Gresham College Divinity lectures | Contemplative Inquiry

April 11, 2025

MODERN DRUIDS (RONALD HUTTON) 2 MODERN DRUID MOVEMENTS

Modern Druids is the most recent public lecture (2 April 2025) presented by Professor Ronald Hutton in his tenure as Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London. I provide a link below (1). This is the second of two posts about the lecture, focusing on Modern Druid movements in Britain from 1781. The first, concerning Hutton’s take on early modern perceptions of ancient Druidry, is published at https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/04/08/ . It distinguishes four understandings, named by Hutton as Nationalist, Green, Demonic and Confessional.

Turning to modern Druid movements, Hutton also distinguishes four different kinds, emerging from the later eighteenth century up to the present:

Masonic Druids The Ancient Order of Druids was launched in London in 1781, as a closed society with initiation rites, secret memberships, signs and passwords, loosely modelled on Masonry. Its purpose was to give working men opportunities for participation in the performing arts. By 1820 it had become a huge success, moving beyond London to the Midlands and North of England. Some members wanted more focus on the insurance side of friendly society life, and in 1833 the United Ancient Order of Druids was formed, splitting off from the AOD. The UAOD lasted until the late twentieth century. The original AOD still exists.
Theosophical Druids emerged in the period from 1910 as an esoteric spiritual group. It followed the ideals of the Theosophical Society and worked towards the recovery of ancient mystical wisdom from all religions and philosophies. Founded by George Watson MacGregor Reid, and originally called the Order of the Universal Bond, the new group mixed Egyptian, Greek, Zoroastrian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist ideas with Irish and Welsh literature and using Druid names, roles and status. In 1912 a group of members went to Stonehenge to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Increasingly identified as The Ancient Druid Order they continued their association with Stonehenge for over 70 years. Always unpopular with the archaeologists of that period, the ADO sometimes had the support of the government and site administrators and sometimes not. In 1985 the festival that had grown up on the site was banned under Margaret Thatcher.
New Age Druids is the name Hutton gives to the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (OBOD). The first iteration of OBOD was a split-off from the ADO in 1964 led by Ross Nichols, who took the new group to Glastonbury for their public ceremonies. On his death in 1975, the Order went into hibernation until 1988, when Philip Carr-Gomm, who had been a youthful apprentice of Ross Nichols, re-awakened it. By 1988 the human potential movement, and a new Celtic revival strand in western alternative spiritualty, were both gathering in strength. True to its Theosophical roots, OBOD declared itself to be a spirituality rather than a religion and opened itself up to people of all religions and none. The bulk of the membership identified as either Pagan, Christian or Buddhist. OBOD declared an aim of “uniting humans with the natural world and their own true selves”, to “heal the disorientation implicit for many in an urbanised and atomised social existence” and “to give peace”. Hutton goes on to mention The British Druid Order (BDO) and The Druid Network (TDN) but doesn’t say much about them. Although they hived off from OBOD, dual or multiple membership is common.
Counter Cultural Druids When the Stonehenge Festival was banned in 1985, many people felt they had lost a clergy and a temple as well as a festival. Some wanted to fight for a religion they saw as under attack. (Hutton does not specifially mention the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’.) The single most prominent leader who arose was Arthur Pendragon, ex-soldier, ex-biker gang leader, and mystic. He was prominently associated with the Glastonbury Order of Druids (GOD), the Secular Order of Druids (SOD) and the Loyal Arthurian Warband (LAW). These groups campaigned for civil liberties and preservation of the countryside. They held demonstrations against laws that limited the former, and organised protest camps on the routes of controversial road and building schemes. Arthur was frequently prosecuted and invariably acquitted by juries. Hutton identifies Arthur as part of a long tradition of working class protest, in which the use of costume and theatre is used to make disempowered people visible. Arthur himself had a more mystical view of his mission. Once, while looking for a sign, he noticed an attractive ceremonial sword in a local shop. Asked where it had come from, he was told that it had been Excalibur in the movie of that name.

