Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Kent on the Map of England

Kent (केंट) is a county in South East England, and one of the home counties.

Location

It borders Greater London to the north west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south west. The county also shares borders with Essex along the estuary of the River Thames (connected by land via High Speed 1 and the Dartford Crossing), and with the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. The county town is Maidstone.

Origin

England Celtic tribes of South England, during the pre-roman iron age Britain period 100-1BC.

Cantiaci or Cantii were an Iron Age Celtic people living in Britain before the Roman conquest, and gave their name to a civitas of Roman Britain. They lived in the area now called Kent, in south-eastern England. Their capital was Durovernum Cantiacorum, now Canterbury.

Variants of name

Etymology

The name Kent is believed to be of British Celtic origin and was known in Old English as Cent, Cent lond, Centrice (all pronounced with a hard “C” as “Kent-”). In Latin sources Kent is mentioned as Cantia, Canticum. The meaning is explained by some researchers as "coastal district," or "corner-land, land on the edge" (compare Welsh cant "bordering of a circle, tire, edge," Breton cant "circle").[1][2] If so, the name could be etymologically related to the place-name Cantabria, historically a Celtiberian-speaking coastal region in pre-Roman Iberia, today a province of Spain.

Districts in Kent

Jat clans

History

The area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era. There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley.[3]

The modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word kantos meaning "rim" or "border", or possibly from a homonymous word kanto "horn, hook" (< PIE *kn̥g-tó, cfr. cornwall < cornus "horn"). This describes the eastern part of the current county area as a border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as um, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC.[4] The extreme west of the modern county was by the time of Roman Britain occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses. Caesar wrote that the people of Kent are 'by far the most civilised inhabitants of Britain'[5].

East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century[6] and was known as Cantia from about 730 and recorded as Cent in 835. The early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara, or Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital.[7]

In 597, Pope Gregory I appointed the religious missionary (who became Saint Augustine of Canterbury after his death) as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine successfully converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity. The Diocese of Canterbury became England's first Episcopal See with first cathedral and has since remained England's centre of Christianity.[8] The second designated English cathedral was in Kent at Rochester Cathedral.[9]

In the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning "undefeated" or "unconquered". This naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy. The Kent people's continued resistance against the Normans led to Kent's designation as a semi-autonomous county palatine in 1067. Under the nominal rule of William's half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted similar powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales and Scotland.[10]

Kent was traditionally partitioned into East and West Kent, and into lathes and hundreds. The traditional border of East and West Kent was the county's main river, the Medway. Men and women from east of the Medway are Men (or Maids) of Kent, those from the west are Kentishmen or Kentish Maids.[11]



During the medieval and early modern period, Kent played a major role in several of England's most notable rebellions, including the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, led by Wat Tyler,[12] Jack Cade's Kent rebellion of 1450, and Wyatt's Rebellion of 1554 against Queen Mary I.[12]

Jat History

Kent Kingdom was a Kingdom of Jats in England. The Kingdom of Kent was founded by Jutes in southeast England, one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the so-called Anglo-Saxon heptarchy.

Jwala Sahai[13] writes...Mr. Keene in his Fall of the Mugal Empire says:- "Wherever they (the Jats) are found, they are stout yeomen; able to cultivate their fields and to protect them, and with strong administrative habits of a somewhat republican cast. Within half a century, they have four times tried conclusions with the might of Britain, The Juts of Bharatpur fought Lord Lake with success and Lord Combermere with credit; and their Sikh brethren in the Panjab shook the whole fabric of British India on the Satlaj in 1845 and three years later on the field of Chilianwala. It is interesting to note further that some ethnologists have regarded this fine people as of kin to ancient Getae and to the Goths of Europe by whom not only Jutland but parts of the south-east of England and Spain were overrun and to some extent peopled. It is therefore possible that, yeomen of Kent and Hampshire have blood relation in the natives of Bharatpur and the Panjab."



Its origins are completely obscure, since by its geographical position it received some of the first waves of the invasion by the Germanic tribes, at a time from which almost no historical information has survived. The name "Kent" predates the Jutish invaders, and relates to the much earlier Celtic Cantiaci tribe whose homeland it was.



