Melrose, Robin. <i>Religion in Britain from the Megaliths to Arthur: An
Archaeological and Mythological Exploration</i>. Jefferson, NC: McFarland,
2016. Pp. 284. $45.00. ISBN: 978-1-4766-6360-9 (hb); 978-1-4766-2426-6
(ebk).
Reviewed by Máire Johnson
Emporia State University
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In <i>Religion in Britain from the Megaliths to Arthur</i>, Robin Melrose
explores the archaeology of Britain and Ireland from the Neolithic through
the early Middle Ages in search of clues concerning the nature of religious
beliefs and practices in this long era. He parallels this archaeological
evidence with linguistic and textual sources as a means of fleshing out the
extant data about religion in the prehistoric period. Throughout the book,
Melrose augments analysis and description with numerous photographs and
drawings. The main points of <i>Religion in Britain from the Megaliths to
Arthur</i> are: that the Druids of the Iron Age were the continuation of a
Neolithic priesthood; that the deities of prehistoric Britain may be
perceived in the archaeology of that era in conjunction with later textual
sources; and that Arthur himself was "originally, in part at least, a pagan
god or gods who took on a human shape in the Christian era" (13).
In the preface and introduction, Melrose establishes that the analysis of
this book rests on the foundations laid by Barry Cunliffe and John Koch
concerning the origins both of the Celts and of Druidism, with some
modifications to each. Melrose accepts the prior arguments of both scholars
that archaeology, textual references from inscriptions and Greek and Roman
writers, and linguistics together suggest the rise of the Celts not in
central Europe with subsequent migrations to the west, but on the Atlantic
coasts with subsequent movements to the east. However, where Cunliffe has
argued for the earliest development of druidic practices and beliefs in the
period of 4000-2500 BCE, Melrose has adopted Koch's approach that both the
Celts and the Druids emerged between 1500 and 700 BCE. Melrose also follows
Koch's redefinition of prehistoric Britain as divisible into the Age of
Megaliths, encompassing roughly 4000-1600 BCE and therefore the Neolithic
and Early Bronze Ages, and the Age of Depositions, or c.1300 BCE-43 CE,
covering the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. After the Age of Depositions,
Melrose describes the Roman and the Early Medieval periods, the latter of
which Melrose terms the "Age of Arthur" as "a shorthand for traces of
earlier beliefs which persisted among newly converted Christians, and which
came together in the first Arthurian stories and in the Welsh mythological
tales known as the <i>Mabinogion</i>" (13).
Melrose divides this chronology across the chapters of his book. Chapter 1
addresses the Neolithic stone monuments of the Megalithic Age, considering
the archaeology of those structures aligned with astronomical events such as
the solstices or equinoxes. Melrose asserts that the high degree of
organization inherent to these sites, along with their "focus on astronomy,"
imply the existence of a dedicated priesthood, which Melrose suggests "may
well have been" the roots of the Druid priesthood (32-33). Chapter 2 moves
from the Neolithic into the Early Bronze Age, and attends to the rise of
Beaker Culture and the subsequent shift of burial customs from plain graves
to those containing rich grave goods, and from the universal practice of
cremation to a mixture of cremation and inhumation. Among the items found in
such interments are gold "sun disks," which Melrose parallels to similar
disks on the continent; their presence, he asserts, mingles with the remains
of cattle and/or horses at or near such locales to signify both a belief in,
and a practice of sacrificing animals to honor, a sun god (49).
In chapters 3 (Late Bronze Age), 4 (Iron Age), and 5 (later Iron Age),
Melrose assesses the Age of Depositions. In this period, the archaeology
shifts from megalithic construction to the votive offering of
deliberately-damaged metalwork either in watery contexts or in earthen pits.
