THE JEWISH ROOTS OF THE
NOBILITY OF EUROPE
(From the Bible Reading Program
Supplementary Material article on the Throne of David)
We have elsewhere seen that the royalty of Europe is descended from Judah's son
Zerah, in accordance with the prophecy that the scepter would not depart from
Judah (Genesis 49:10). Indeed, the royal house of Britain is a fusion of the lines
of Zerah and Judah's other son Perez through his descendant King David. Because
of intermarriage, the other royal houses of Europe are Davidic as well.
Yet it might be considered that the Jewish element in these royal houses, including
Britain's, has been “bred out,” so to speak, through thousands of years
of intermarriage with non-Jewish nobility and commoners—leaving almost no
genetic trace of Jewish heritage. This would mean that these royal families are,
practically speaking, not really Jewish at all.
But we should consider several points here. First of all, through long ages royalty
and nobility rarely intermarried with commoners, as any lengthy study into
the matter will reveal. Next, we must understand the nature of nobility or aristocracy.
Who are the nobility? By far their most common origin is simply the extended
family of royalty. This alone should help us to see that the royal bloodlines
have not been bred out but, rather, reinforced time and again ad infinitum.
The other origin involves descent from the landed gentry—that is, landowners
of the remote past. How did the forebears of these families come by their land?
We should not think of the pioneers of America staking claims on the frontier.
Rather, land in the Old World was either granted by the king or it was conquered
and taken. In the first case, it normally involved people who were already of
some social status—perhaps because of friendship with the king, likely due
to military support. Yet it was usually those who were already members of a warrior
“class” who were trained as fighters. And those who were able to conquer
land were thus, in essence, also of this warrior class. It was a rare commoner
indeed who could take land and build an estate.
Scottus nobilis
Surprisingly, even in the granting of land there was a large pool of people of
Jewish descent to draw from. Consider that the Milesian Scots who took over Ireland
from the Tuatha de Danaan (the tribe of Dan) were largely of Jewish extraction,
many having descended from Zerah. Irish historian Thomas Moore writes: “It
is indeed evident that those persons to whom St. Patrick [A.D. 400s] applies the
name Scots, were all of the high and dominant class; whereas, when speaking of
the great bulk of the people, he calles them Hiberionaces—from the
name Hiberione, which is always applied by him to the island itself”
(1837, Vol. 1, p. 72).
Dr. James Wylie explained: “The Scots are the military class; they are the
nobles . . . The latter [the Hiberni] are spoken of as the commonality, the sons
of the soil” (History of the Scottish Nation,1886, p. 281). Wylie
also adds: “St. Patrick often uses Scoti and Reguli [princes] as equivalent
terms. To the term Scottus he adds often the word Nobilis; whereas
he has no other appellative for the native Irish but Hyberione, or Hyberni
genae, the common people” (p. 282 footnote). The early Scot overlords
were Jewish. The common people of Ireland were simply Hiberni or Hebrews—the
tribe of Dan. And it was the aristocracy that the Irish royalty intermarried.
The Scottish UiNialls or ' s of Ulster, through whom the high kingship was
transferred to Scotland shortly after Patrick's time, were heavily Jewish—having
as their symbol the of Zerah. Thus, the later nobility of Scotland was
also largely Jewish. What about the early British line of Brutus of Troy? He supposedly
divided the island of Britain between his three sons (see Appendix 5: “Brutus
and the Covenant Land”). Whatever the line of royal succession might actually
have been, it seems likely that the line of Brutus was heavily diffused throughout
early Celtic British nobility over the course of 1,500 years before the Anglo-Saxons
arrived.
Jews among the Scythians
Speaking, in turn, of the Anglo-Saxons, just who made up their nobility?
As our booklet The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy explains,
the Anglo-Saxons and other Teutonic lines of Scandinavia and the rest of northern
Europe—all of Scythian extraction—may be traced back to the Israelites
who were taken into captivity by the Assyrians in the late 700s B.C. Israel's
northern capital, Sa , was conquered by the Assyrians around 722 B.C.
