Chapter 68

GERMANIC ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.--THE GERMANIC AREA OF THE PARTICULAR GERMANS WHO INTRODUCED IT.--EXTRACT FROM BEDA.

§ 6. Out of the numerous tribes and nations of Germany, _three_ have been more especially mentioned as the chief, if not the exclusive, sources of the present English population of Great Britain. These are the _Jutes_, the _Saxons_, and the _Angles_.

§ 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_.

The words _usque hodie--Jutarum natio nominatur_ constitute contemporary and unexceptionable evidence to the existence of a people with a name like that of the _Jutes_ in the time of Beda--or A.D. 731.

The exact name is not so certain. The term _Jutnacyn_ from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is in favour of the notion that it began with the sounds of j and u, in other words that it was _Jut_.

But the term _Geatum_, which we find in Alfred, favours the form in g followed by ea.

Thirdly, the forms _Wihtware_, and _Wihttan_, suggest the likelihood of the name being _Wiht_.

Lastly, there is a passage in Asserius[11] which gives us the form _Gwith_--"Mater" (of Alfred the Great) "quoque ejusdem Osburgh nominabatur, religiosa nimium foemina, nobilis ingenio, nobilis et genere; quæ erat filia Oslac famosi pincernæ Æthelwulf regis; qui Oslac Gothus erat natione, ortus enim erat de Gothis et Jutis; de semine scilicet Stuf et Wihtgur, duorum fratrum et etiam comitum, qui acceptâ potestate Vectis insulæ ab avunculo suo Cerdic rege et Cynric filio suo, consobrino eorum, paucos Britones ejusdem insulæ accolas, quos in eâ invenire potuerant, in loco qui dicitur, _Gwithgaraburgh_ occiderunt, cæteri enim accolæ ejusdem insulæ ante sunt occisi aut exules aufugerant."--Asserius, "De Gestis Alfredi Regis."

Now, _Gwith-gara-burgh_ means the _burg_ or _town of_ the _With-ware_;[12] these being, undoubtedly, no Germans at all, but the native Britons of the Isle of Wight (Vectis), whose designation in Latin would be _Vecticolæ_ or _Vectienses_.

This being the case, how can they be descended from German or Danish _Jutes_? and how can we reconcile the statement of Beda with that of Asser?

§ 11. The answer to this will be given after another fact has been considered.

Precisely the same confusion between the sounds of w, j, g, io, eæ, u, and i, which occurs with the so-called _Jutes_ of the Isle of Wight, occurs with the Jutlanders of the peninsula of Jutland. The common forms are _Jutland_, _Jute_, _Jutones_, and _Jutenses_, but they are not the only ones. In A.D. 952, we find "Dania cismarina quam _Vitland_ incolæ appellant."--"Annales Saxonici."[13]

§ 12. Putting these facts together I adopt the evidence of Asser as to the _Gwithware_ being British, and consider them as simple _Vecti-colæ_, or inhabitants of the Isle of _Wight_. They are also the _Vectuarii_ of Beda, the _Wihtware_ of the Saxon Chronicle, and the _Wihtsætan_ of Alfred.

The Jutes of Hampshire--i.e., the "Jutarum natio--posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam," and the _Jutnacyn_, I consider to have been the same; except that they had left the Isle of Wight to settle on the opposite coast; probably flying before their German conquerors, in which case they would be the _exules_ of Asser.

The statement of Beda, so opposed to that of Asser, I explain by supposing that it arose out of an inaccurate inference drawn from the similarity of the names of the Isle of Wight and the peninsula of Jutland, since we have seen that in both cases, there was a similar confusion between the syllables Jut- and Vit-. This is an error into which even a careful writer might fall. That Beda had no authentic historical accounts of the conquest of Britain, we know from his own statements in the Preface to his Ecclesiastical History,[14] and that he partially tried to make up for the want of them by inference is exceedingly likely. If so, what would be more natural than for him to conclude that Jutes as well as Angles helped to subdue the country. The fact itself was probable; besides which he saw at one and the same time, in England _Vitæ_ (called also _Jutæ_), in immediate contact with _Saxons_,[26] and on the continent _Jutæ_ (called also _Vitæ_) in the neighborhood of Angles[27] and Saxons. Is it surprising that he should connect them?

§ 13. If the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight were really _Jutes_ from _Jutland_, it is strange that there should be no traces of the difference which existed, then as now, between them and the proper Anglo-Saxons--a difference which was neither inconsiderable nor of a fleeting nature.

The present Jutlanders are not Germans but Danes, and the Jutes of the time of Beda were most probably the same. Those of the 11th century were _certainly_ so, "Primi ad ostium Baltici Sinus in australi ripa versus nos _Dani, quos Juthas appellant_, usque ad Sliam lacum habitant." Adamus Bremensis,[15] "De Situ Daniæ" c. 221. Also, "Et prima pars Daniæ, quæ Jutland dicitur, ad Egdoram[28] in Boream longitudine pretenditur ... in eum angulum qui Windila dicitur, ubi Jutland finem habet," c. 208.

At the time of Beda they must, according to the received traditions, have been nearly 300 years in possession of the Isle of Wight, a locality as favourable for the preservation of their peculiar manners and customs as any in Great Britain, and a locality wherein we have no evidence of their ever having been disturbed. Nevertheless, neither trace nor shadow of a trace, either in early or modern times, has ever been discovered of their separate nationality and language; a fact which stands in remarkable contrast with the very numerous traces which the Danes of the 9th and 10th century left behind them as evidence of their occupancy.

