Frisians

This article is about the modern Frisians. For the ancient tribe also called Frisians, see Frisii. For other uses, see Frisian (disambiguation).

The Frisians (/ˈfriːʒənz/ FREEZH-ənz) are an ethnic group indigenous to Northwestern Europe on the coastal regions of northern Netherlands, north-western Germany and southwestern Denmark. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch province of Friesland and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia (which was a part of Denmark until 1864).

The Frisian languages are spoken by more than 500,000 people; West Frisian is officially recognised in the Netherlands (in the Dutch province Friesland) while North Frisian and Saterland Frisian are recognised as regional languages in Germany.

Name

There are several theories about the origin of the name of the Frisians, which is derived from Frisii or Fresones, names used by the Romans to describe a Germanic tribe that inhabited the same region but disappeared during the 5th century before the appearance of the Frisians. Most probably the name is derived from the verb fresare in Vulgar Latin, meaning 'milling, cutting, grooving, crushing, removing shells'; this name may have been given to the Frisii because they 'cut the land': digging ditches and dykes to drain the wet marshlands where they lived. Compare fresar el paisaje in the Romance language Spanish. Another theory is the name derives from frisselje (to braid, thus referring to braided hair).

History

See also: History of Frisia

File:Europe and the Near East at 476 AD.png

Germanic tribes in the 5th century

The earliest references to the Frisians are found in the works of Roman and Greek authors such as Tacitus, as in his Germania, and Ptolemy, in his Geography, calling these tribes the Template:Langr and the Template:Langr. Both Tacitus and Ptolemy describe the Template:Langr as living from north of the estuary of the Rhine to around the Ems river. Although they were not a part of the Roman Empire, the areas comprising Frisia were akin to a tributary state and some Frisians served as mercenaries in the Roman army. The Template:Langr appear to enter recorded history in Drusus's account of the war against the Rhine Germans and the Chauci in 12 BC. They occasionally appear in the accounts of Roman wars against the Germanic tribes of the region, up to and including the Revolt of the Batavi around 70 AD. Frisian mercenaries were hired as cavalry to assist the Roman invasion of Britain. They are not mentioned again until c. 296, when they were deported into Roman territory as laeti (i.e., Roman-era serfs; see Binchester Roman Fort and Cuneus Frisionum). The discovery of a type of earthenware unique to fourth century Frisia, called terp Tritzum, shows that an unknown number of them were resettled in Flanders and Kent, probably as laeti under Roman coercion. It is unlikely that these Frisians described by the Romans were Germanic-speaking peoples. Evidence from proper names suggests they spoke an Indo-European language that was neither Germanic nor Celtic.

File:Frisians.png

Historical settlement areas of the Frisians, and areas where a Frisian language is spoken

How the original Template:Langr and Template:Langr were originally supplanted is somewhat unclear; Roman sources on the Frisians precede the earliest medieval ones by over three hundred years. From the third through the fifth centuries, Frisia suffered marine transgressions that made most of the land uninhabitable, aggravated by a change to a cooler and wetter climate. Whatever population may have remained dropped dramatically, and the coastal lands remained largely unpopulated for the next two centuries. One theory is that the area became effectively abandoned by its original inhabitants and a Germanic group moved in, taking over the local name. The German linguist Elmar Seebold suggests, for example, that the Jutes integrated into the group relatively peacefully and the new Jutish–Frisian entity became a Jutish-speaking group, but ultimately assumed the Frisian name. Another theory suggests that the Frankish elite named the region using the works of classical scholars and the name was eventually adopted locally; the Franks sometimes referred to areas on the periphery of their empire by Roman-era names, including Traiectum for modern-day Utrecht and Toxandria for the pagus of Brabant.