However, an important fact often overlooked is that the Assyrians also deported
many people of the southern kingdom of Judah. The Bible records that two
decades after the fall of Sa , during the reign of Judah's king Hezekiah,
the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib invaded the Jewish nation. Notice these words
of Sennacherib, inscribed on his famous hexagonal clay prism: “But as for
Hezekiah, the Jew, who did not bow in submission to my yoke, forty-six of his
strong walled towns and innumerable smaller villages in their neighborhood I besieged
and conquered . . . I made to come out from them 200,150 people, youn d,
male and female . . . and counted them as the spoils of war” (“Sennacherib's
Prism,” Eerdmans Handbook to the Bible, 1983, p. 280).
Judah was a nation of Judahites (Jews), Benjamites and Levites. Thus it appears
that a large number of these tribal groups were added to the captivity of the
northern Israelites—who were at this time located in Assyria and Armenia
in the west and Media and Persia in the east. It seems likely that the Jewish
captives were taken to these same areas. Author Stephen Collins notes: “When
describing the Sacae Scythian tribes who migrated out of Asia in the second century
B.C. [previously captive Israelites—descendants of Isaac], George Rawlinson
notes that the greatest tribe, the Massagetae, was also named the 'great Jits,
or Jats' [“Jats,” The Sixth Oriental Monarchy, 1872, Vol. 11,
p. 357] . . . The term 'Jat' has survived as a caste-name in Northwest India [which
bordered Persia and Parthia] into modern times, attesting to the ancient dominance
of the Jats in that region” (The “Lost” Tribes of Israel . .
. Found, 1992, 1995, p. 343).
This name could conceivably be a contraction of Judahite (Hebrew Yehudi, which
perhaps became Jehuti (we'll see more about phonetic shift in language
in a moment). However, it should be pointed out that “Jat” designates
the peasant caste of northern India and Pakistan (“Jat,” Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Micropaedia, 1985, Vol. 6, p. 510). Yet that could be because
the Jews came to the area as slaves. Or, perhaps more likely, because later conquerors
subjugated the Jats and made themselves the upper caste.
Jat may even have initially meant highborn. In a separate article, the Encyclopaedia
Britannica states: “Jati, also spelled jat, in India, a Hindu caste.
The term is derived from the Sanskrit jata, 'born' or 'brought into existence,'
and indicates a form of existence determined by birth. In Indian philosophy jati
(genus) describes any group of things that have generic characteristics in
common. Sociologically, jati has come to be used universally to indicate
a caste group [in general] within Hindu society” (“Jati,” p. 511).
Perhaps the notion of Jews as nobility is where the concept of Jat as applied
to birth and caste actually began.
It is possible that these people were related to a group known as the Yueh-chih.
Says the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “Yueh-chih, also called Indo-Scyths,
ancient people who ruled in Bactria (now Afghanistan) and India from c. 128 BC
to c. AD 450. The Yueh-chi are first mentioned in Chinese sources at the beginning
of the 2nd century BC as nomads living in . . . northwest China . . .They and
related tribes are the Asi (or Asiani) and Tocharians (Tochari) of Western sources”
(“Yueh-chih,” Vol. 12, p. 869). And the Asi may well be the Aser of
the Norse sagas (again, see Appendix 10: “The Family of Odin”).
In the same article the Britannica says: “The Hephthalites . . . [were]
originally a Yueh-chih tribe.” They were also known as the “White Huns”
and their names are sometimes given as “Nephthalites” (compare “Ephthalites,
or White Huns,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, on-line at
89.1911encyclopedia.org/E/EP/EPHTHALITES.htm)—likely, as Collins points out,
a derivation of the Israelite tribe of Naphtali (p. 237). If the name Yueh-chih
perhaps derives from Judah or Yehudah, then the description of Naphtali as a Yueh-chih
tribe could possibly indicate that the Jews were dispersed throughout the other
tribes as leaders in their migrations.
