12, 43. Diodorus, lib. v. c. 21. Strabo,
lib. iv. c. 4. § 3. Vitruvins also speaks of the huts of the
Gauls and Iberians, made of oaken shingles and straw, lib. ii.
c. 1. Dion {apud Xiph. lib. Ixxvi. ^ 12) says the Caledonians
lived in tents, but we should probably rather read, huts. Jornandes
(c. 2) says, " virgeas habitant casas, commnnia tecta
cum pecore."
f Young, "History of Whi tby, " 1817, vol. ii. p. 672.
X Such is the circular hut, called gambisa in centr.al .\frica,
described by travellers, as common to the tribes from Harar and
the Somali country to Scnegamhia. Burton, " East Africa and
I l a r a r , " 1856, p. 257. The houses of the lolofs and other
tribes of western Africa are described as built of wood, in a circular
form, with a conicol thatched roof twenty feet in height.