Frisians

ETHNONYM: Frysk

Orientation

Identification. The Frisians are a linguistic and cultural minority of the Netherlands (with some pockets of Frisian speakers living in Germany as well).

Location. The majority of Frisians live in Friesland, a Province in the north of the Netherlands that is bordered on the south by the Zuider Zee (IJsselmeer) and on the east and north by the North Sea. Most of Friesland lies below sea level, subject to storms and flooding through much of the year. The soil is mixed: sand, clay, and peat. The coastal terp region, socalled for the mounds (terpen) built by early inhabitants to raise their dwelling sites above the flood line, is essentially sandy soil. To the east, two ecological zones can be distinguished: the "low middle" area of flat wetlands formed by the silting-in of old riverbeds; and the marshy forest area in the southeast.

Demography. Frisian speakers today number approximately 730,000, with about 400,000 living in Friesland Province, 300,000 living elsewhere in the Netherlands, and the remainder living in Germany, Denmark, and North America.

Linguistic Affiliation. Frisian is a member of the North Sea Branch of the Western Germanic Family of Indo-European languages and bears strong linguistic resemblance to both English and Dutch. Most speakers are bilingual in Dutch. There are three dialects: West, Eastern, and Northern Frisian. Frisian has an official orthography in the Netherlands.

History and Cultural Relations

Frisian mythology holds that an Indian prince, Friso by name, was drafted into the Macedonian army of Alexander the Great, deserted from that army, and sailed north from Greece with his brothers in the fourth century b.c. to eventually make landfall in Friesland. There is archaeological and historical evidence that a proto-Frisian culture developed on the coast between 400 and 200 b.c. and that the construction of terpen was well under way by 200 b.c. By 12 b.c., Roman records tell of Frisians assisting the ships of Roman invasionary forces in the region. The Frisians entered into trade with Rome's Legions, providing them with hides. The alliance with Rome, however, was uneasy, and between a.d. 25 and 70 the Frisians rebelled openly against Roman demands for tribute. The Romans were finally forced to retreat from the region by AD. 70. The years a.d. 700-900 were the time of greatest Frisian influence in the area, because of their extensive involvement in seafaring trade, but Frankish expansion (in the early 800s) soon reduced the territory under Frisian influence. The Franks brought Christianity as well as political control to Friesland, though conversion of the Frisians did not come easy. Between the twelfth and thirteenth century, however, Christendom was securely established, though not without undergoing syncretization with indigenous beliefs—a phenomenon common throughout the Germanic territories. By the medieval era, the scattered homesteads of Frisian families began to give way to nucleated village settlements each centered on a small church built on high ground. The inland areas were characterized by smallhold farms, with more extensive landholdings along the coast. However, a classic feudal system never developed in Friesland. Much of Frisian cultural identity today can be directly attributed to the strong and successful tradition of independence maintained throughout the period of Saxon domination during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the slogan "Free and Frisian, without Tax or Excise" was the rallying cry for rebellion against Foreign rule. In 1579, with the Treaty of Utrecht, Friesland became part of "the Seven United Provinces," which included Holland, Zeeland, Groningen, Overijssel, Gelderland, Utrecht, and Friesland, and from which the modern nation of the Netherlands is derived. Within this union, there was provision for a great deal of regional autonomy, which again contributed to the preservation of a distinctly Frisian identity. Of all the united provinces, Holland assumed an ascendancy early on because of its great success in shipping and mercantilism. This ascendancy was partly responsible for the introduction of the highly influential Dutch Calvinist sect in Friesland. In 1795, the French occupied much of Friesland, bringing with it the ideals that informed the French Revolution (liberty, equality, and fraternity) and the Napoleonic Code. But the Frisians never cared for foreign rule, however "enlightened," and threw their support behind William V of Orange-Nassau. In 1813 the kingdom of the Netherlands, Including Friesland, was formed, and prospects for absolute Political autonomy for the province were ended. Early in World War II, the Netherlands was occupied by the Nazis, and Frieslanders were active in the Dutch Resistance, although there were some few who, as in the Netherlands as a whole, collaborated with their occupiers. The tales of heroic Frisian resistance against Nazi occupation provide the newest episodes in their long-standing tradition of independence from foreign rule.

