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The Jutes, Iuti, or Iutae were a Germanic people who 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. While Bede places the homeland of the Jutes on the other side of the Angles relative to the Saxons, they have nonetheless been identified with people called the Eucii (or Saxones Eucii) who were evidently associated with the Saxons and dependents of the Franks in 536. A map of Tacitus' portrays a people called the Eudoses living in the north of Jutland and these may have been the later Iutae. Still others have preferred the identification 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 giants, as Jotuns ("ogres" in modern English), or as a kenning for "enemies". Yet another possible identification is with the obscure tribe called the Euthiones and probably associated with the Saxons. They are mentioned in a poem by Venantius Fortunatus (583) as being under the suzerainty of Chilperic I of the Franks. Even if Jutes were present to the south of the Saxons in the Rhineland or near the Frisians, this does not omit the possibility that they themselves were migrants from Jutland. 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 the Angles, Saxons, and small number of Frisians, were amongst the Germanic tribes who sailed across the North Sea to raid and eventually invade Great Britain from the late fourth century onwards, either displacing, absorbing, or destroying the native Celtic peoples there. According to Bede, they ended up settling 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. 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. 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 connexions with Francia. The Jutish king Ethelbert of Kent married the Frankish princess Bertha and introduced Catholicism into England. He was the first, and only, Jutish Bretwalda.
Sources
- Stenton, Frank M. Anglo-Saxon England. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