Modern Druidry in Britain continues to mutate and develop, but Hutton ends his analysis at this point. I recommend readers to visit the link below and draw their own conclusions.

(1) https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/modern-druids/

April 8, 2025

MODERN DRUIDS (RONALD HUTTON) 1 ANCIENT INSPIRATION?

Modern Druids is Ronald Hutton’s most recent public lecture (2 April 2025) in his role of Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London. I provide a link below (1). This is the first of two posts about the lecture, summarising Hutton’s take on early modern perceptions of ancient Druidry. The lecture goes on to describe the Modern Druid movements that have come out of an already existing inspiration. That will be the focus of my next post.

Most of what we have believed ourselves to know about the ancient Druids is derived from comments by a limited number of Roman authors. The most prominent of these are Julius Caesar, Tacitus and Pliny. According to Hutton, recent scholarship has tended to undermine the reliability of these sources. Both Caesar and Tacitus are known to have invented material for their histories. Pliny wrote after the Druids in both Britain and Gaul (= much of modern France, parts of the Netherlands and the Rhineland) had been repressed. Nonetheless, what these authors said has strongly influenced later beliefs about Druids. Fascination with Druids, as custodians of lost ancient knowledge, has been a feature of Northwestern European culture from the sixteenth century onwards.

Over this period, Hutton identifies eight distinct ways of imagining Druids and Druidry. The first four are visions of the Celtic Druid past. In his analysis Hutton names them as Nationalist, Green, Demonic and Confessional. They are all projections onto the past from somewhat different groups of people, which also speak to contemporary British concerns of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I describe these four ways below. (I will cover the remaining four ways, concerned with Modern Druid movements, in my next post.)

Nationalist Druids (favourable) They are understood as patriotic, as defenders of the nation, representatives of piety and wisdom, and a link to tradition and the past. However, in a UK context, or even within the island of Britain, there are questions about what the nation is and whose traditions are being celebrated. By the end of the eighteenth century, a time when most Welsh people still spoke the Welsh language, Wales was the nation that most strongly identified with Druid heritage. A key figure in this was Iolo Morganwg, who I have written about in other posts (2,3).
Green Druids (favourable) Druids are associated with woods, caves and natural spaces. They are therefore an antidote to industry, urbanisation, modernity and forms of ‘civilisation’ about which many people had strong misgivings. (My own observation is that this early modern image of ancient Druidry, in its late modern deep ecology form, is the most influential current in 21^st century Druidry – JN)
Demonic Druids (unfavourable) The ancient Druids were said to be a despotic heathen priesthood who practiced human sacrifice and ruled through fear, ignorance and superstition. The Romans did the Celts a service by breaking their power. This account appealed to imperialists and evangelical Christians whilst also being a gift to Gothic fiction.
Confessional Druids (favourable): The story here is that, sometime between the days of Noah and Abraham, wise men, inspired by God, set forth from Palestine to Britain to teach a pure religion. These were the original Druids. British Christianity was therefore, in a sense, both native and ancient. William Stukeley (1687-1765) Druid enthusiast, Church of England priest, and the first scientific archaeologist, held this view.

I am grateful to Ronald Hutton for his analysis. By understanding the cultural soil out of which modern Druid movements, beginning as least as far back as 1781, emerged, he helps to explain why some people over the last 250 years have chosen to claim the name for ourselves. More about that in my next post (4).

(1) https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/modern-druids

(2) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2021/09/07

(3) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2020/05/11

(4) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/04/11

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February 23, 2023

ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN GODS

This post is based on Ronald Hutton’s third lecture in the Gresham College series on early Pagan history in Britain (1). Hutton notes that the Anglo-Saxons arrived at a later date than the Romans, but with a religion that is less well-known. Why? He explains that it came as a foreign importation that did not mix well with existing traditions, whether Christian or Pagan. Moreover the Pagan Anglo-Saxons left no written records about their own practices, and their conversion to Christianity came too soon for a substantial body of archaeological evidence to accumulate.