The Frisians then spread considerably over the following two hundred years, dominating the North Sea region. This period is marked by the rule of warlord-like kings and a maritime economy augmented by considerable cattle-breeding skill. Frisian domination of North Sea trade during this era led some contemporary non-Frisian documents to refer to the North Sea as the Frisian Sea () and the term Frisian was used in Dorestad to mean any merchant, not necessarily an ethnic Frisian. This farthest extent of Frisian territory is sometimes referred to as Magna Frisia ('Greater Frisia'). This period saw Frisia ruled by a high king, with the earliest reference to such a leader being dated to 678 AD.

In the early eighth century, the Frisians mostly worshipped Germanic gods such as Thor and Odin outside the vicinity of Utrecht. Shortly thereafter, the Frisian nobles came into increasing conflict with the Franks to their south, resulting in a series of wars in which the Frankish Empire eventually subjugated Frisia in 734. These wars benefited attempts by Anglo-Irish missionaries (which had begun with Saint Boniface) to convert the Frisian populace to Christianity, in which Saint Willibrord largely succeeded.

Some time after the death of Charlemagne, the Frisian territories were in theory under the control of the Count of Holland, but in practice the Hollandic counts, starting with Count Arnulf in 993, were unable to assert themselves as the sovereign lords of Frisia. The resulting stalemate resulted in a period of time called the Frisian freedom, a period in which feudalism and serfdom (as well as central or judicial administration) did not exist; the Frisian lands only owed their allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor.

During the 13th century, however, the counts of Holland became increasingly powerful and, starting in 1272, sought to reassert themselves as rightful lords of the Frisian lands in a series of wars, which (with a series of lengthy interruptions) ended in 1422 with the Hollandic conquest of Western Frisia and with the establishment of a more powerful noble class in Central and Eastern Frisia.

In 1524, Frisia became part of the Seventeen Provinces and in 1568 joined the Dutch revolt against Philip II, king of Spain, heir of the Burgundian territories; Central Frisia has remained a part of the Netherlands ever since. The eastern periphery of Frisia would become part of various German states (later Germany) and Denmark. An old tradition existed in the region of exploitation of peatlands.

Migration to England and Scotland

Though it is impossible to know exact numbers and migration patterns, research has indicated that many Frisians were part of the wave of ethnic groups to colonise areas of present-day England alongside the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, starting from around the fifth century when Frisians arrived along the coastline of Kent.

Frisians principally settled in modern-day Kent, East Anglia, the East Midlands, North East England, and Yorkshire. Across these areas, evidence of their settlement includes place names of Frisian origin, such as Frizinghall in Bradford and Frieston in Lincolnshire.

Similarities in dialect between Great Yarmouth and Friesland have been noted, originating from trade between these areas during the Middle Ages. Frisians are also known to have founded the Freston area of Ipswich.

In Scotland, historians have noted that colonies of Angles and Frisians settled as far north as the River Forth. This corresponds to those areas of Scotland which historically constituted part of Northumbria.

Frisians in Denmark

The earliest traces of Frisians in modern-day Denmark date back from the 8th century, when Frisian traders and craftsmen settled down in Ribe. In the Later Middle Ages, Frisian farmers settled around Tøndermarsken west of Tønder. The evidence for this are the dwelling mounds or terps (værfter) in the area that are built after the same method as the ones alongside the Wadden Sea further south. Colonists from the south also settled down in Misthusum in the Ballum marshes near Skærbæk during the 12th of 13th century. According to documents around 1400 at least some of them were considered as "Hollanders".

In modern times, Frisian culture in Denmark is described as assimilated and most people of Frisian descent do not consider themselves Frisian. In regards of the Frisian language, very few may speak it as first language but it was traditionally spoken in several polder hamlets near the border with Germany. One estimate puts the Frisian population in Denmark somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000. This number, however, might be grossly exaggerated. Frisian identity in Denmark was promoted by the Eiderstedt farmer and political activist Cornelius Petersen, who built a traditional Frisian farmstead in Møgeltønder in 1914 and founded the rural protest movement Bondens Selvstyre ("Farmers' self-government"). More recently, the retired journalist Benny Siewertsen wrote a partisan pamphlet on Frisian heritage in Denmark.

