The Ethnology of the British Islands Part 17

_Scandinavian settlements may have taken place as early as the earliest notices of the Picts._

In this case the lines would be--Norway, North Scotland, the Hebrides, Ireland and Galloway.

XII.

_Germanic elements existed in Britain in the reign of Diocletian._

The notices of the Franks in Kent and Middles.e.x suggest this. (_See_ p.

96.)

XIII.

_The Littus Saxonic.u.m must have been ravaged by Germans as early as the reign of Honorius._

This must be admitted even if we construe _Saxonic.u.m_ as _ravaged by Saxons_, rather than _occupied by Saxons_--a construction which is so little natural, that I doubt whether it would ever have been resorted to if the language of Gildas had not been supposed to preclude the notion of any Saxon invasion anterior to A.D. 449. We have seen, however, how little that writer was in the position to make a negative statement, _i.e._, to state, not only that Hengist and Horsa came over in a given year, but that none of their countrymen ever did so in a previous one.

XIV.

_No distinction need be drawn between the Angles and the Saxons of Great Britain on the strength of the difference of name._

This, however, by no means implies that they are to be identified. It merely means that the name goes for but little; and that the difference of origin between the different portions of the Germanic population of Britain is to be determined by the facts of each particular case.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Chapter vii.

[24] Here is one out of the thousand-and-one inconveniences arising from our present philological nomenclature. I am _contrasting_ two languages with each other: yet their _names_ are as like as _Gallic_ and _Gaelic_.

[25] _Sabine_--Sive quod hasta _quiris_ priscis est dicta Sabinis.--_Ovid._

[26] This contravenes an opinion to which I have elsewhere committed myself (_Man and his Migrations_, pp. 161-162). Acting upon the doctrine that Ireland must be considered to have been peopled from the nearest part of the nearest land of a more continental character than itself, unless reason could be shewn to the contrary, I ignored the statement of Beda altogether, and peopled Ireland from the parts about the Mull of Cantyre. The present change of opinion has arisen out of no change in the valuation of Beda's statement. The extent to which the forms in _aber_ are found in Scotland, and the extent to which the name _sliabh_ (with a few others) is wanting, are the real reasons.

CHAPTER XII.

a.n.a.lYSIS OF THE GERMANIC POPULATIONS OF ENGLAND.--THE JUTE ELEMENT QUESTIONABLE.--FRISIAN ELEMENTS PROBABLE.--OTHER GERMAN ELEMENTS, HOW FAR PROBABLE.--FORMS IN -ING.

The present chapter will examine the extent to which certain Germanic populations mentioned by Beda and other writers as having taken part in the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Great Britain actually did so; it will also inquire whether certain other populations _not_ so mentioned may not, nevertheless, have joined in those invasions, although their share in them has been unrecorded.

_The Jutes._--Did Jutes, rather than Angles or any other allied population, effect the conquest and occupancy of parts of Hamps.h.i.+re and the Isle of Wight as they are said to have done?

Let us suppose the case of an American archaeologist, in the absence of any authentic history, reasoning about the origin of the three populations of Plymouth, New Jersey, and Portsmouth, three populations lying within no great distance of each other. He knows that, as a general rule, they are to be deduced from England; and he studies the map of England accordingly. On the south-coast he finds a Jersey, which he reasonably infers is the _Old_ Jersey, the mother-country of the Americans of the _New_. He also finds a Plymouth, from which he draws the same equally reasonable inference. Lastly, he sees a town named Portsmouth--and here he repeats his reasoning--reasoning which is eminently logical, cogent, and apparently conclusive. It pa.s.ses without challenge or objection, and the origin of the three populations gradually loses its inferential character, and a.s.sumes that of a fact founded upon evidence. A writer who adopts his views, perhaps the very writer himself, more or less unconsciously, next believes that his doctrine has an historical rather than a logical basis, and it pa.s.ses for a fact founded upon records, or at least on tradition. In such a case a sentence like the following might easily be written--"they"

(viz., the populations of New Jersey, Plymouth, and Portsmouth) "came from three of the more powerful populations of England, _i.e._, those of Jersey, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. From those of Jersey came the men of New Jersey, from those of Plymouth the men of Plymouth, and from those of Portsmouth the men of the parts so-called." I say that such a sentence might be written, might pa.s.s as a fact, and whether fact or not, would contain an argument so legitimate as to stand against nine hundred and ninety-nine objections out of a thousand. Yet the thousandth might set it aside, since certain facts might have been overlooked.

What if the name of an original Indian tribe had been Jersey (or some name like it), or Portsmouth, or Plymouth? The chances, I admit, are against such an occurrence. But what if it really happened? It cannot be denied that it would materially shake the inference. Nay more, however much that inference took the guise of a tradition or record, it would shake the statement of the author who made it, however unexceptionable.

Still the doctrine might be correct, and not only correct, but capable of having its correctness demonstrated. Let the name in question be the one last mentioned--New Jersey. Let the Old Jersey people of England be like those of Plymouth, but different from them in some definite characteristics. Let those characteristics re-appear in the New Jersey men of America. In such a case, the exceptions taken to the statement from the present existence of an aboriginal Indian population called _Nujersi_ (for such we will suppose the name to be) would fall to the ground.