In chapter 3, Melrose suggests that the numerous "burnt mounds" of England,
Wales, and Ireland--that is, of mounds containing burnt stones, charcoal,
and organic remains--signify the worship of a god of fire and water in
Late-Bronze-Age Britain. In the archaeology of feasting, such as raised
platforms and extensive middens, Melrose sees proof of rituals and
priesthoods associated with his proposed divinity. On the other hand,
dry-ground feasting sites and particularly their middens were, he argues,
dedicated to the earth goddess and provide "perhaps the best evidence for
priests and religious ceremonies" that offer the initial signs of Druidic
knowledge and observance (74-75).
In chapter 4, Melrose first turns his attention to a sky god; in his view,
Britain and Ireland's Iron Age hillforts were "almost certainly dedicated"
to this deity (78). Melrose suggests both that the Roman accounts of
continental Celts using excarnation for the honored dead may explain the
practice's frequency in Early and Middle Iron Age Britain, and that the
exposure of excarnation was one method of sending the souls of the deceased
to the sky as to an afterlife; he also cites Julius Caesar's report that the
Gauls considered themselves descended from Dis Pater, the Roman god of the
underworld, as indicating that the interment of human remains in pits or
ditches may have been intended to return the deceased to a Celtic version of
this deity. In chapter 5, Melrose demonstrates the role played by
continental influences in Late Iron Age Britain's chariot burials, new
settlement patterns, and new types of religious shrine. Because, as Melrose
demonstrates, the timbers for building a variety of structures were felled
in cycles that coincided with lunar eclipses, he suggests that Iron Age
priests continued the knowledge and traditions of their forebears from the
Neolithic and Bronze Age--and that these later priests were likely the
Druids themselves.
Melrose assesses Britain's Roman period in chapter 6. Though he observes
many ways in which Rome's presence brought greater urbanization, new burial
rituals, new deities, and new shrines to the archaeological landscape, he
also notes that Roman practices generally left room for the continuation of
native British traditions. He then focuses on the "Age of Arthur" in
chapters 7 through 10, a period he views as beginning with the withdrawal of
Rome's legions and the rise of Christianity in Britain. Because <i>art-</i>
likely means "bear," Melrose argues for a connection between Arthur and a
pre-Iron Age veneration of bears in chapter 7; there he also reports the
earliest references to Arthur in literature from Ireland, Wales, and
Britain. In chapter 8, Melrose examines medieval Welsh tales such as <i>The
Spoils of Annwn</i>, in which Arthur's ship, Prydwen, travels to the Welsh
otherworld and thus links Arthur--albeit as a secondary character--to
supernatural attributes and places.
Chapter 9 looks at instances in medieval Welsh and Latin literature that
present Arthur as a more significant figure who kills witches and monsters
or, in the case of saints' Lives, is viewed rather less favorably. Here,
Melrose traces the history of Arthur's image from a shadowy ruler whose
function is as a comparative model against which warriors and enemies are
measured to a man depicted as the king of Britain; at its most developed,
this narrative includes Arthur's transportation to the Isle of Avalon, a
kind of otherworld, to heal and await the proper time to return to the
mundane world and restore the glories of England. Based on these data,
Melrose asserts that Arthur was "originally a god connected with rebirth or
reincarnation, dwelling on a sacred island, perhaps associated with the sun,
the moon, or other heavenly body, who...once presided over a mythological
golden age" (202). Chapter 10, for its part, discusses the islands of
Britain considered holy in the early medieval period, examines hillforts
with some connection to Arthur or Arthurian legend, and argues for a Bronze
Age origin of the tale of Tristan and Isolt, an Arthurian story the extant
versions of which date to the twelfth century.
Melrose concludes his book with chapter 11, in which he asserts that the
Druids of Iron Age Britain were essentially replaced by prominent Christian
figures like saints and monks. To Melrose, the Druids of the Late Bronze and
Iron Age would have lived in sacred places characterized by
astronomically-aligned Neolithic structures, which would then have attracted
Christian foundations in the Early Middle Ages. He argues that the Fourth
Branch of the <i>Mabinogion</i>, <i>Math Son of Mathonwy</i>, provides
information about "Druids in Welsh mythology" (234). In part because the
name <i>Math</i> may etymologically descend from "the ancient word for
'bear'," Melrose suggests several parallels between Math and Arthur (243).
