The Jutes

The History of the Nordic Tribe that Settled in England during the Early Middle Ages

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Colin Fluxman

Over 1,100 years before William the Conqueror became the King of England after the Battle of Hastings, Julius Caesar came, saw, and conquered part of “Britannia”, setting up a Roman province with a puppet king in 54 BCE. In the new province, the Romans eventually constructed a military outpost overlooking a bridge across the River Thames. The new outpost was named Londinium, and it covered just over two dozen acres.

By the second century CE, Londinium was a large Roman city, with tens of thousands of inhabitants using villas, palaces, a forum, temples, and baths. The Roman governor ruled from the city in a basilica that served as the seat of government. What was once a 30-acre outpost now spanned 300 acres and was home to nearly 15,000 people, including Roman soldiers, officials, and foreign merchants. The Romans also built heavy defenses for the city, constructing several forts and the massive London Wall, parts of which are still scattered across the city today. Ancient Roman remains continue to dot London’s landscape today, reminding everyone that almost a millennium before it became the home of royalty, London was already a center of power.

In the late fifth century, Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned and Roman control of the area broke down. Little is known of this period of British history, but soon the Anglo-Saxons - who had been harassing the Saxon Shore as pirates - showed up and began to settle the land, creating a patchwork of little kingdoms and starting a new era of British history. Several early medieval historians, writing well after the events, said the Anglo-Saxons were invited to Britain to defend the region from the northern tribes and ended up taking over.

Naturally, when the history of medieval England is discussed, the Angles and Saxons are usually mentioned first. After all, the name “England” does mean “land of the Angles” and the English language is derived from the ancient Germanic language the Angles spoke. The Saxons are also usually mentioned since they became the dominant tribe in England by the ninth century, incorporating the Angles into their new version of Britain. The ancient Britons, who were a Celtic people, are often mentioned, as are the Scots-Irish and the Picts who lived in what is today Scotland. Thus, the Jutes are overlooked among the early inhabitants of Britain, though not for any lack of accomplishments or influence on their part. The Jutes first came to England in a wave of migration with the Angles and Saxons in the fifth century and established one of the earliest Germanic kingdoms on the island. The Jutes also played a major role in Britain’s adoption of Christianity and the island’s evolution from one of many warring tribes and kingdoms to being a unified kingdom that provided the foundation for the medieval and modern British nation-state.

Once the Jutes landed in England, they immediately distinguished themselves from the Angles and Saxons by carving out kingdoms in the regions of Kent and the Isle of Wight. From these two locations, the Jutes not only carried on many of their pre-migration cultural traditions but also adopted some of the new, unifying European traditions, particularly Christianity. The Jutes did not accept Christianity overnight, and even after accepting the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, they continued to lead warrior lifestyles, but they nonetheless became major defenders of the Catholic faith and the most holy site in Christian England, Canterbury, was located in the Kingdom of Kent. Eventually the Kingdom of Kent was overwhelmed by the more powerful Saxon kingdoms, but even centuries later the powerful Saxon king, Alfred the Great, recognized the glory of the Jutes’ history and thus knew that claiming their genealogy was a powerful propaganda tool.

©2021 Charles River Editors (P)2021 Charles River Editors

Nice roundup

The Jutes are still a mystery but this brings together what’s available to us nicely. The narrator has a voice similar to that of Professor Tim Wilson.