During the British rule over India, colonizers and scholars noticed to their astonishment that many Jat people had apparently English family names or very similar. Certainly the proud Jats would have never adopted British surnames for their own ancestral clans, and they did not result from intermarriage either. Other foreign powers ruled over the Indus Valley before and for longer periods than England, yet no Jat clan names corresponding to the previous rulers have been found. Besides this, no other Indian people had such names except Jats.

This peculiarity led scholars to research about these Jat-British homonyms: those names in England may be traced back to a Jut origin, mainly Kentish; among the Jats, they exist since the distant past. This appears to be more than a coincidence; Jats and Juts are the same people.

This assertion finds confirmation in historic records, for example, the Roman writer Ammianus Marcellinus, who called all Sarmatian peoples "Alani", wrote: "Alani once were known as the Massagetae. The Alani mount to the eastward, divided into populous and extensive nations; these reach as far as Asia and, as I have heard, stretch all the way to the river Ganges, which flows through the territories of India".

British scholars and also officers compared the Jats' warrior character with that of the Kentish men as well as their traditional laws, for instance, the double heritage part for the youngest son, still practised among Indian Jats. An accurate research about this people which takes account of all the relevant characteristics of their ethnicity reveals that they are among the purest Sarmatic tribes existing today.

The Jats undoubtedly descend from the easternmost branch of the Sarmatian people, the Yazyg of Central Asia, that curiously have the same name of the westernmost branch in the Danubian region: Jász, Jat, Jut.

Mangal Sen Jindal[14] writes...."At this time (A. D. 449) the Jut brothers, Hengist and Horra led a colony for Jutland and founded the Kingdom of Kent (qu. Canthi, 'a coast'. in Sanskrit as in Gothic Kanta ?). The laws they had there introduced more especially the still prevaling one of gavel kind, where an the sons share equally, except the younger who has a double portion, are purely Scythic and brought by the original Goth from the Jaxartes.

Jutes were Yazyg

The Yazyg warriors, introduced as Roman soldiers, are not the only Sarmatian component of the British ethnogenesis. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon peoples that settled in Great Britain and established the foundation of the English nation, consisted also of a third element: the Jutes (or Juts).

There are several reasons to assert that the Jutes were Yazyg - not only by the similarity between the terms Jasi, Jata, etc. and Jut, Jute, which may have only a very relative value, but also because of the Juts' life style and traditions.

Before their arrival in England, the Juts and the Angles were neighbours in the continent: they inhabited respectively in Jutland and Slesvig. Yet, that was not their original homeland; the Juts came from the south and conquered the peninsula that was called Jutland after them. By the end of the fourth century c.e., Sarmatic groups began to move westwards: Alans driven from the Danubian Basin by the Huns, Juts expelled from Jutland by the Danes. Alan tribes settled in the Gaul and some of them went further to Spain and North-Africa, while the Juts crossed the Channel and founded the kingdom of Kent in AD 450.

The Juts, along with the Angles, Saxons and Frisians sailed across the North Sea to raid and eventually invade England from the late fourth century onwards. According to the Venerable Bede, they ended up settling in Kent, Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight. There are a number of toponyms that attest to the presence of the Juts in the area, such as Ytene, which Florence of Worcester states was the contemporary English name for the New Forest.

While it is a commonplace to detect their influences in Kent (e.g., the practice of partible inheritance known as gavelkind), the Juts in Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight vanished, leaving only the slightest of traces. One recent scholar, Robin Bush, has argued that the Juts of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight became victims of a policy of ethnic cleansing by the West Saxons, although this has been the subject of debate amongst academics.

The Jut settlement in Sutheastern England was led by Hengist and Horsa, who became the kings of Kent - the double kingship is a typical feature of the Scytho-Sarmatic peoples. Besides this, the Kentish people were well-known by their warlike character, and they organized their army in a Yazyg/Alan style. Their property succession laws and family rules and those of the Alans were alike, as well as their agriculture techniques and other traditional customs.

A further support to the hypothesis that the Juts were Sarmatians is given by the fact that many Kentish family names are identical to clan names of Scytho-Sarmatic origin found in Jats in India.