The Jutes
Collins sees a connection between the Jats and the Jutes of Europe (p. 343), and
one may well exist—particularly when we realize that a Norse equivalent for
the Scythian names Geat or Goth was Jat (see the Edda genealogy in Appendix
10: “The Family of Odin”). But who were the Jutes? They were a tribe
of people who gave their name to Jutland, the mainland peninsula of Denmark. Furthermore,
though we often think of the Angles and Saxons who settled in Britain and became
the English, it is more correct to say that Britain was invaded in the fifth through
seventh centuries by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes: “Most of the country
was conquered by these Teutons, of whom the principle tribes were the Angles,
Saxons, and Jutes, who finally fused into one people, under the name of Anglo-Saxons,
or Angles or English, while that portion of Britain in which they
made their home was called England” (Gene Gurney, Kingdoms of Europe:
An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ruling Monarchs from Ancient Times to the Present,
1982, p. 129).
In fact, the Jutes actually arrived first! “The first of these Teutonic kingdoms
was founded in Kent. A despairing British chieftain or king, Vortigern . . . to
save his people from their northern foes . . . invited the Teutons to come to
his aid. Two well-known Jutish Vikings, Hengist and Horsa, accepted the invitation
with their followers, and in the year 449 landed on the island of Thanet, the
southeastern extremity of the England . . . Eric, a son of Hengist, was, in 457,
formally crowned king of Kent, that is, of England's southeastern coast. He was
the first of her Teutonic kings” (p. 129).
Now the critical question: Could the name Jute—and perhaps Jat—be related
to Judah? Notice the following from a linguistics textbook: “The German linguist
Jakob Grimm (of fairy-tale fame) . . .published a four-volume treatise (1819-1822)
that specified the regular sound correspondences among Sanskrit, Greek, Latin,
and the Germanic languages. It was not only the similarities that intrigued Grimm
and other linguists, but the systematic nature of the differences . . . Grimm
pointed out that certain phonological changes that did not take place in Sanskrit,
Greek, or Latin must have occurred early in the history of the Germanic languages.
Because the changes were so strikingly regular, they became known as 'Grimm's
Law' . . . [one example of which is] d _ t . . . voiced stops become voiceless”
(Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, An Introduction to Language, Fourth Edition,
1988, p. 315).
Thus, the people who were later known as the Juten or Yuten (as
J is pronounced Y in German and Scandinavian languages) would originally have
been known as the Juden or Yuden. With the Hebrew plural this would
be Judim or Yudim—J'hudim or Y'hudim being the
actual Hebrew for Jews. Indeed, Juden is the German word for Jews. Hengist and
Horsa, then, were leaders of Jutes who were likely Jews. As this Jutish population
expanded in southern England, it took over more and more land—the Jutes thus
becoming nobles. Indeed, their early arrival ensured that they were the longest
established noble families of the Anglo-Saxon population. Furthermore, Hengist
and Horsa are traced in descent from Woden or Odin, making them royal descendants
of Zarah and perhaps even David (see Appendices 9: “The Family of Odin”
and 10: “Joseph of Arimathea and the Line of Nathan”). The same is true
of the kings of the Angles and Saxons who soon followed.
In the 800s, Danish Vikings took over the western half of England before the Anglo-Saxons
repelled them. And the Danes later ruled England from 1013-1042 before it came
back under Saxon sovereignty. In both instances, Danish nobility was mixed with
the local Anglo-Saxon nobility. But consider that the Danish rulers were descendants
from Odin—and the Danes themselves came from Jutland, thus likely ensuring
that many of their nobles were of Jutish (and therefore probably Jewish) descent.
This would be parallel with Ireland, where the common people were the tribe of
Dan but the nobility were the Milesian Scots, who were Jews. In Denmark, the common
people were again the tribe of Dan but the nobility were in all likelihood Jutes
who were, yet again, Jews.