§ 14. The words _England_ and _English_ are derived from the _Angles_ of Beda. The words _Sussex_, _Essex_, _Middlesex_ and _Wessex_, from his _Saxons_. No objection lies against this; indeed to deny that populations called _Angle_ and _Saxon_ occupied _England_ and spoke the _Anglo-Saxon_ language would display an unnecessary and unhealthy scepticism. The real question concerning these two words consists in the relation which the populations to which they were applied bore to each other. And this question is a difficult one. Did the Angles speak one language, whilst the Saxons spoke another? or did they both speak dialects of the same tongue? Were these dialects slightly or widely different? Can we find traces of the difference in any of the present provincial dialects? Are the idioms of one country of Angle, whilst those of another are of Saxon origin? Was the Angle more like the Danish language, whilst the Saxon approached the Dutch? None of these questions can be answered at present. They have, however, been asked for the sake of exhibiting the nature of the subject.

§ 15. The extract from Beda requires further remarks.

_The Angles of Beda._--The statement of Beda respecting the Angles, like his statement concerning the Jutes, reappears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and in Alfred.

Ethelweard[16] also adopts it:--"_Anglia vetus_ sita est inter Saxones et Giotos, habens oppidum capitale quod sermone Saxonico _Sleswic_ nuncupatur, secundum vero Danos _Hathaby_."

Nevertheless, it is exceptionable and unsatisfactory; and like the previous one, in all probability, an incorrect inference founded upon the misinterpretation of a name.

In the eighth century there _was_, and at the present moment there _is_, a portion of the duchy of Sleswick called _Anglen_ or _the corner_. It is really what its name denotes, a triangle of irregular shape, formed by the Slie, the firth of Flensborg, and a line drawn from Flensborg to Sleswick. It is just as Danish as the rest of the peninsula, and cannot be shown to have been occupied by a Germanic population at all. Its area is less than that of the county of Rutland, and by no means likely to have supplied such a population as that of the Angles of England. The fact of its being a desert at the time of Beda is credible; since it formed a sort of _March_ or _Debatable Ground_ between the Saxons and Slavonians of Holstein, and the Danes of Jutland.

Now if we suppose that the real Angles of Germany were either so reduced in numbers as to have become an obscure tribe, or so incorporated with other populations as to have lost their independent existence, we can easily see how the similarity of name, combined with the geographical contiguity of Anglen to the Saxon frontier, might mislead even so good a writer as Beda, into the notion that he had found the country of the _Angles_ in the _Angulus_ (Anglen) of Sleswick.

The true _Angles_ were the descendants of the _Angli_ of Tacitus. Who these were will be investigated in §§ 47-54.

§ 16. _The Saxons of Beda._--The Saxons of Beda reached from the country of the Old Saxons[29] on the Lippe, in Westphalia, to that of the Nordalbingian[30] Saxons between the Elbe and Eyder; and nearly, but not quite, coincided with the present countries of Hanover, Oldenburg, Westphalia, and part of Holstein. This we may call the _Saxon_, or (as reasons will be given for considering that it nearly coincided with the country of the Angles) the _Anglo-Saxon_ area.

§ 17. _River-system and sea-board of the Anglo-Saxon area._--As the invasion of England took place by sea, we must expect to find in the invaders a maritime population. This leads to the consideration of the physical character of that part of Germany which they occupied. And here comes a remarkable and unexpected fact. The line of coast between the Rhine and Elbe, the line which in reasoning _a priori_, we should fix upon as the most likely tract for the bold seamen who wrested so large an island as Great Britain from its original occupants (changing it from _Britain_ to _England_), to have proceeded from, is _not_ the country of the Anglo-Saxons. On the contrary, it is the country of a similar but different section of the Germanic population, a section which has not received the attention from the English historian which it deserves. The country in question is the area of--

§ 18. _The Frisians._--At the present moment the language of the Dutch province of Friesland is materially different from that of the other parts of the kingdom of Holland. In other words it is not Dutch. Neither is it German--although, of course, it resembles both languages. On the other hand, it is more like the English than any other language or dialect in Germany is.

It is a language of considerable antiquity, and although at present it is spoken by the country-people only, it possesses a considerable literature. There is the _Middle_ Frisian of Gysbert Japicx,[17] and the _Old_ Frisian of the Frisian Laws.[18] The older the specimen of the Frisian language the more closely does it show its affinity to the English; hence the earliest Frisian and the Anglo-Saxon are exceedingly alike. Nevertheless they differ.

§ 19. The Frisian was once spoken over a far greater area than at present. It was the original language of almost all Holland. It was the language of East Friesland to a late period. It was, probably, the language of the ancient Chauci. At the present time (besides Friesland) it survives in Heligoland, in the islands between the Ems and Weser, in part of Sleswick, and in a few localities in Oldenburg and Westphalia.

Hence it is probable that the original Frisian, extending to an uncertain and irregular distance inland, lay between the Saxons and the sea, and stretched from the Zuyder Zee to the Elbe; a fact which would leave to the latter nation the lower Elbe and the Weser as their water-system: the extent to which they were in direct contact with the ocean being less than we are prepared to expect from their subsequent history.

On the other hand the _a priori_ probabilities of there being Frisians as well as Anglo-Saxons amongst the conquerors of Great Britain are considerable.--See §§ 55, 56.

§ 20. The Anglo-Saxon area coincided--

1. _Politically._--With the kingdom of Hanover, the duchy of Oldenburg, and parts of Westphalia and Holstein.

2. _Physically._--With the basin of the Weser.

It was _certainly_ from the Anglo-Saxon, and _probably_ from a part of the Frisian area that Great Britain was first invaded.

This is as much as it is safe to say at present. The preceding chapter investigated the _date_ of the Germanic migration into Britain; the present has determined the _area_ from which it went forth.

* * * * *