Frisians of the Early Middle Ages

The volume stems from a symposium on the Frisians in the Early Middle Ages that was held in Leeuwaren, Province of Friesland, the Netherlands, in September 2018. An introductory chapter provides the backstory to the symposium. From the beginning, it was planned as an addition to the Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology symposium and book series that was founded by the late Professor Giorgio Ausenda. Past meetings have brought together invited specialists to present and discuss aspects of the culture and identity of various ethnocultural groups that were “responsible for the re-shaping of Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire” (p. 1). The volume under review focuses on the Frisians, especially during the 7th to 9th centuries (past volumes have considered groups such as the Anglo-Saxons, Langobards, and Visigoths). The geographical range covers the limits of Frisian territory as known from the Lex Frisionum “the Law of the Frisians” from the late eighth century, namely from the River Zwin (at the Belgian-Dutch border) to the River Weser (Bremen), and in some chapters the North Frisian Islands and mainland, which were settled later, are dealt with as well. The twelve original articles in the volume are outlined in brief below.Three papers focus primarily on archaeological finds and what they can tell us about the early Frisians. Egge Knol's “For Daily Use and Special Moments: Material Culture in Frisia, AD 400–1000” covers a wide range of artifacts in his survey spanning the Dutch–German coast, such as tools, coinage, garments, and weapons. He details the extent to which these items have passed down to us and reasons that they attest to a considerable Frisian population involved in farming and trade in the Early Middle Ages. Annet Nieuwhof's “The Frisians and their Pottery: Social Relations before and after the Fourth Century AD” considers the most commonly found archaeological artifact: pottery. This impressive chapter details how homemade local pottery can be distinguished from imported pottery from other regions, and how different styles can be identified that correspond to different periods of settlement. Johan Nicolay in his “Art, Symbolism and the Expression of Group Identities in Early-Medieval Frisia” examines metal finds, copper alloy brooches and gold and silver jewelry, and their many decorative styles, also with a chronological outlook. As with pottery, specific Anglian- and Saxon-style artifacts can be identified from about AD 400 in areas of the northern Netherlands (Friesland and Groningen) that stem from repopulation of the area by the same population groups that settled in Britain around the same time.Two chapters look at the archaeological landscapes with spatial analysis. Gilles de Langen and Hans Mol trace the lay of the land, the distribution of manors, parishes, the parcellation of land, and the plan of villages in their article “Landscape, Trade and Power in Early-Medieval Frisia.” The results show a thriving agricultural economy, somewhat different from the image of Frisian maritime traders as gleaned, for instance, from early medieval English sources. Trading hubs seem to have been associated with settlements and harbors at the outer fringes of Frisian territory. “Recent Developments in Early-Medieval Settlement Archaeology: The North Frisian Point of View” by Bente Sven Majchczack takes the discussion to North Frisia, where aerial and magnetic surveys have been conducted, which alongside material culture and place-name evidence confirm settlement patterns in the late seventh century; using dialectal evidence, linguists have argued that there was a migration from the southern Frisian areas along the mainland to North Frisia around this time.Some papers deal with the relations and the connections to other known groups based on historical sources and, to a lesser extent, archaeological finds. Ian Wood's “Franks and Frisians” discusses the Frisians’ connections with the Franks from various political, economic, and religious perspectives on the basis of a wide range of historical documents. Robert Flierman in “Mirror Histories: Frisians and Saxons from the First to the Ninth Century AD” looks at connections with the Saxons. In the fifth century, any barbarian and pirate along the Channel or North Sea coast could well be labeled a Saxon, it being just a moniker for the Germanic pirates of the time. The Saxons that settled in Britain then became the English (though the Welsh still refer to them as Saxons and their language as Saxon, i.e. Saeson and Saesneg, respectively), and those that came to Frisia became known as Frisians. (Of course, the Frisii as mentioned in Roman sources between the first and third centuries AD had been in Frisia beforehand, but it is rather less clear whether they spoke a Germanic language; judging from personal-name and place-name evidence, the language may have been Celtic.) The process of becoming Frisian then is what Flierman gets to grips with based on the historical sources. Finally, “Structured by the Sea: Rethinking Maritime Connectivity of the Early-Medieval Frisians” by Nelleke