 The Druidic movement originated among the Romanticist ideas of the ancient druids that had begun to be developed in the 17th and 18th centuries.While many Early Mediaeval writers, particularly in Ireland, had demonised the ancient druids as barbarians who had practiced human sacrifice and tried to suppress the coming of Christianity, certain Late Mediaeval writers had begun to extol what they believed were the virtues of the druids, and reinvented them as national heroes, particularly in Germany, France and Scotland.It was also during this period that Conrad Celtis had begun to propagate the image of the druids as having been bearded, wise old men wearing white robes, something that would prove highly influential in future centuries.