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The Gaels, not to be Mixed up With the Gauls

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The Celtic peoples were a large and diverse ethnic group that covered most of Europe for a good chunk of the Iron Age, until other groups like the Romans overthrew their dominance. Within the Celtic culture existed many groups with their own variations of the greater Celtic identity, one such group being the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland. Due to its antiquity, the origins of the Gaels and most of their history remain shrouded in mystery, even by Celtic standards. Although we can trace some of their history by putting together the pieces we have. Regarding their origins, and when the Gaels evolved from their Celtic foundations, two main schools of thought exist . One suggests that the Gaels actually came from a much older group of people called the Bell Beakers, who moved to the British Isles from mainland Europe and are one of the foundations of the later Celts. However, many also debate that the Gaels are not that ancient, and that even by 1000 BC, long after the disappearance of t...
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The Nobility - A Hierarchy all of its Own

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Having a hierarchy is a fundamental part of any being living in a group to keep things a bit organized. In almost every system you have a clear leader calling the shots, a trusting figure (or as trusty as they get) that enforces the leader’s will, and then everyone else, sometimes broken down into the normal members and the ‘lower class’ encompassing the young, elderly, and new comers . There are some exceptions to this, like the penguins who, despite being highly social creatures living in large groups, don’t have any designated figures of authority. Of course, we humans also have developed complex systems of hierarchies, forming and evolving depending on time and cultures to create and end various classes. In Western Europe, for example, before the social revolutions of the Enlightening era, people were divided among the peasantry, artisans/merchants, and ruling nobility. However, each of these groups can be broken down into further sub-divisions, each having their own functions an...
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The last French Knights - Gendarmes

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If today the gendarmes in France are known as lawn enforcers within the military domain and mostly act outside of the cities, their name is much older than that. You see, for most of the era of medieval warfare the Kingdom of France was considered the heart of chivalric warfare. For centuries, the French had set themselves as a major power in Europe; in a time when cavalry dictated the battlefield, they fielded the best on the continent. However, the good times wouldn’t last as France’s knightly prestige would be severely damaged by the coming of one of the biggest calamities in our history: the British. Our story starts with the advent of the Hundred Years’ War, an agglomeration of smaller conflicts started over a succession crisis. You see the last three kings of the House of Capet, Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV, though it would be hilarious to die without a male heir. However, it was less funny for French society, which required a man sitting on the throne, and while the first tw...
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