Nonetheless the early Anglo-Saxons have had a lasting influence on English culture. They occupied a land that had experienced a major system collapse. A place which had once had towns, stone buildings, country houses, factories, substantial military installations and a money-using, trading economy, now made do with subsistence farming and wooden buildings, ruled over by rival petty kings. On the whole, the Saxons didn’t bring this about. It’s what they found, and they were troubled by the ruins of past power and prosperity as an example of what fate (wyrd) could do. They wondered, too, what had happened to the people (giants?) who had built the now ruined structures that they saw around them. Anglo-Saxon poetry (for example The Wanderer) reflects on this poignancy.

To get glimpses of Anglo-Saxon religion, Hutton says, we look to Roman accounts of their continental ancestors in Germany, narratives from later English Christians, and still later Icelandic sources describing a world view that is seen as cognate with the early English one. Their most important god was Woden, evidenced in place names and the family trees of early English kings. He is described as the King of the Gods, and patron of rulers, voyagers, and skills. He is a wisdom figure who can also be a cunning deceiver and an enchanter. In this he resembles the Norse Odin, the German Wotan – and also, in certain respects, the Roman Mercury. But this doesn’t mean a one-to-one correspondence: Woden, unlike Odin, is shown with the full use of both eyes. Other significant gods were Thunor (with similarities to Thor, Donner, Taranis and Jupiter), Tiu the war god (compared to Mars) and Frigg – goddess of love, fertility and abundance (like Freya, and Venus).

Other gods are named, though we know little about them – Seaxnet, Ing, Geat, Hreda (a goddess of the earth) and Eostre (concerned with dawn and spring). The names of more local and tribal deities are lost. There were sacred places – on hills (Hearg = modern English Harrow) and on level ground, especially near roads (Weoh). There were specific places linked to deities near burial mounds. The only known candidate for a Pagan Anglo-Saxon temple is Yeavering in Northumberland, but even that might be a royal hall. Little is known about the priesthood. There was no equivalent knowledge-bearing class like the Celtic Druids. Kingship was a semi-sacred role and kings could be blamed for disasters. Shadowy non-human figures (elves) co-existed with humans in the world and were seen as harmful. They lacked the glamour found in Irish and Welsh stories about such denizens of the wild places – forests and hollow hills.

We have a wealth of information from grave goods. There is a fairly even split between burial and cremation. Ashes from cremations tended to be kept in urns. These were decorated, primarily with serpent imagery. The swastika was also popular, as a fire image. In the case of inhumations, people were buried facing east, accompanied by grave goods that would be useful for an afterlife. These included crystal and glass beads, combs and razors, belts and knives (as eating utensils). There is relatively little gender distinction in the choice of goods, except that weapons were associated with men. (Even here Hutton notes the revision now being brought about by DNA examination of bones in Scandinavia, and confirming the presence of high status women warriors: could the same be true of the Pagan English?) From the sixth century, the Pagan Anglo-Saxons used burial mounds. Towards the end of the Pagan period, high status burial could be rich and elaborate – the most famous example being at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia, first excavated in 1939. This can be seen as a response to growing prosperity and the rise of Christian competition.

597 CE marks the first mission from Rome to the southern English. (Northumbrians were first introduced to the new religion by Celtic monks based in Iona.) In 665 CE the last English kingdom was formally converted. Penda the powerful Pagan Mercian king fought the Christian kingdoms, but for loot, power and glory, not for his religion. He did not stand in the way of his son’s conversion. There were no wars of religion or clearly identified martyrs on either side. Christianity offered many political, diplomatic and commercial advantages to the ruling class. The Christians were highly organised, determined and had a unified creed to rally around. These characteristics seem largely absent on the Pagan side. Official Paganism was over in the Anglo-Saxon world until it faced the Viking invasions that began in the 790s. Even then, the now Christian Anglo-Saxons did everything they could to resist them, partly as a matter of faith.

