Jutes

Jutes were a Germanic people who inhabited the Jutland peninsula and nearby islands in what is now Denmark during late antiquity and the early medieval period. Along with the Angles and Saxons, they migrated to Britain in the 5th century, during the wider Germanic settlement of the island after the end of Roman rule.

Contemporary sources describe Jutish presence in Britain as contributing to the formation of several early English kingdoms, most notably the Kingdom of Kent, and to settlements on the Isle of Wight. In England, their arrival is associated with the south-eastern coastal regions and with communities that later became part of various early medieval polities.

The Jutish language belonged to the West Germanic family and is known mainly from toponyms and later descriptions; their material culture shows affinities with other early Anglo-Saxon communities. Archaeological and textual evidence from the period highlights a shared cultural framework among West Germanic settlers in southern England, though precise ethnolinguistic boundaries are difficult to establish.

Over time, Jutish identity was absorbed into a broader Anglo-Saxon culture, and by the 8th or 9th centuries the Jutes had ceased to exist as a distinct ethnolinguistic group. In England, they left a legacy in place-names and in the political geography of early medieval Kent and its neighboring regions.

Disambiguation: The term Jutes for the people is distinct from jute, the plant fiber, which is unrelated to the ethnogenesis described here.