Jutland Peninsula

Jutland (Danish, Jylland; German, Juetland). The Jutland Peninsula stretches north from the continent of Europe from between (roughly) Hamburg and Bremen. Much of the peninsula is occupied by the country of Denmark. The southern portion is made up of the German Bundesland of Schleswig-Holstein, possession of which has passed back and forth between the Danes and various German rulers, with Denmark most recently reclaiming a portion of Schleswig by plebiscite after World War I.

Jutland in History

Some Angles, Saxons and Jutes moved from continental Europe to Britain starting in c. 450 AD; this is thought by some to be related to the drive of the of Huns from Asia across Europe, although the arrival of the Danes would more likely have been a major contributory factor, since conflicts between the Danes and the Jutes were both many and bloody. In time, however, these hostilities were decreased by intermarriage between Jutes and Danes.

The Danes took considerable steps to protect themselves from the depredations of the Christian Frankish emperors, principally with the buiilding of the Danewerk, a wall stretching from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea.

Charlemagne removed pagan Saxons from east Jutland at the Baltic Sea - the later Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg areas - and moved Abodrites, Obotrites (Wendish Slavs), who pledged allegiance to Charlemagne, and who had for the most part converted to Christianity, into the area instead.

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