Feasting occasions provided a venue for chieftains to hand out food, drinks, and valuable items such as torcs and brooches as rewards for service. These feasts, and the gifts distributed during them, were an important form of payment between Celtic chieftains and their vassals. In doing so, they reinforced the bonds of loyalty that held together Celtic society. The need to supply feasts in turn helped to fuel competition and conflict between Celtic chiefs, particularly over sources of wealth such as gold, wine, and cattle.
Defining Celtic feasts
The term ‘Celtic’ is applied to a wide range of regions, cultures, peoples, and societies who spoke forms of Celtic languages. These regions also underwent significant changes from the Bronze Age, when Celtic and Proto-Celtic languages developed, to late antiquity. It is not possible to speak of any single ‘Celtic’ feasting tradition, because the umbrella of Celtic-ness covers such a wide range of times and places.
Although the entire concept of ‘Celtic’ culture has been