But what if no ethnological acuteness, no etymological sagacity, no minute a.n.a.lysis of names, traditions, or dialect had ever succeeded in detecting such _differentiae_, so that, despite of the endeavours of learned antiquarians, the men of New Jersey could not be shewn to differ from those of Plymouth and Portsmouth, whilst all the while the _Old_ Jersey men did so differ. In such a case the objection that was originally taken from the previous name of the Indian tribe would stand valid.

_Mutatis mutandis_, this applies to Beda's statement concerning the Jutes--the statement being as follows:--"Advenerant autem de tribus Germaniae populis fortioribus, id est _Saxonibus_, _Anglis_, _Jutis_. De _Jutarum_ origine sunt _Cantuarii_ et _Vectuarii_, hoc est ea gens, quae Vectam tenet insulam, et ea, quae usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium Saxonum _Jutarum_ natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam.

De _Saxonibus_, id est ea regione, quae nunc antiquorum Saxonum cognominatur, venere _Orientales Saxones_, _Meridiani Saxones_, _Occidui Saxones_. Porro de _Anglis_, hoc est de illa patria, quae Angulus dicitur et ab eo tempore usque hodie manere desertus inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur, _Orientales Angli_, _Mediterranei Angli_, _Mercii_, tota _Nordhumbrorum_ progenies, id est illarum gentium, quae ad boream Humbri fluminis inhabitant, ceterique Anglorum populi sunt orti."--Beda 1, 15.

Angles, Saxons, and Jutes occurred within comparatively narrow limits in Great Britain, and, within equally narrow limits, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes occurred in Northern Germany and Denmark.

The Angles of England undoubtedly came from Germany; so did the Saxons.

But did the _Jutes_? Let us look to the different forms their name took; and also to those of that of the Jutes of Jutland; and, when we have seen that occasionally they both took the same, let us ask whether the objection which has just been suggested against the supposed American speculations do not apply to the real English one.

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_-colae. 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 a.s.sertion:--

1

Of Jotum comon Cantware and Of Jutes came the Kent-people, Wihtware, aet is seo maeia, e nu and the Wiht-people, that is the earde on Wiht, and that cynn on race which now dwells in Wiht, West-s.e.xum e man gyt haet and that tribe amongst the Jutnacynn. West-Saxons which is yet called the Jute tribe.

2

Comon di of rym folc.u.m a Came they of three folk the strangestan Germaniae; aet of strongest of Germany; that of the Seaxum, and of Angle, and of Saxons, and of Angle, and of the Geatum; of Geatum fruman sindon Geats. Of the Geats originally Cant-waere and Wiht-saetan, aet is are the Kent-people and the seo eod se Wiht at ealond on Wiht-settlers, that is the people earda. 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 a.s.ser, who says that Alfred's mother "Osburg nominabatur, religiosa nimium faemina, n.o.bilis ingenio, n.o.bilis et genere; quae erat filia Oslac--qui Oslac Gothus erat natione, ortus enim erat de Gothis et Jutis; de semine scilicit Stuf et Wihtgar--qui accepta potestate Vectis Insulae--paucos Britannos, ejusdem insulae accolas, quos in ea invenire potuerant, in loco qui dicitur _Gwitigaraburgh_ occiderunt, caeteri enim accolae ejusdem insulae ante sunt occisi aut exules aufugerant."--a.s.serius, _De Gestis Alfredi Regis_.

So that Gwit-_garaburg_ is now _Caris-brook_, and _Caris-brook_ in the time of Stuf and Wihtgar, was the last stronghold of the _Gwitae_, _Vitae_, _Vecticolae_ or _Vectienses_, who were simply Britons confounded with _Jut-ae_.

Who then were the _Jutnacyn_, who lived in Hamps.h.i.+re, 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 a.s.ser, 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_.

I do not profess to say why there was the double form _Vit_, and _Jut_--nor should I have identified them myself. It is not I who have done this, but Beda and Alfred; as must be admitted by any one who cannot shew a difference between the _Wiht-ware_ and the _Jutna-cyn_--both authors deriving each from the _Jutes_.

Neither can I say how _Jutland_ came to be called _Vit-land_; I can only say that the change is no _a.s.sumption_. In a doc.u.ment of A.D. 952 we find it so called--Dania Cismarina quam _Vitland_ appellant.--_See_ Zeuss in _v_.

As stated above, all this falls to the ground if any separate substantive reasons for considering the _Wiht-ware_ to be _Jutlanders_ can be shewn. But such are wanting. If either they or the Jutnacyn of the opposite coast of Hants were Danes in the time of Alfred and Beda, where were the signs of their origin? Not in their language; since no mention is made of the Danish in Beda's list of British tongues. Not in the names of geographical localities. Neither -_ware_, nor -_burgh_, (in _Gwith -wara -burg_) are Danish terms. Where are such signs now? The Danish termination for towns and villages is -_by_. There is no such ending in either Hamps.h.i.+re or the Isle of Wight.

Did Jutes rather than Angles or any other allied population effect the conquest and occupancy of Kent, as they are said to have done?

It is only the Jute origin of the _Jutnacyn_ or _Wihtware_ of Hants that the preceding reasoning impugns. The Jute origin of the Cantware, or people of Kent, is a separate question.

I only suspect error here: the reasons for doing so being partly of a positive, partly of a negative nature:--

1. As far as traditions are worth anything, they make Hengist a _Frisian_ hero.

2. No name of any Kentish King is Danish.