Jutish Settlement of the Island

c. 530 AD

After the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the early fifth century, the Isle of Wight was settled by Jutes, a Germanic people from the Jutland peninsula in modern Denmark. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the island was conquered by the West Saxons in 530 AD, but the Jutes maintained a distinct cultural identity. The island was one of the last parts of England to hold out against Saxon expansion, and Jutish customs, language and social structures persisted for longer here than on the mainland. Archaeological finds of Jutish metalwork and burial customs on the island confirm the literary evidence. The Jutes gave the island many of its earliest English place names and established the farming settlements that would develop into the island's medieval villages.