Languages

File:Frisian languages in Europe.svg

Present-day distribution of the Frisian languages in Europe:

  West Frisian

  North Frisian

  Saterland Frisian

As both the Anglo-Saxons of England and the early Frisians were formed from similar tribal confederacies, their respective languages were very similar, together forming the Anglo-Frisian family. Old Frisian is the most closely related language to Old English and the modern Frisian dialects are in turn the closest related languages to contemporary English that do not themselves derive from Old English (although modern Frisian and English are not mutually intelligible).

The Frisian language group is divided into three languages:

• West Frisian, spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland
• Saterland Frisian, spoken in the German municipality of Saterland just south of East Frisia
• North Frisian, spoken in the German region of North Frisia (within the Kreis of Nordfriesland) on the west coast of Jutland.

Of these three languages both Saterland Frisian (2,000 speakers) and North Frisian (10,000 speakers) are endangered. West Frisian is spoken by around 350,000 native speakers in Friesland, and as many as 470,000 when including speakers in neighbouring Groningen province. West Frisian is not listed as threatened, although research published by Radboud University in 2016 has challenged that assumption.

Identity

Main article: Frisian nationalism

File:Friesentracht.JPG

North Frisian woman in Föhr

Today, there exists a tripartite division of North, East and West Frisians; this was caused by Frisia's continual loss of territory in the Middle Ages. The West Frisians, in general, do not see themselves as part of a larger group of Frisians, and, according to a 1970 poll, identify themselves more with the Dutch than with the East or North Frisians.

See also

• Anglo-Frisian languages
• Frisian Americans
• Frisian church in Rome
• Frisian Islands
• Frisian languages
  • East Frisian (Saterland Frisian)
  • North Frisian
  • West Frisian
• Friso-Saxon dialects
  • East Frisian Low Saxon
  • Gronings
  • Stellingwarfs
• Frisian revolt of 28 AD
• Ingvaeonic languages
• List of Frisians
• List of Germanic tribes

References

Works cited

• Bazelmans, Jos (2009). "The Early-Medieval Use of Ethnic Names from Classical Antiquity: the Case of the Frisians". In Derks, Ton; Roymans, Nico (eds.). Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition. Amsterdam Archaeological Studies. 13. Amsterdam University Press open access. pp. 321–338. doi:10.5117/9789089640789. ISBN 978-90-485-0791-7. JSTOR j.ctt46n1n2.1.
• Bremmer, Jr, Rolf H. (2009). An Introduction to Old Frisian: History, Grammar, Reader, Glossary. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN 978-90-272-9004-5.
• Looijenga, Tineke (2003). Texts & Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions. The Northern World. 4. Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789047401285. ISBN 978-90-474-0128-5.
• Nijdam, Han; Hallebeek, Jan; de Jong, Hylkje, eds. (2023). Frisian Land Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Freeska Landriucht. Medieval Law and Its Practice. 33. Leiden: Brill open access. ISBN 978-90-04-52641-9.
• Tacitus, Publius Cornelius (n.d.), "Germania", Internet Medieval Sourcebook
• Verhart, Leo (2006), Op Zoek naar de Kelten, Nieuwe archeologische ontdekkingen tussen Noordzee en Rijn (Searching for the Celts, new archaeological Discoveries between North Sea and Rhine) (in Dutch), Matrijs, ISBN 978-90-5345-303-2

Further reading

• Greg Woolf, "Cruptorix and his kind. Talking ethnicity on the middle ground", Ton Derks, Nico Roymans (ed.), Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009) (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies, 13), 207–218.
• Jos Bazelmans, "The early-medieval use of ethnic names from classical antiquity. The case of the Frisians", in Ton Derks, Nico Roymans (ed.), Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009) (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies, 13), 321–329.

External links

• "Frisians" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 11 (11th ed.). 1911.
• Fryske Akademy, the Frisian Academy (in West Frisian and Dutch)
• Lex Frisionum in Latin, Dutch and English
• History of the Frisian folk Archived 2 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine
• Frisia Coast Trail