Jutland peninsula
The
Jutes,
Iuti, or
Iutae were a
Germanic
people who, according to
Bede, were one of
the three most powerful
Germanic
peoples of their time.
They are believed to have originated from
Jutland (called Iutum in Latin) in modern Denmark
, Southern Schleswig (South Jutland) and part of the East Frisian coast.
Bede places the homeland of the Jutes on the other side
of the Angles relative to the Saxons, which would mean the northern part of the
Jutland
Peninsula
.
Tacitus portrays a people called the
Eudoses living in the north of Jutland and these
may have been the later Iutae. The Jutes have also been identified
with the
Eotenas (
ēotenas) involved in
the Frisian conflict with the
Danes as described in the
Finnesburg episode in the poem
Beowulf (lines 1068–1159). Others
have interpreted the
ēotenas as
jotuns ("ettins"
in English), meaning giants, or as a
kenning
for "enemies".
Disagreeing with Bede, some historians identify the Jutes with
people called the
Eucii (or
Saxones
Eucii) who were evidently associated with the Saxons and
dependents of the
Franks in 536. The Eucii
may have been identical with an obscure tribe called the
Euthiones and probably associated with the Saxons.
The Euthiones are mentioned in a poem by
Venantius Fortunatus (583) as being
under the suzerainty of
Chilperic I of
the Franks. This identification would agree well with the later
location of the Jutes in Kent, since the area just opposite of Kent
on the European mainland (present-day
Flanders) was part of
Francia. Even if Jutes were present to the south of
the Saxons in the
Rhineland or near the
Frisians, this does not contradict the
possibility that they were migrants from Jutland.
Asser in his Life of Alfred claims that
Alfred's mother, Osburga, was descended from the Jutes of the
Isle of
Wight
, whom he identifies with the Goths. This ancestry, however, is unlikely and
so may be the identification.
Another modern hypothesis (the so-called
"Jutish hypothesis"), accepted by the Oxford English Dictionary,
states that the Jutes are identical with the Geats, a people who once lived in southern Sweden
. In
primary sources the Geats are referred to as
Eotas,
Iótas,
Iútan, and
Geátas. However, in
both
Widsith and
Beowulf,
the
Eotenas in the
Finn
passage are neatly distinguished from the
Geatas. It may
be that the two tribal names happened to be confused, which has
happened, for example, in the sources about the death of the
Swedish king
Östen.
It is possible that
the Jutes are a related people to the Geats and a Gothic people as
it is mentioned in the Gutasaga
that some inhabitants of Gotland
left for
mainland Europe (the Wielbark site in Poland is evidence of a
Scandinavian migration).
The Jutes,
along with some Angles, Saxons and Frisians, sailed
across the North
Sea
to raid and eventually invade Great Britain
from the late 4th
century onwards, either displacing, absorbing, or destroying
the native Celtic peoples there.
According
to Bede, they finally settled in Kent
(where they
became known as the Cantuarii), Hampshire (in Wessex
), and the
Isle of
Wight (where they became known as the
Uictuarii). There are a number of toponyms that attest to the presence of the Jutes in
the area, such as Ytene, which Florence of Worcester states was the
contemporary English name for the New Forest
.
Jutish settlements in Britain
c.575CE
While it is commonplace to detect their influences in Kent (for
example, the practice of
partible
inheritance known as
gavelkind), the
Jutes in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight vanished, probably
assimilated to the surrounding Saxons, leaving only the slightest
of traces.
One recent scholar, Robin Bush, even argued
that the Jutes of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight became victims of
a policy of ethnic cleansing by the
West
Saxons
, although this has been the subject of debate
amongst academics, with the counter-claim that only the aristocracy
might have been wiped out. Bede is the only historical
evidence and he clearly implies that this was so, in 686 CE.The
culture of the Jutes of Kent is usually regarded as more advanced
than that of the Saxons or Angles and early on shows signs of
Roman, Frankish, and Christian influence . Funerary evidence
indicates that the pagan practice of cremation ceased relatively
early and jewellery recovered from graves has affinities with
Rhenish styles from the Continent, perhaps suggesting close
commercial connections with Francia. The Jutish king
Ethelbert of Kent married the
Frankish princess
Bertha and
introduced
Christianity into parts of
Britain. He was the only Jutish
Bretwalda.
Notes
can also be known relatives or cousins of the Saxons.
Sources
External links
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search