(1) https://gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/anglo-saxon-gods/

December 12, 2022

PAGANISM IN ROMAN BRITAIN

This post concerns Ronald Hutton’s Gresham College lecture about Paganism in Roman Britain (1). In it, he summarises our current academic knowledge, and asks: how Romanised was British religion within the Roman Empire? It proves to be a hard question to answer, for three main reasons.

The first is that we know little about British religion immediately before the occupation, apart from the fact that Druids had a leading role in at least some religious activity.

The second is that, although the Romans generally honoured local gods and their worshippers, they made an exception for war gods and religious communities hostile to Roman rule. British Druids belonged to the latter category, so any ongoing British Druid activity is off the record. The Druids were in any case averse to written records about their calling.

The third is that we know the names of only a few people from this period, so get only occasional glimpses of individuals and their practices. Britons of any social standing tended to adopt Roman names, at least for the written record, but the records are too sparse to distinguish between the developing cultures of Romanised Britons and localised Romans. All we have is the Roman names. People who made do without Roman names go unrecorded.

These three limitations mean that we have limited knowledge, and that this knowledge is heavily tilted towards Roman practices and understandings. We do however have the names of a number of indigenous deities from the Roman period, and some understanding of their roles. According to Hutton, such deities tended to be highly localised, and connected to specific activities – like Coventina looking after the sacred spring at Carrowburgh not far from Hadrian’s wall. On the whole Goddesses were linked to the land, hills, rivers, springs and wells. Gods were concerned with war, protection, trade and travel.

Other gods were imported during the centuries of occupation. Continental Celtic culture brought Rosmerta, the Matres and Epona. Widely acknowledged Roman gods included Jupiter, Mars, Silvanus and Mercury. Other parts of the empire contributed Apollo, Bacchus, Mithras, Cybele and Athys, Isis and Serapis.

Hutton finds in both Romans and Celts a very different attitude to deity from that of the later arriving Christian faith. Pagan Gods asked for acknowledgement and respect. Beyond that they were not greatly interested in us. They did not make laws, issue commands or monitor our performance. The Latin word superstitio referred to excessive fear of the divine. Hutton characterises mainstream Roman British religion as largely transactional. Roman priesthood was a job for the local magistrates.

Hence, according to Hutton, there was no theology. If you wanted the gods’ help, and had the support and resources, you built shrines, enacted rituals and offered sacrifice. (Animal sacrifice was required to be swift and painless, or it did not please the gods.) If you looked for a deeper or more intense religious experience, and were deemed eligible, you sought initiation into a mystery school. If you were concerned with speculation about the cosmos and our place in it, or wanted a set of values and practices to live by, you turned to philosophy. The one religious demand made by the state was a public reverencing of the Emperor’s numen (the divine power within him) which the early Christians, other than Gnostics, risked martyrdom rather than acknowledge.

The lecture includes a discussion of hybridised (or ‘twinned’) deities and the high esteem in which they could be held – Sulis Minerva at Aquae Sulis (Bath), Apollo Maponus (with a major shrine a little beyond Hadrian’s Wall at Lochmaben) and Mars (or possibly Mercury) Nodens, at Lydney, close to the River Severn in the Forest of Dean.

Hutton ends with a rare opportunity to acknowledge a real, named person, Magnius. He is known to have been a Briton, a commoner with some resources. He had a tomb erected at Aquae Sulis for his daughter, who had died aged only eighteen months. A tomb for one so young was very rare, and the poignancy of this act reaches across the centuries to us, connecting humans who, from very different times and cultures, are united by the same capacity to love and to grieve. I found this a good note on which to end a lecture which provides some insight into a subject where much will always be unknown.

(1) https://www.gresham.ac.uk/ (Go to browse by series then lecture series 2022-23 then Finding Britain’s Lost Gods. The specific lecture is Paganism in Roman Britain.)

Ronald Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol, a specialist in Pagan and Druid studies, and enjoys a very high reputation within both the academic and Pagan communities.

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