IJssennagger-van der Pluijm ponders over the connections of the Frisians to water, namely through maritime connections as gleaned from Frisian legal collections and other material evidence.Two papers assess the values and beliefs of the Frisians. Han Nijdam's “Law and Political Organization of the Early Medieval Frisians (c. AD 600–800)” deals with Lex Frisionum, a Latin legal collection written ca. 785 that forms the linchpin for the period and extent of the papers discussed in the volume. It survives in a version edited by Johannes Herold in 1557. Nijdam outlines its contents, its system of compensations, and how legal meetings and procedures were handled. The details can be compared with later legal material that was written mainly in Old Frisian (ca. 1050–1500). According to Nijdam, a good deal of continuity from the early to the later laws can be identified. John Hines's “Religion and Conversion amongst the Frisians” covers religion amongst the Frisians based on scant sources and clues from place-names and language to piece together some facets of the early pagan religion and the transition to Christianity as part of a drawn-out process starting in the eighth century.The volume contains two contributions on language. For the early medieval period, there are currently nineteen runic finds. These are covered in Tineke Looijenga's chapter “Runic Literacy in North-West Europe, with a Focus on Frisia,” also in the context of runes from further afield. As the author points out, there is still no complete corpus edition of Anglo-Saxon and Frisian runes. An online edition that is easily accessible and which can be regularly updated is long overdue. The article in the volume which provides most linguistic analysis, and so is more closely aligned with this reviewer's interests, is Arjen Versloot's “Traces of a North Sea Germanic Idiom in the Fifth–Seventh Centuries AD.” Versloot provides some fresh insights on the Anglo-Frisian question, a topic which is slowly becoming less obscure thanks to new approaches and technologies that are allowing researchers to get a better handle on the expanse of data. There is broad agreement among most (or all) authors of the reviewed book that repopulation of both Britain and Frisia were occurring in the same period. It involved the same “Saxon” marauders from the Elbe-Weser region, southern Jutland (including Angeln), along with some peoples from further north in Scandinavia (p. 342). As noted in the discussion of Flierman's article above, the immigrant Germanic populations of England and Frisia were much the same, especially in the middle of the first millennium. To quote Versloot, “the speakers on either side of the North Sea made up one speech community, with only minor dialectal differences, for at least two hundred years (c. AD 450–650)” (p. 349). Versloot is now trying to reassess the English-Frisian linguistic relations by harnessing the spelling evidence for sound changes as well as morphological, lexical, and other evidence in the earliest Old English texts in a complete and warts-and-all manner using statistical methods. Note that these earliest texts stem from Mercia and Northumbria; this circumstance has taken the focus off the more numerous but later West Saxon texts. In short, in concentrating on Mercian and Northumbrian texts, more parallels with the Continental Germanic languages have been identified, essentially a closer connection of early English and early Frisian, and a reduction of steps needed to explain many of the well-known phonological developments in English, such as a-fronting, breaking, and i-umlaut. The results seem appealing so far: groups that were further inland, such as the West Saxons, most likely developed further away from the eastern varieties linguistically, which remained in closer contact with speakers across the North Sea—that is, Frisians.On top of the linguistic analysis, other insights can be drawn by comparing other distributions of data, such as archaeological finds and place-names. One interesting observation made in Versloot's contribution is that runic finds and certain archaic place-names elements (e.g. *haim and *ing) are found in areas thought to have been settled by the Anglians and Jutes but not in those that were settled by the Saxons, e.g. in and around the Thames Valley. Based on this finding, Versloot thinks that there may well be more to Bede's tripartite—Anglian, Saxon, and Jutish—settlement history of Britain than some scholars give credit.In conclusion, this is a valuable addition to the Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology series. The volume offers a broad range of research by leading scholars in the field on the culture and identity of the Frisians in the early medieval period. A good deal of convergence can be found in the research results, and the discussions at the end of each article provide many ideas and suggestions for future avenues of enquiry

Ancient history · Archaeology · Geography · German · Mainland · Middle Ages · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Classics · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution

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