Jutes

Jutes, the third of the Teutonic nations which invaded Britain in the 5th century, called by Bede Iutae or Iuti (see Britain, Anglo-Saxon). They settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight together with the adjacent parts of Hampshire. In the latter case the national name is said to have survived until Bede’s own time, in the New Forest indeed apparently very much later. In Kent, however, it seems to have soon passed out of use, though there is good reason for believing that the inhabitants of that kingdom were of a different nationality from their neighbours (see Kent, Kingdom of). With regard to the origin of the Jutes, Bede only says that Angulus (Angel) lay between the territories of the Saxons and the Iutae—a statement which points to their identity with the Iuti or Jyder of later times, i.e. the inhabitants of Jutland. Some recent writers have preferred to identify the Jutes with a tribe called Eucii mentioned in a letter from Theodberht to Justinian (Mon. Germ. Hist., Epist. iii., p. 132 seq.) and settled apparently in the neighbourhood of the Franks. But these people may themselves have come from Jutland.

See Bede, Hist. Eccles, i. 15, iv. 16.

(H. M. C.)