What were the Jutes of Germany? At present they are the natives of Jutland, and their language is Danish rather than German. Neither is there reason to suppose that during the third and fourth centuries it was otherwise. s. 18. This last circumstance detracts from the likelihood of the _fact_; since in no part of Kent, Sussex, Hants, nor even in the Isle of Wight--a likely place for a language to remain unchanged--have any traces of the old Jute been found. s. 19. On the other hand the fact of Jutes, _even though Danes_, being members of a Germanic confederation is not only probable, but such was actually the case; at least for continental wars--_subactis, cum Saxonibus, Euciis_ (Eutiis), _qui se nobis_ (_i.e._, the Franks), _propri[^a] voluntate tradiderunt ... usque in Oceani littoribus dominio nostro porrigitur_.--Theodebert to the Emperor Justinian.-- "Quem _Geta_, Vasco tremunt, Danus, Eutheo,[1] Saxo, Britannus, Cum patre quos acie te domitasse patet." Venantius Fortunatus ad Chilpericum regem.[2] s. 20. _Inference._--Of the three following views--(1.) that the Jutes of Jutland in the fourth and fifth centuries spoke Saxon; (2.) that they spoke Danish at home, but lost their language after three or four centuries' residence in England; and (3.) that a later historian was induced by the similarity between the term _Wiht-saetan_, as applied to the _people of the Isle of Wight_, and _Wit-land_, as applied to _Jutland_, combined with the real probability of the fact supposed, to assume a Jute origin for the Saxons of the parts in question, the third is, in the mind of the present writer, the most probable. s. 21. It has already been stated that concerning the Angles and Saxons, no reasonable man will put the question which was put in respect to the Jutes, _viz._, had they any real place among the Germanic invaders of England? Respecting, however, their relations to each other, and their respective geographical localities whilst occupants of Germany, anterior to {13} their immigration into Britain, there is much that requires investigation. What were the Saxons of Germany--what the Angles? s. 22. _Difficulties respecting the identification of the Saxons._--There are two senses of the word _Saxon_, one of which causes difficulty by being too limited; the other by being too wide. _a._ _The limited sense of the word Saxon._--This is what we get from Ptolemy, the first author who names the Saxons, and who gives them a limited locality at the mouth of the Elbe, bounded by the Sigulones, the Sabalingi, the Kobandi, the Chali, the Phundusii, the Harudes, and other tribes of the Cimbric Peninsula, of which the Saxons just occupied the neck, and three small islands opposite--probably Fohr, Sylt, and Nordstand. Now a sense of the word _Saxon_ thus limited, would restrict the joint conquerors of Britain to the small area comprized between the Elbe and Eyder, of which they do not seem even to have held the whole.