Known as fierce warriors, they migrated to the British Isles and retained many aspects of their past there for centuries after Celtic culture in Europe was supplanted by Roman and other civilizations. In Ireland, they organized into groups of related families called
tuaths, fought other
tuaths viciously on horseback, and possessed a social hierarchy that was dominated by Druid priests and chief-like kings called
ri. Christianity was introduced in the fifth century C.E. by Ireland's legendary St. Patrick, but it was a religion imposed on an unsettled, agrarian land with few urban centers. Instead, Ireland's repositories of culture were its monasteries, which dotted the countryside. There, monks lived austere, simple lives but wrote treatises on religious topics and transcribed Celtic mythology in Latin.
Sea-faring Vikings from various parts of Scandinavia started to plunder Ireland beginning in 795. Like other settlements near coastal waters in northern Europe, the Irish feared the sudden onslaught of Viking ships and the ruthlessness of their men, who quickly sacked towns and loaded livestock and anything else of value onto their ships. In their own lands, some of these Scandinavians had been subdued by Frankish conquerors in the name of Charlemagne and Christianity, and it made them determined foes of any Christian people.
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