Frisians

A Germanic people inhabiting the North Sea coastal plain and islands between the Rhineland and the Elbe (Frisia) in the early centuries BC and AD. Their coastal settlements were on artificial mounds known as terpen. The Frisians were involved in the invasion of England by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century AD. They controlled the trade of the North Sea from the port of Dorestad at the mouth of the Rhine, which became a target for Viking raids. Frisia was absorbed into the Frankish kingdom, its conquest being completed by Charlemagne. Archaeological evidence of these trading ventures is seen at Dorestad, where extensive excavations have been done. Evidence in the mounded villages show signs of long-distance trade contacts, suggesting that the Frisians linked the Rhineland to the northern world from the beginning of the Roman period until modern times.

A loose-knit collection of tribes who inhabited the North Sea littoral between the Rhine and the Elbe from later Roman times. These communities traditionally lived in nucleated villages constructed on mounds (terps), safe from sudden inundations by the sea. The Frisians stubbornly resisted the annexation of their eastern territory by the Merovingian kings of Austrasia in the 7th century, but Charles Martel succeeded in bringing most of the area under early Carolingian hegemony, and Charlemagne completed the conquest. The area was only slowly brought within the Christain orbit during the second half of the 8th century, when AngloSaxon missionaries penetrated the archipelago. The Frisians are best known as adventurous traders, true ancestors of the Amsterdammers. Documentary references to their trading exploits in the Rhineland, northern France, London and York, and even in Rome have made them the most frequently cited merchants of the Dark Ages. The archaeological evidence of these trading ventures is to be seen at Dorestad, where extensive excavations have revealed the entrepot handling the Rhenish trade of the Carolingian period. Yet at an even earlier date the mounded villages betray signs of longdistance trade contacts, suggesting that the Frisians linked the Rhineland to the northern world from the beginning of the Roman period until modem times.