Settlements

Settlement of Friesland depended upon protecting its lowlying lands from inundation by sea floods. The "Golden Hoop" of dikes that today extends along the whole of the Frisian coast was begun as long ago as a.d. 1000. The earliest Frisian settlements were built on mounds of refuse covered with clay, and drainage windmills were constructed to pump water out of sodden fields. The inland portion of Friesland is still dotted with scattered farming homesteads, although nucleated village settlements became common beginning in the medieval period. A group of villages forms a gemeente, or community, which is similar to, but not identical with, the concept of the Anglo-American county. (The gemeente was originally a cooperative unit, rather than an administrative one.) The classic Frisian homestead is called "head-neck-body"—a series of articulated structures in which the family quarters are contained in the smallish "head," connected to the larger "body" (the barn), by a narrower and shorter section (the "neck") that contains the kitchen, milk cellar, and churn room. The living quarters include a parlor, reserved for formal use (e.g., Sunday visits), as well as a larger, plainer room for day-to-day family use. Traditional, but rarely used today, is the "bed-cupboard" that opened off the living area and was precisely what the name suggests: a sort of closet containing a bed. Hearths, and sometimes internal walls as well, were tiled. Barns were traditionally built of wattle and daub, but brick is the more common material today. Thatching for barn roofs remains in use, but house roofs are usually tiled. Barn roofs were traditionally finished off with decorative gables, a practice that is rapidly dying out. In the "heather villages" of old, where the peat workers lived, dwellings (called spitkeat ) were semi-subterranean constructions of turf and planking, covered over with a peaked thatch roof.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Frisian economy centers on agriculture and dairying—the Frisian dairy breed is famous the world over. Inland farms are smallholds, worked by the families that own them. Even in the coastal regions where larger holdings were once common, farming was done on a smaller, family scale on leased lots. In the forested area, livestock takes precedence, while the open lands have emphasized crop production since the introduction of chemical fertilizer and mechanized traction. The weekly livestock market in Tjouwert is an important Economic as well as social occasion. In the seventeenth century, peat working became an important economic pursuit as well, when demand for cheap fuel increased because of the introduction of industrialization throughout the Netherlands. Although peat is no longer the marketable item it once was, its exploitation had a number of important effects upon Friesland: reduction of arable land, the building of canals throughout the region for the inland shipping of peat, and the expansion of the inland shipping industry itself. The tourist industry is well developed, catering to vacationers from Holland, as well as from the rest of Europe. Frisian towns were and are trade and crafts centers.

Industrial Arts. Frisian industry includes clock making, tile working, building construction, and the production of dairy products. A traditional craft, distinctive to Friesland, is the carving and painting of ulebuorden or "owl boards"—barn gables that were once a standard part of barn construction but are no longer so common.

Trade. From very early on in the history of the Frisian People, trade was an important aspect of the economy. The location of Friesland made the Frisians admirably placed for participation in a trading network that extended from Brittany to Scandinavia, and their seafaring skills gave them a great deal of influence within that network. Early Frisian trade goods were furs and hides. Later on, agricultural produce was added. With the introduction of money, which dates back to Roman times, Frisian trade gave place to Commerce. Peat was an important commercial item during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Division of Labor. Except for the association of women with the domestic arts, there is no strict division of labor by sex. Both male and female family members participate in the work of the family farm, and in the towns women participate in merchant and craft activities along with the men.

Land Tenure. Land is privately owned, and it can be bought, sold, or leased.

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Kinship is reckoned bilaterally, with a patrilineal bias.

Kinship Terminology. Frisian kinship terminology is of the Eskimo type. Naming practices prior to the French occupation of the early 1800s consisted of the simple reversal, from one generation to the next, of "first" and "last" names. Thus, the son of Hans Koek would be named Koek Hans, and the grandson would be Hans Koek once again. The French introduced permanent, or patrilineally heritable, family names, and at that time people either registered the names they currently held (often with a suffix), took geographic referents as the family name (the name of their town, for example) , or registered their occupation (Weaver, for instance, or Farmer). A special relation exists between neighbor entailing obligation of mutual assistance, and is marked by a specific term of address ("neighbor-man" or "neighbor-woman") used as a preface to the addressee's surname.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Weddings were once very elaborate celebrations, and were traditionally performed by a priest. Today, however, civil weddings are as common as church ones. Marriages also used to be finalized when the bride and groom were still quite young—in their middle teens, or shortly after concluding elementary school. Today, however, the average age at marriage is higher, partly reflecting an increased interest in higher education prior to "settling down." Sex prior to Marriage is relatively common, though a certain amount of discretion is expected of the parties involved, and "homing," or living together out of wedlock, has a long tradition despite the disapproval of the church. Divorce is as common in Friesland as in the rest of the Netherlands.

Domestic Unit. Although the "ideal typical" Frisian Family configuration is the nuclear family, single-parent families, independent spinster or bachelor households, and any of the variety of other household arrangements to be found in the Netherlands—and, indeed, European society as a whole—have their counterparts in Friesland.

Inheritance. Heritable property is passed on at the discretion of its owner, although there is a distinct bias that favors a son inheriting from his father.

Socialization. In the face-to-face community of the Frisian village, socialization is not the specific province of any one person or institution. Parents are the primary care givers and socializers of the very young, but once a child is old enough to be out and about in the village, other villagers and the child's own peers contribute much to his or her socialization as well. The school and the church are the two principal socializing institutions outside the family, and the public school provides formal instruction in the Frisian language. The much larger Christian school provides instruction only in Dutch, however. Friesland has no university of its own.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. There is a basic distinction between rural and town-based Frisians, with greater status accorded to the town dwellers. Communalism, necessitated by the demands of the environment (i.e., the need to build and maintain the extensive system of canals, dikes, and drainage ditches), is reinforced by the concept of buorreplicht (Neighbor's duty) —a part of Frisian folk law that appears in the Lex Frisionum of Charlemagne—which requires that neighbors provide assistance to one another when the occasion demands it. By extension, neighbors are expected to attend one another's life-cycle events (weddings, funerals, etc). Neighbor relations, rather than kinship ties, are the principal Vehicle for the formation of larger cooperative groups in Frisian society.