Are the people of Kent Jats from Jutland

Hukum Singh Panwar writes that The theory of The Scythic origin of the Jats[15], though considered "fanciful", yet. "cast a mighty magic upon several generations of scholars 11a," So much so, that when, after the annexation of Panjab, Maharaja Dalip Singh was deported to England, his friend, Col. Sleeman, a former political officer-wrote to the Maharaja that he (Dalip Singh), being a Jat, was going to live among his own people in Kent who are also Jats from Jutland12. That the people of Kent are Jats from Jutland is also asserted by Tod when he says that "The Jut brothers Hengist and Horsa, led a colony from Jutland and founded the Kingdom of Kent (Canthi 'a coaste' in Sanskrit as Kontha in Gothic and Kantha in Jatu dialects). The laws they there introduced, more especially the still prevailing one of gavel kind (were alone the sons share equally the ancestral property like the Jats of Haryana & Panjab), are purely Scythic13". Does not the customary law of the British and Indian Jats remind us of its primary enforcement by their fore-most alleged forefather, Yayati (infra) who divided his kingdom equally among his five supposed sons? Stamped with the hall-mark of approval of the most eminent British scholars and their Indian followers, the theory rapidly gained popularity throughout the. country, especially with the Jats; and the principle of the similarity of the sound of the names of people, though separated by time and space, seems to have been accepted by all, including Waddell, as valid ground for determining a common origin of these people, Waddell, in addition, suports it on archaeological and numismatical grounds.

ब्रिटेन पर जूट्स, सेक्सन्स एंगल्स की विजय (410 ई० से 825 ई०)

दलीप सिंह अहलावत[16] लिखते हैं: जूट्स, सेक्सन्स और एंगल्स लोग जर्मनी की एल्ब नदी के मुहाने और डेन्मार्क के तट पर रहते थे। ये लोग बड़े बहादुर थे तथा लूटमार किया करते थे। ये क्रिश्चियन धर्म के विरोधी थे।

ब्रिटेन से रोमनों के चले जाने के बाद ब्रिटेन के लोग बहुत कमजोर और असहाय थे। इन लोगों पर स्काटलैंड के केल्टिक कबीलों, पिक्ट्स और स्काट्स ने हमला कर दिया। ब्रिटेन निवासियों की इसमें भारी हानि हुई। इनमें इतनी शक्ति न थी कि वे इन हमलों करने वालों को रोक सकें। इसलिए मदद के लिए इन्होंने जूट लोगों को बुलाया। जूट्स ने उसी समय ब्रिटिश सरदार वरटिगर्न के निमन्त्रण को स्वीकार कर लिया। जटलैण्ड से जाटों की एक विशाल सेना अपने जाट नेता हेंगिस्ट और होरसा के नेतृत्व में सन् 449 ई० में केण्ट (Kent) में उतर गई। इन्होंने पिक्ट्स और स्कॉट्स को हराया और वहां से बाहर निकाल दिया। उन्हें भगाने के बाद जाट ब्रिटेन के लोगों के विरुद्ध हो गये और उन्हें पूरी तरह से अपने वश में कर लिया और 472 ई० तक पूरे केण्ट पर अधिकार कर लिया। यहां पर आबाद हो गये। इसके अतिरिक्त जाटों ने अपना निवास व्हिट द्वीप में किया1।

जटलैण्ड के जाटों की विजय सुनकर उनके दक्षिणवासी सेक्सन्स तथा एंगल्स भी ललचाये। सर्वप्रथम सेक्सन्स ब्रिटेन में पहुंचे और उन्होंने ऐस्सेक्स, मिडिलसेक्स और वेस्सेक्स नाम से तीन राज्य स्थापित किये। वहां पर इन्होंने कुछ बस्तियां आबाद कर दीं। ब्रिटेन की जनता ने बड़ी वीरता से सेक्सन्स का मुकाबला किया और 520 ई० में मोण्डबेडन ने उन्हें करारी हार दी। इस तरह से

जाट वीरों का इतिहास: दलीप सिंह अहलावत, पृष्ठान्त-399

सेक्सन्स का बढ़ना कुछ समय के लिए रुक गया। परन्तु 577 ई० में डियोरहम की लड़ाई में सेक्सन्स ने केब्लिन के नेतृत्व में ब्रिटेन लोगों पर पूरी विजय प्राप्त कर ली तथा उनको अपना दास बनाए रखा। यह कामयाबी जूट्स (जाटों) की सहायता से हुई थी जिसके लिए सेक्सन्स ने उनसे मांग की थी1।

