time of the Norman Conquest, but the name continued to be understood till the early twelfth century at least. For Florence of Worcester records that William Rufus was slain in Noua Foresta quae lingua Anglorum Ytene nuncupatur; and in another place he speaks of the same event as happening in prouincia Jutarum in Noua Foresta[[676]], which shows that Florence understood that "Ytene" was Ȳtena land, "the province of the Jutes."
It comes, then, to this. The "Jute-hypothesis" postulates not only that, at the time Beowulf was composed, Gēatas had come to mean "Jutes," but also that it had so completely ousted the correct old name Īuti, Īote, Ēote, Ȳte, that none of the latter terms are ever used in the poem as synonyms for Beowulf's people[[677]]. Yet all the evidence shows that Īuti etc. was the recognized name when Bede wrote, and we have evidence at intervals showing that it was so understood till four centuries later. But not only was Īuti, Īote never superseded in O.E. times; there is no real evidence that Gēatas was ever generally used to signify "Jutes." The fact that one translator in one passage (writing probably some two centuries after Beowulf was composed) uses "Geata," "Geatum," where he should have used "Eota," "Eotum," does not prove the misnomer to have been general—especially when the same translator subsequently uses the correct form "Eota."
I do not think sufficient importance has been attached to what seems (to me) the vital argument against the "Jute-theory." It is not merely that Gēatas is the exact phonological equivalent of Gautar (Götar) and cannot be equivalent to Bede's Iuti. This difficulty may be got over by the assumption that somehow the Iuti, or some of them, had adopted the name Gēatas: and we are not in a position to disprove such assumption. But the advocates of the "Jute-theory" have further to assume that, at the date when Beowulf was written, the correct name Iuti (Northumbrian Īote, Mercian Ēote, West-Saxon Ȳte) must have so passed into disuse that it could not be once used as a
synonym for Beowulf's people, by our synonym-hunting poet. And this assumption we are in a position to disprove.
The Jute-theory would therefore still be untenable on the ground of the name, even though it were laboriously proved that, from the historical and geographical standpoint, there was more to be said for it than had hitherto been recognized. But even this has not been proved: quite the reverse. As I have tried to show above, historical and geographical considerations, though in themselves not absolutely conclusive, point emphatically to an identification with the Götar, rather than with the Jutes[[678]].
The relations of Beowulf and the Geatas with the kings of Denmark and of Sweden are the constant topic of the poem. Now the land of the Götar was situated between Denmark and Sweden. But if the Geatas be Jutes, their neighbours were the Danes on the east and the Angles on the south; farther away, across the Cattegat lay the Götar, and beyond these the Swedes. If the Geatas be Jutes, why should their immediate neighbours, the Angles, never appear in Beowulf as having any dealings with them? And why, above all, should the Götar never be mentioned, whilst the Swedes, far to the north, play so large a part? Even if Swedes and Götar had at this time been under one king, the Götar could not have been thus ignored, seeing that, owing to their position, the brunt of the fighting must have fallen on them[[679]]. But we know that the Götar were independent. The strictly contemporary evidence of Procopius shows quite conclusively that they were one of the strongest of the Scandinavian kingdoms[[680]]. How then could warfare be carried on for three generations between Jutes and Swedes without concerning the Götar, whose territory lay in between?
Again, in the "Catalogue of Kings" in Widsith, the Swedes are named with their famous king Ongentheow. The Jutes (Ȳte) are also mentioned, with their king. And their king is
not Hrethel, Hæthcyn, Hygelac or Heardred, but a certain Gefwulf, whose name does not even alliterate with that of any known king of the Geatas[[681]].
Again, in the (certainly very early) Book on Monsters, Hygelac is described as Huiglaucus qui imperavit Getis. Now Getis can mean Götar[[682]], but can hardly mean Jutes.
The geographical case against the identification of Geatas and Götar depends upon the assumption that the western sea-coast of the Götar in ancient times must have coincided with that of West Gothland (Vestra-Götland) in mediæval and modern times. Now as this coast consists merely of a small strip south of the river Götaelv, it is argued that the Götar could not be the maritime Geatas of Beowulf, capable of undertaking a Viking raid to the mouth of the Rhine. But the assumption that the frontiers of the Götar about A.D. 500 were the same as they were a thousand years later, is not only improbable on a priori grounds, but, as Schück has shown[[683]], can be definitely disproved. Adam of Bremen, writing in the eleventh century, speaks of the river Gothelba (Götaelv) as running through the midst of the peoples of the Götar. And the obvious connection between the name of the river and the name of the people seems to make it certain that Adam is right, and that the original Götar must have dwelt around the river Götaelv. But, if so, then they were a maritime folk: for the river Götaelv is merely the outlet which connects Lake Wener with the sea, running a course almost parallel with the shore and nowhere very distant from it[[684]]. But even when Adam wrote, the