The Norman Conquest
Then came the pivotal Battle of Hastings in 1066, which began the Norman Conquest
of England under William the Conqueror. “The major change,” says the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, “was the subordination of England to a Norman
aristocracy. William distributed estates to his followers [barons from Normandy]
on a piecemeal basis as the lands were conquered” (“United Kingdom,”
Macropaedia, Vol. 29, p. 33).
Historian Michael Wood writes: “The redistribution of land after the Norman
Conquest has been called a tenurial revolution of the most far-reaching kind and
a catastrophe for the higher orders of English society from which they never recovered.
The record of Domesday Book, completed only twenty years after Hastings,
shows that though some Englishmen still held considerable estates, very few held
any position of influence. It has been estimated that only eight per cent of the
land was still held by English thegns in 1086” (In Search of the Dark
Ages, 1987, p. 233).
In fact, Wood says that much of the former English nobility left the country:
“There is much evidence for a widespread emigration of Englishmen into other
countries, into Denmark, into Scotland and, most remarkably of all, to Greece
and the Byzantine empire where there is good contemporary evidence that large
numbers of Englishmen took service with the emperor in Constantinople in the generation
following Hastings” (p. 233). It is truly remarkable for it enabled
nobility of Jewish heritage to be even further diffused throughout Europe—so
as to intermarry with the various royal houses and, ironically, reinforce the
Jewish bloodline of the British throne when these other European lineages were
later blended with it.
But what of the new Norman nobility of England? Just who were the Normans? As
before, Danish Vikings—thus likely led by a Jutish (probably Jewish) warrior
class or nobility. Yet not quite as before, for these Vikings had settled
in northern France in the 800s. In 911, the Frankish king Charles ceded
land to them in return for their loyalty and protection against other Viking incursions—naming
their chief Rollo a duke. “His Vikings melded into the local culture much
more rapidly than in England. They took local women as wives and concubines and
watched their children grow up speaking the Frankish tongue” (TimeFrame
AD 800-1000: Fury of the Northmen, Time-Life Books, 1988, p. 38).
The Norman nobility in France intermarried with the French nobility. Yet who were
they? The Sicambrians or Franks (who gave their name to France) were part
of the Teutonic invasion of Europe, which followed on the heels of the Celtic
ingress. On page 611 of James Anderson's Royal Genealogies or the Genealogical
Tables of Emperors, Kings, and Princes, from Adam to These Times is a table
of “The Sicambrian Kings” beginning with “Antenor, of the House
of Troy, King of the Cimmerians, 443 B.C.” (see also W.M.H. Milner, The
Royal House of Britain: An Enduring Dynasty, 1902, 1964, pp. 35-36, 41). So
another Jewish line of descent from Troy!
The Frankish nobility was blended with the Gaulish nobility from Celtic times.
Indeed, this nobility likely had its origins in both Cimmerian Israelites migrating
west across Turkey and into Europe as well as the Milesians who had founded the
early colonies of southern France. These latter, at least, were apparently predominantly
Jewish. The Gauls had intermarried with the noble Romans when Rome took over the
area. Of course, Roman nobility traced its descent from Aeneas of the house of
Troy—and thus from yet another Jewish line.
So the nobility of France was, very likely, predominantly Jewish. It intermarried
with the Norman nobility, which was likely of Jutish and thus probably Jewish
heritage. Indeed, the Norman chiefs were almost certainly Jewish, being descended
from Odin of the line of Troy. And the Normans became the new nobility of England—intermarrying
with the remnants of a prior Jewish nobility. These finally intermarried with
Welsh nobility, which was also Jewish, having descended from Brutus. When, at
last, the primary Davidic line from Scotland was brought down into England, it
intermarried with this nobility—many of whose members were already even of
other Davidic heritage.
Of course, this is not to say that the nobility is wholly Jewish. It almost certainly
is not. Still, how incredible it is to realize the lengths to which God has gone
to make sure that the royalty of Europe is of Jewish descent—not by some
meaningless fraction like one-millionth part Jewish, but rather very much Jewish—enough
to refer to them collectively as Jews. It is staggering to contemplate the “family
planning” God has been engaged in. It truly is an awesome miracle.