Political Organization. Modern Frisian political organization derives from the thirty gemeenten, or countylike communities, and the "Eleven"—the Frisian cities established as independent of county governance during medieval times. Decisions requiring action or imposing obligations on the Frisian people as a whole are made by forty-one appointed representatives (one for each county and one for each of the cities). The highest-ranking official in Friesland is also appointed—that is the queen's commissioner, who acts as a liaison between the province and the federal government.

Social Control. Frisian folk law was laid down in written form as part of Charlemagne's Lex Frisionum in a.d. 801-802, and it provides the formal means for the adjudication and mediation of conflicts within Frisian society. Informal mechanisms of social control are those common to many village communities: gossip, joking, ridicule, and other expressions of public disapproval for an individual's social transgressions.

Conflict. Friesland is but one province within the larger national entity of the Netherlands, and thus it does not have autonomy in relating to other nation-states. While enjoying a great deal of provincial autonomy within the Netherlands, it is subject to the national government's policy decisions Concerning foreign relations, alliances, and disputes.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. Christianity came early to Friesland with the dominion of the Franks in the eighth and ninth centuries, but it did not succeed in completely eradicating Indigenous tradition. Pre-Christian beliefs, called byleauwe, are derived from the larger Germanic folk tradition, and they retain some currency especially in rural areas and the forested region. These folk beliefs, modifying and being modified by the newer Christian faith, now consist of an interwoven tapestry of folktales and superstitions regarding supernatural beings such as devils, spooks, and ghosts; "white ladies" who lived underground and kidnapped travelers in the night; a more beneficent category of female spirits who provided help to travelers in distress; and elves, witches, wizards, and trolls. Belief in oracles and predictive visions were common in the relatively recent past. Predominantly, Frisians are Protestant: 85 percent are members of the Calvinist Dutch Reformed or Reformed churches, with another 5 percent being Mennonites.

Ceremonies. Many traditional ceremonial occasions—such as the start of Lent (Mardi Gras) and Palm Sunday—have become exclusively religious observances, with little community celebration. Easter, however, remains a major community celebration, marked by special family meals, egg-hunt competitions, and the like. Queen's Day, a national observance, is celebrated on 30 April with parades and festivals. St. Martin's Day, once associated with the church and the spirits of the deceased, is now a children's holiday. As is true throughout the Netherlands, the holiday of Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaes ) is celebrated on 5 December. It marks the arrival of Saint Nicholas and his assistant, Black Peter, who travel to the Netherlands in a boat from Spain and bring sweets for the children of the village. Presents are exchanged between friends and family members on this day as well. Christmas, however, is strictly a church observance.

Arts. Traditional Frisian folk arts include tile making, elaborate embroidery, and the ulebuorden, the ornately decorated gables that once graced the traditional Frisian barns and have now become purely aesthetic productions. Friesland has a long tradition of excellence in the literary and visual arts as well.

Death and Afterlife. Frisian attitudes toward death are characterized by a markedly practical acceptance of its inevitability. The obligation of performing funerary tasks once fell to the neighbors of the deceased as one of the obligations of buorreplicht, but more recently they have been assumed by burial associations. The deceased traditionally was wrapped in a white shroud but is now more commonly dressed in everyday clothing. The body is carried to the cemetery in a horse-drawn hearse, followed by the family and neighbors of the deceased in a procession on foot. Although beliefs in the afterlife are largely consistent with Christian teachings, some elements of Frisian funerary practice reflect non- or pre-Christian influences. For example, the funeral procession, according to tradition, ought to follow a winding path in order to disorient the spirit of the dead person and thus frustrate its efforts to return to the home it knew in life. Similarly, the coffin is carried around the cemetery three times before being brought in for interment.

Bibliography

Kalma, J. J. (1977). Friesland toen en nu. The Hague: Boekencentrum.

Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley (1989). Frisian and Free: Study of an Ethnic Minority of the Netherlands. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press.

Van der Plank, P. H. (1985). "Ethnicité dans une province périphérique: La Frise." Recherches Sociologiques 15:129-141.

Wittermans, Tamme (1967). "The Frisians: An Ethnic Group in the Netherlands." Sociology and Social Research 52:88-100.

NANCY E. GRATTON

Frisians A Germanic seafaring people. In Roman times they occupied northern Holland and north-west Germany. Apart from records of their revolts against Rome between 12 BC and 69 AD, little is known about them. Some of them served in the Roman army in Britain in the 3rd century. By the 4th century they were under Saxon domination. The FRANKS attempted to convert them to Christianity by force, though this was less successful than the missionary efforts of St Wilfred from England. They were part of the CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE, and in the 16th century became part of the Habsburg empire of CHARLES V. In 1579 they reluctantly joined the Union of UTRECHT against PHILIP II. They continued their independent role in the new state, electing their own Statholder (or President) until 1747.