New Scholarship Reexamines Ancient Celtic Women Warriors and Their Legal Rights

Key facts

• Celtic women could own property, inherit wealth, and divorce without a guardian, unlike Roman women.
• The Brehon Law, known as Féineachas in old Irish, allowed women to become heirs, leaders, and judges (Brehon), and is referred to in Christian texts from the 7th to 9th century AD.
• Diodorus Siculus said Celtic women were as big and brave as their men (Bibliotheca historica 5.32.2).
• Ammianus Marcellinus claimed a single Gaul could not be withstood if he called his wife to his assistance (Res Gestae 15.12.1).
• In AD 60, Tacitus described women in black hurling curses at Roman troops on the druidic sanctuary of Mona, modern Anglesey.
• In 1999, a warrior burial excavated at Bryher was later identified as a woman buried with a sword, shield, and bronze mirror.
• In 2001, a chariot burial at Wetwang in Yorkshire contained a woman with a dismantled war chariot, iron mirror, and shield, and evidence of a severe head injury.
• Boudica, queen of the Iceni, led a rebellion in AD 60 after Romans ransacked Iceni land, enslaved their people, and raped her daughters; the rebels destroyed Camulodunum (modern Colchester) and attacked Londinium.
• Tacitus gives Boudica a speech: “You will see that in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves” (Annals 14.35).
• Emperor Nero reportedly considered abandoning Britain as too costly to hold after the rebellion.