Ultimately, Melrose concludes that Arthur's origins are "complex" and draw
from "Neolithic bears and shamanism, prehistoric sacred islands, and
influences from Germanic or Thracian soldiers in Roman times;" to Melrose,
"Arthur seems to have brought together British pagan beliefs spanning a
period of at least three millennia" (248).
The great strength of <i>Religion in Britain from the Megaliths to
Arthur</i> is its abundant archaeological evidence. Melrose has gathered
together an impressive amount of data from numerous locations, including
middens, megalithic monuments, hillforts and promontory forts, chariot
burials, Roman towns, feasting locales, and more; indeed, such an assemblage
of sites and artifacts is, on its own, a very useful resource. In addition,
the 94 black-and-white photographs filling the book add information and
interest to Melrose's detailed textual descriptions.
At the same time, it is not entirely clear why Melrose presumes that a deity
of the earth must be feminine when--as he states--Roman writers described
the Celts as believing in a version of the god Dis Pater. Similarly, though
Melrose does discuss Indo-European versions of a male god of fire and water
elsewhere, it is not evident why the deity of water in Britain must have
been male. Indeed, inscriptions in Gaul and Britain mention primarily
goddesses as associated with springs and rivers, and a number of whom modern
rivers are named (e.g., the Seine [Sequana] and the Boyne [Boann]) for these
deities. The British goddess Sulis, too, became conflated with Minerva at
Bath (something Melrose does discuss). There are also several instances in
which Melrose uses medieval material the oldest extant version of which
appears to be no older than the eleventh century--and in some cases no older
than the fourteenth or fifteenth century, e.g., Malory's <i>Le Morte
d'Arthur</i> of 1485--to provide glimpses into the prehistoric past. This
approach can be inherently problematic, as it presumes that such glimpses
are accurate representations rather than literary archaisms. The extant
Arthurian corpus of the eleventh and later centuries arose in a strongly
Christian milieu, represents a courtly world of elites living in castles and
engaging in quests and acts of derring-do; this is an environment vastly
different from that of prehistoric Britain. Though assuredly Arthurian
stories do have otherworldly components, it is risky to presume that those
components must descend from or reflect the attitudes of Britons from up to
a thousand years previously. Finally, and rather less significantly, Melrose
adopts a sixth-century date for the Life of St. Mochudu (244), while more
recent scholarship, such as that of Pádraig Ó Riain in <i>A Dictionary of
Irish Saints</i> (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011, p. 471), tends to place
it closer to the early thirteenth century.
There are a few minor proofing errors. There is a missing comma after "on
the other hand" on line 16 of p.15. The word "along," line 15, p. 27, should
be "a long." "Monument," line 9, p. 69, should be plural. Anne Ross's name
is misspelled on line 15, p. 109 and in the bibliography on p.271. The
period after "ditch," line 9, p. 123, should be a comma. The 't' is missing
from "Catuvellauni", line 3, p. 134, and the first 'r' is missing from
"Gloucestershire," in the heading of line 4, p. 157. The period after
"Arthur," first line of quoted narrative, p. 203, should be a question mark.
"Swear," line 14, p. 240, should either be "swore" or "swears," and the
period after "lands" in line 5 of the first quoted passage, p. 246, should
be a comma.
All in all, <i>Religion in Britain from the Megaliths to Arthur</i> offers
an eminently readable archaeological survey of Britain from the Neolithic to
the Middle Ages, and it collects a wide variety of site data and artefactual
information from across this chronological period. The issues noted above
may offer some challenges to Melrose's conclusions, but they do not negate
the likelihood that his work will prompt new ways of looking at Britain's
archaeology and Arthurian material. Indeed, his ideas unquestioningly offer
fertile ground for further exploration and debate.
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