[§ 7]. Now, it is by no means certain that this was the case. On the contrary, good reasons can be given for believing that the Angles and Saxons were the same people, and that no such nation as the Jutes ever left Germany to settle in Great Britain.
[§ 8]. The chief authority for the division of the German invaders into the three nations just mentioned is Beda; and the chief text is the following extract from his "Ecclesiastical History." It requires particular attention, and will form the basis of much criticism, and frequently be referred to.
"Advenerunt autem de tribus Germaniæ populis fortioribus, id est Saxonibus, Anglis, Jutis. De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuarii, et Victuarii, hoc est ea gens quæ Vectam tenet insulam et ea quæ usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam. De
Saxonibus, id est, ea regione quæ nunc Antiquorum Saxonum cognominatur, venere Orientales Saxones, Meridiani Saxones, Occidui Saxones. Porro de Anglis hoc est de illa patria quæ Angulus dicitur, et ab illo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur, Orientales Angli, Mediterranei Angli, Merci, tota Northanhymbrorum progenies, id est illarum gentium quæ ad Boream Humbri fluminis inhabitant, cæterique Anglorum populi sunt orti"—"Historia Ecclesiastica," i. 15.
[§ 9]. This was written about A.D. 731, 131 years after the introduction of Christianity, and nearly 300 after the supposed landing of Hengist and Horsa in A.D. 449.
It is the first passage which contains the names of either the Angles or the Jutes. Gildas, who wrote more than 150 years earlier, mentions only the Saxons—"ferocissimi illi nefandi nominis Saxones."
It is, also, the passage which all subsequent writers have either translated or adopted. Thus it re-appears in Alfred, and again in the Saxon Chronicle.[[10]]
| "Of Jotum comon Cantware and Wihtware, þæt is seo mæiað þe nú eardaþ on Wiht, and þæt cynn on West-Sexum ðe man gyt hæt Iútnacyun. Of Eald-Seaxum comon Eást-Seaxan, and Suð-Seaxan and West-Seaxan. Of Angle comon (se á siððan stód westig betwix Iútum and Seaxum) Eást-Engle, Middel-Angle, Mearce, and ealle Norðymbra." | From the Jutes came the inhabitants of Kent and of Wight, that is, the race that now dwells in Wight, and that tribe amongst the West-Saxons which is yet called the Jute tribe. From the Old-Saxons came the East-Saxons, and South-Saxons, and West-Saxons. From the Angles, land (which has since always stood waste betwixt the Jutes and Saxons) came the East-Angles, Middle-Angles, Mercians, and all the Northumbrians. |
[§ 10]. A portion of these extracts will now be submitted to criticism; that portion being the statement concerning the Jutes.