The Jutes of England were called Jutna-cyn, or the Jute-kin; their locality was the Isle of Wight, and from that island they were called Wiht-ware, Vect-ienses or Vecti-colæ. Beda himself identifies these two populations, saying that the Vect-uarii (Wiht-ware), "who held the Isle of Wight, were of Jute origin." And, lest this be insufficient, both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Alfred repeat (or rather translate) the assertion:—

1

Of Jotum comon Cantware and Wihtware, þæt is seo mæiað, þe nú eardeþ on Wiht, and that cynn on West-Sexum ðe man gyt hæt Jútnacynn.Of Jutes came the Kent-people, and the Wiht-people, that is the race which now dwells in Wiht, and that tribe amongst the West-Saxons which is yet called the Jute tribe.

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2

Comon di of þrym folcum þa strangestan Germaniæ; þæt of Seaxum, and of Angle, and of Geatum; of Geatum fruman sindon Cant-wære and Wiht-sætan, þæt is seo þeód se Wiht þat ealond on eardað.Came they of three folk the strongest of Germany; that of the Saxons, and of Angle, and of the Geats. Of the Geats originally are the Kent-people and the Wiht-settlers, that is the people which Wiht the Island live on.

Now this name Wiht never came from the Jutes at all; since it existed three hundred years before their supposed advent, as the word Vectis=the Isle of Wight; and was a British, rather than a German, term.

And the Wiht-ware were, partially at least, no Germans but Britons, and as Britons, rather than as Jutlanders, did they stand in contrast with the Saxons of the neighbourhood. The proof of this is in Asser, who says that Alfred's mother "Osburg nominabatur, religiosa nimium fæmina, Nobilis ingenio, nobilis et genere; quæ erat filia Oslac—qui Oslac Gothus erat natione, ortus enim erat de Gothis et Jutis; de semine scilicit Stuf et Wihtgar—qui acceptâ potestate Vectis Insulæ—paucos Britannos, ejusdem insulæ accolas, quos in eâ invenire potuerant, in loco qui dicitur Gwitigaraburgh occiderunt, cæteri enim accolæ ejusdem insulæ ante sunt occisi aut exules aufugerant."—Asserius, De Gestis Alfredi Regis.

So that Gwit-garaburg is now Caris-brook, and[238] Caris-brook in the time of Stuf and Wihtgar, was the last stronghold of the Gwitæ, Vitæ, Vecticolæ or Vectienses, who were simply Britons confounded with Jut-æ.

Who then were the Jutnacyn, who lived in Hampshire, as opposed to those of Carisbrook in the Isle of Wight? I imagine, without pressing the point, or supposing that anything important depends on it, that they were the Exules of Asser, the remnants who escaped from the exterminating swords of Stuf and Wihtgar, in their conquest of the island. That they existed in the time of Beda is true; not however as Danes from Jutland, but as Britons from the land of the Wiht-ware.