अब प्रश्न पैदा होता है कि उन जूट्स (जाटों) का क्या हुआ जिन्होंने हेंगिस्ट और होरसा के नेतृत्व में ब्रिटेन के एक बड़े क्षेत्र पर अधिकार कर लिया था और सेक्सन्स को सहायता देकर उनका ब्रिटेन पर अधिकार करवाया। इसका उत्तर यही हो सकता है कि ब्रिटिश इतिहासकारों ने इनके इतिहास को लिखने में पक्षपात किया है।

सेक्सन्स के बाद एंग्ल्स पहुंचे जो जूट्स और सेक्सन्स की तरह ही लड़ाके तथा लुटेरे थे। सन् 613 ई० में नार्थम्ब्रिया के एंग्ल राजा ने ब्रिटेन पर आक्रमण करके विजय प्राप्त की। इसके बाद इन्हीं एगल्स के नाम पर ब्रिटेन का नाम इंग्लैंड हो गया। ये एंगल्स लोग भी जाट थे जैसा कि पिछले पृष्ठों पर लिखा गया है। इंग्लैंड में रहने वालों को अंग्रेज कहा गया।

एंगल्स लोग संख्या में दूसरों से अधिक थे इसी कारण से ब्रिटेन को एंगल्स की भूमि एवं इंग्लैंड कहा गया। इस तरह से ब्रिटेन पर जूट्स, सेक्सन्स और एंगल्स का अधिकार हो गया। इसी को ब्रिटेन पर अंग्रेजों की जीत कहा जाता है। इन तीनों कबीलों ने अपने अलग-अलग राज्य स्थापित किए। जूट्स ने केण्ट (Kent); सैक्सन्स ने सस्सेक्स (Sussex), एस्सेक्स (Essex), वेसेक्स (Wessex) और एंगल्स ने ईस्ट एंगलिया (East Anglia), मर्शिया (Mercia) और नार्थम्ब्रिया (Northumbria) के राज्य स्थापित किये। ये सातों राज्य सामूहिक रूप से हेपटार्की कहलाते थे। परन्तु ये राज्य स्वतन्त्र नहीं थे। इन सातों में जो शक्तिशाली होता था वह दूसरों का शासक बन जाता था।

ऊपर कहे हुए तीनों कबीले संगठित नहीं थे। नॉरमनों ने जब तक इस देश को नहीं जीता, इंग्लैंड में शक्तिशाली केन्द्रीय राज्य की स्थापना नहीं हो सकी। इन कबीलों ने देश से क्रिश्चियन धर्म और रोमन सभ्यता को मिटा दिया। आधुनिक इंग्लैंड एंग्लो-सैक्सन्स का बनाया हुआ है। आधुनिक अंग्रेज किसी न किसी रूप में इंग्लो-सैक्सन्स के ही वंशज हैं।

अंग्रेज जाति की उत्पत्ति और बनावट के सम्बन्ध में दो प्रतिद्वन्द्वी सिद्धान्त हैं।

पलग्रोव, पियरसन और सेछम आदि प्रवीण मनुष्य रोमन केल्टिक सिद्धान्त को मानते हैं। उनका यह विचार है कि आधुनिक इंग्लैंड में रोमन-केल्टिक रक्त और संस्थाएं मौजूद हैं। ग्रीन और स्टब्स जैसे दूसरे प्रवीन मनुष्य ट्यूटानिक सिद्धान्त को मानते हैं। उनका यह विचार है कि ट्यूटानिक अर्थात् जूट, एंगल, सैक्सन और डेन लोगों का रक्त और संस्थाएं बहुत कुछ आधुनिक इंग्लैंड में पाई जाती हैं। इन दोनों में से ट्यूटानिक सिद्धान्त अधिक माना जाता

जाट वीरों का इतिहास: दलीप सिंह अहलावत, पृष्ठान्त-400

है और आमतौर पर यह स्वीकार किया जाता है कि ब्रिटिश जाति मिले-जुले लोगों की जाति है। जिनमें ट्यूटानिक तत्त्व प्रधान है, जबकि केल्टिक तत्त्व भी पश्चिम में और आयरलैंड में बहुत कुछ बचा हुआ है1।

इसका सार यह है कि इंगलैंड द्वीपसमूह के मनुष्यों की रगों में आज भी अधिकतर जाट रक्त बह रहा है। क्योंकि केल्टिक आर्य लोग तथा जूट, एंगल, सैक्सन और डेन लोग जाटवंशज थे। आज भी वहां पर अनेक जाटगोत्रों के मनुष्य विद्यमान हैं जो कि धर्म से ईसाई हैं।

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