The year is
2018 A.D. French history is entirely occupied by the Historians. Well... not entirely.
One small era of indomitable Gauls
still holds out against historical accuracy! And life is not easy for the history professors who garrison the universities of
Primarysourcium, Archeologium, Clicheorum, and Propagandum. These Gallic myths fear nothing except maybe...
me!
Now, I can already hear Parisians smugly remark how hypocritical of me it is to talk of Gallic
stereotypes after I recently claimed there was no Gaul. Or even, that they were very diverse so isn't it possible these
stereotypes fit some? Yes, smartasses, it isn't possible... But I am focusing on the common image people have of them.
Basically I'm focusing on him - Asterix the Gaul. Let's start with their names even, which didn't necessarily
stop in '-ix' like Asterix, Obelix, or Getafix etc.
This belief comes from Vercingetorix,
which is actually a title, not a name, meaning "King of the Great Warriors". And while some names did end in "-ix",
most didn't such as Brennus, the first commander to sack Rome.
Obelix could have never delivered Menhirs, these tall, standing monoliths, considering they were erected in the Neolithic
around
2,000 BC or even as early as 6 or 7,000 B.C.
In any case, way before Julius Caesar's conquests or even the Gauls, who emerged much later around
500 BC.
It's important to remember that by the time Julius Caesar invaded Gaul,
2/3 of current French territory was already somewhat Romanized. By then, it had been an ongoing
process for the last century and a half. There is a reason why the Gauls turned into Gallo-Romans in less than half a century,
one of the quickest foreign assimilation in history. So this image of brutal,
uncultured, and dirty barbarians that lived in the forest is just absurd.
Take "La Moustache à la Gauloise",
which every good Gaul wore whether it's Asterix or 19th century paintings, right?
Well it depends on who, when, and where. After all, they
did live for a thousand years. You don't dress a groom like your parents or
Grandparents did, right? It is likely that Nobles once wore moustaches as Diodorus Sicilus
mentions but it seemed out of fashion by the time Caesar invaded since, in "Commentarii de Bello Gallico",
he only mentions such
grooming on the Britons, who, much like today, were always kind of backwards. All in all, the mustache fails to show up in much
art, such as these coins minted during that time by the Veneti and the f**king
Parisii, which shows not only mustache-less men, but clean and brushed hair. Clean and brushed?
But their hair was long and rough like this Roman coin of Vercingetorix proves!
Well, not necessarily, because when that coin
was minted,
he had already been a prisoner for four years and excuse him for not being on his A-Game
while rotting in a cell. In fact, much like Frenchmen today,
Celtic Nobles took a lot of care of their appearance. They had to! The Druids
forbade them from writing and from representing their gods. As such, most of their artistic
expressions were done on themselves,
which meant maintaining perfect appearance and physical condition,
cleaning, brushing and dyeing their hair, or wearing elaborate jewelry and clothes.
After all, it is the Gauls that invented the 'Les Brogues' - shoes - and 'Les Braies' -
pants. And they could invent all this because far from being uneducated and unrefined, they were wonderful
artisans. They invented the wooden barrel, the iron plough, possibly the chain mail,
hammers, and even fat based soap, which is the reason why you don't clean yourself by scrapping off olive oil. Dirty people, right?
To take care of their luscious hair, they forged many tools - hair brushes, mirrors, scissors and more. As I've said before,
they were wonderful artisans, especially when it came to metalwork. Not just for tools but
also, refined jewelry such as 'Torcs' or 'Fibulas' made of gold, silver and bronze.
The Romans acknowledged the quality of these goods by trading them in mass for wine.
Because, yes, they didn't just drink ale either. They were very fond of wine. Nor did they eat boar during banquets all the time.
Meat was quite rare, as it would be for most until industrial production, and so diets were mostly made of grains.
This stereotype probably comes from their image of living in the forest and being one with nature, but this can be any further from the truth.
While some places were sacred,
such as the Carnute Forest, the Gauls turned hectares of forests into farmland and
pastures. And, as for most of history, hunting was a Noble's sport. But that
doesn't mean they all lived in small villages made of wood and stone with a weak wooden palisade either. They had large
urban centers such as Alesia or Gergovia called Oppida (singular - Oppidum), usually on top of hills with stone
fortifications.
Their homes weren't made of wood or stone but daub (and wattle), a mixture of clay, sand and straw. But these towns, of course, were
defended by soldiers with winged helmets, right?
Now, that is probably one of the stupidest Gallic myth.
Really, wings on helmets? My friend at mercenary camp did a video on why horns on helmets make
no sense; the same applies to wings. The myth probably comes from their retractable cheek pieces that looked like wings.
This helmet design, by the way, would come to inspire the Roman Imperial helmet.
And finally, it's tough to say but as cool as it looks, Gallic Chiefs never stood on shields.
This is completely anachronistic since it was a practice done by the Franks, a Germanic tribe,
much later. In fact, the Gauls didn't even use round shields but more oval/rectangular shaped.
To be fair, I don't blame you if some of these came as a surprise.
It surprised me too. As most, my ideas of the Gauls had stopped along with Asterix and Obelix.
It doesn't help that similar images are found on most paintings, statues
or even textbooks depicting them. But Celts are a
fascinating part of European history, and while I don't expect
most to have the time nor desire to care about them, I think the least we can do is to stop
depicting them in such a degrading and caricature way.
Hello everyone, I hope you enjoyed this video. While I was gone, my channel grew massively which was a wonderful surprise so I'd like to
thank everyone who came aboard!
We reached 75 subs
and that's just wild to be honest, so if you want to keep supporting the channel make sure to leave a like,
comment, share and, f you haven't yet, subscribe. This was Barris, I will see you next week, but until then
Merde!