Prehistory The
Frisii were among the migrating Germanic tribes that, following the breakup of Celtic Europe in the 4th century BC, settled along the North Sea. They came to control the area from roughly present-day
Bremen to
Bruges, and conquered many of the smaller offshore islands. What little is known of the Frisii is provided by a few Roman accounts, most of them military.
Pliny the Elder said their lands were forest-covered with tall trees growing up to the edge of the lakes. They lived by agriculture and raising cattle. In his
Germania, Tacitus described all the Germanic peoples of the region as having elected kings with limited powers and influential military leaders who led by example rather than by authority. The people lived in spread-out settlements. He specifically noted the weakness of Germanic political hierarchies in reference to the Frisii, when he mentioned the names of two kings of the 1st century Frisii and added that they were kings "as far as the Germans are under kings". In the 1st century BC, the Frisii halted a Roman advance and thus managed to maintain their independence. Some or all of the Frisii may have joined into the Frankish and Saxon peoples in late Roman times, but they would retain a separate identity in Roman eyes until at least 296, when they were forcibly resettled as
laeti (Roman-era serfs) and thereafter disappear from recorded history. Their tentative existence in the 4th century is confirmed by archaeological discovery of a type of earthenware unique to 4th-century
Frisia, called
terp Tritzum, showing that an unknown number of Frisii were resettled in
Flanders and
Kent, likely as
laeti under the aforementioned Roman coercion. The lands of the Frisii were largely abandoned by as a result of the conflicts of the
Migration Period, climate deterioration, and the flooding caused by a rise in the sea level.
Early Middle Ages The area lay empty for one or two centuries, when changing environmental and political conditions made the region habitable again. At that time, during the Migration Period, "new"
Frisians (probably descended from a merging of
Frisii,
Angles,
Saxons and
Jutes) repopulated the coastal regions. These Frisians consisted of tribes with loose bonds, centred on war bands but without great power. The earliest Frisian records name four social classes, the (
nobiles in Latin documents;
adel in Dutch and German) and (
vrijen in Dutch and
Freien in German), who together made up the "Free Frisians" who might bring suit at court, and the
laten or
liten with the
slaves, who were absorbed into the
laten during the
Early Middle Ages, as slavery was not so much formally abolished, as evaporated. The
laten were tenants of lands they did not own and might be tied to it in the manner of
serfs, but in later times might buy their freedom. In 733,
Charles Martel sent an army against the Frisians. The Frisian army was pushed back to
Eastergoa. The next year the
Battle of the Boarn took place. Charles ferried an army across the
Almere with a fleet that enabled him to sail up to De Boarn. The Frisians were defeated in the ensuing battle, The victors began plundering and burning heathen sanctuaries. Charles Martel returned with much loot, and broke the power of the Frisian kings for good. The Franks annexed the Frisian lands between the
Vlie and the
Lauwers. They conquered the area east of the Lauwers in 785, when
Charlemagne defeated
Widukind. The Carolingians laid Frisia under the rule of
grewan, a title that has been loosely related to
count in its early sense of "governor" rather than "
feudal overlord".
Frisian freedom in 1516 as depicted in a 19th-century painting by
Johannes Hinderikus Egenberger Around 800, when the
Scandinavian
Vikings first attacked
Frisia, which was still under
Carolingian rule, the Frisians were released from military service on foreign territory in order to be able to defend themselves against the heathen Vikings. With their victory in the
Battle of Norditi in 884 they were able to drive the Vikings permanently out of
East Frisia, although it remained under constant threat. Over the centuries, whilst
feudal lords reigned in the rest of Europe, no aristocratic structures emerged in Frisia. This '
Frisian freedom' was represented abroad by
redjeven who were elected from among the wealthier farmers or from elected representatives of the autonomous rural municipalities. Originally the
redjeven were all judges, so-called
Asega, who were appointed by the territorial lords. After significant territories were lost to
Holland in the
Friso-Hollandic Wars, Frisia saw an economic downturn in the mid-14th century. Accompanied by a decline in monasteries and other communal institutions, social discord led to the emergence of untitled nobles called
haadlingen ("headmen"), wealthy landowners possessing large tracts of land and fortified homes who took over the role of the judiciary as well as offering protection to their local inhabitants. Internal struggles between regional leaders resulted in bloody conflicts and the alignment of regions along two opposing parties: the
Fetkeapers and Skieringers. On 21 March 1498, a small group of Skieringers from Westergo secretly met with
Albert III, Duke of Saxony, the
Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, in
Medemblik requesting his help. Albrecht, who had gained a reputation as a formidable military commander, accepted and soon conquered all Friesland.
Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg appointed Albrecht hereditary potestate and gubernator of Friesland in 1499. In 1515, an army of haadlingen and peasants, with the help of mercenaries known as the
Arumer Zwarte Hoop, started a fight for freedom from oppression by the Habsburg authorities. One of the leaders was
Pier Gerlofs Donia, whose farm had been burned down and whose kinfolk had been killed by a marauding
Landsknecht regiment. Since the regiment had been employed by the
Habsburg authorities to suppress the civil war of the
Fetkeapers and Skieringers, Donia put the blame on the authorities. After this he gathered angry peasants and some petty noblemen from Frisia and Gelderland and formed the
Arumer Zwarte Hoop.The rebels received financial support from
Charles II, Duke of Guelders, who claimed the Duchy of
Guelders in opposition to the House of Habsburg. Charles also employed mercenaries under command of his military commander
Maarten van Rossum in their support. However, when the tides turned against the rebels after the Donia's death in 1520, Charles withdrew his support, without which the rebels could no longer afford to pay their mercenary army. The revolt was put to an end in 1523 and Frisia was incorporated into the
Habsburg Netherlands, bringing an end to the Frisian freedom.
Modern times at his coronation
Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, became the first lord of the
Lordship of Frisia. He appointed
Georg Schenck van Toutenburg, who had crushed the peasants' revolt, as
Stadtholder to rule over the province in his stead. When Charles abdicated in 1556, Frisia was inherited by
Philip II of Spain along with the rest of the Netherlands. In 1566, Frisia joined the
Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule. In 1577,
George de Lalaing, Count of Rennenberg was appointed Stadtholder of Frisia and other provinces. A moderate, trusted by both sides, he tried to reconcile the rebels with the Crown. But in 1580, Rennenburg declared for Spain. The
States of Frisia raised troops and took his strongholds of Leeuwarden, Harlingen and Stavoren. Rennenburg was deposed and Frisia became the fifth Lordship to join the rebels'
Union of Utrecht. From 1580 onward, all stadtholders were members of the
House of Orange-Nassau. With the
Peace of Münster in 1648, Frisia became a full member of the independent
Dutch Republic, a federation of provincies. In economic and therefore also political importance, Friesland was next in rank to the provinces of
Holland and
Zeeland. In 1798, three years after the
Batavian Revolution, the provincial lordship of Frisia was abolished and its territory was divided between the Eems and Oude IJssel departments. This was short-lived, however, as Frisia was revived as a department in 1802. When the Netherlands were annexed by the
First French Empire in 1810, the department was in French renamed
Frise. After
Napoleon was defeated in 1813 and a new constitution was introduced in 1814, Friesland became a province of the
Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands, then of the unitary
Kingdom of the Netherlands a year later. ==Geography==