The Jutes were a Germanic people who are believed to have originated in Jylland (Jutland) in modern Denmark and part of the Frisian coast. The Jutes, along with the Angles, Saxons and Frisians, were amongst the Germanic peoples who sailed across the North Sea to raid and eventually invade England from the late fourth century onwards. According to the Venerable Bede, they ended up settling in Kent, Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight. 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 a commonplace to detect their influences in Kent (e.g., the practice of partible inheritance known as gavelkind), the Jutes in Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight vanished, leaving only the slightest of traces. One recent scholar, Robin Bush, has 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.

It is thought that others remained in their continental homeland, and became the indigenous people of modern Jutland.

Jutes and Geats

Some authorities believe the Jutes are identical with the Geats (the "Jutish hypothesis"), a people who once lived in southern Sweden, such as the OED, which speculatively identifies the Swedish Geats (through Eotas, Iótas, Iútan and Geátas) with the Danish Jutes.

However, in both Widsith and in Beowulf, the two tribes are neatly distinguished. In Beowulf the Jutes appear as the Eotenas in the Finn passage (see the fight at Finnsburg), making them a people distinct 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.

External links

• The Jutes in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight
• Were the West Saxons guilty of ethnic cleansing?