Early medieval trade cannot be discussed without the Frisians: the early medieval Frisians had such a large part in trade that the word ‘Frisiones’ in a charter from 829 - about the construction of the cathedral in Worms - was an equivalent for “long-distance merchant”! The so-called ‘Frisian trade’ - that will be discussed in this post - has its beginnings and origins in the North Sea culture of the seventh and early eighth centuries. However, this post will focus only on the peak of this trade in the ninth century. The North Sea culture will be discussed later in a separate post.

Spades! Several finds of spades have been found in the terp area of Friesland and Groningen, namely in Oostrum (Fr.) and Joeswerd (Gr.), and possibly also in Ezinge (Gr.). A characteristic feature of these implements is that they are made of a single piece of oak and have a rectangular, slightly tapered blade. This last feature is characteristic of the spade: unlike a shovel – ideally used for scooping, a spade is ideally suited for digging in a more downward direction. The straight, rectangular blade was, for this reason, ideally suited for cutting through sod and peat. Possibly, spades were also used for digging trenches, raising defences such as a burgh or a landweer (an earthen wall with a ditch with thorny hedges in it) and later, raising dykes. The original spades can be admired in the online collections of the Fries Museum and the Groninger Museum.

Reclamations and floods! Whether it is the construction of dams and ditches by the Cananephates, or the Delta Works of the 1970s; living with and fighting against water is in Dutch nature. An important part of Dutch history would drastically change the landscape and eventually cause a lot of flooding; bog reclamations. Perhaps the best known Dutch reclamations are the peat cuttings of the 19th and 20th centuries or the Great Reclamations of the 13th century. However, one of the first bog reclamations took place much earlier, in early medieval Frisia. Especially in so-called Westflinge, excavations took place very early. More on this in this post!

In the Frisian terp area, multiple finds have been found that are thought to have been used as agricultural tools. One such category of finds are pieces of antler comprising two tines. These implements are thought to have been used as hoes to work the soil or as pitchforks. According to Roes, the Fries Museum has more than thirty of these antler pieces. The collections of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden has three, all hailing from Friesland, and the Groninger Museum has one. Finds of these implements seem to be lacking in the strandwall area of former West-Frisia, suggesting that the antler tools might have been commonly used in the terpen area only.

In the Lex Frisionum, a record of early medieval Frisian law, different classes are mentioned. In these law texts, there seems to be a rigid distinction between the rights of the well-to-do nobility, freemen, and the unfree. In Dutch reenactment, little attention is generally given to the differentiation in class, and the position of slaves and serfs therein. Therefore, this post will give an overview of the position of the unfree during the early middle ages, and by doing this trying to tell something about the unfree in early medieval Frisian society.

Cheers! With the festive season behind us, many a person probably can’t see food or drink no more. In the early middle ages, many a feast took place as well, and a popular glass with which to pour out a toast back then was the tumbler. Finds of such glasses from West-Frisia have been found in Domburg and Bloemendaal, and from Central-Frisia in Ferwert, Wons, Makkum and Pingjum. The finds are currently part of the Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, the Huis van Hilde and the Fries Museum collections, respectively.

A while ago, our friends from Sköll reenactment wrote a post on Facebook about different kind of hats from the Viking age. Most of the hats they wrote about came from Frisia. We, as a group who reenact early medieval Frisians, couldn't, therefore, not write about this subject too! Be sure to check their original post and page as well!

In early medieval Frisia, travelling by water was often much faster than travelling by land through the overgrown, swampy marshlands. Frisians relied heavily on ships to traverse the watery landscape they lived in. In doing so, they relied on different types of ships for different purposes.

One thing that distinguishes Central- and East-Frisia from West-Frisia are the many finds of flutes. A total of at least twenty-four bone flutes has been unearthed from the terp mounds in the modern province of Fryslân and an additional nine have been found in the mounds from Groningen. That’s a lot of flutes; an indication that flute-playing might once have been very popular!

The landscape is the background against which history takes place. A people is shaped by a landscape, but a landscape is also shaped by a people. This is particularly the case for the Frisians. Two different landscapes can be recognised in early medieval Frisia, namely; the terpen region and the strandwal region.

The Bernuthsfeld tunic is one of the best preserved textile finds from a bog and was found in 1907 in a bog near Tannenhausen in Germany. The tunic belonged to a man who lived around the year 700 AD. There were, however, more finds found in the bogs of Bernuthsfeld.

Nearly all of the historical clothing we use in our depiction are dyed and made by hand! Our member Tineke Kleijn achieves beautiful, even colours from a variety of natural dyes and pigments. When dyeing our own clothing, we use plants that would have been available in early medieval Frisia. Some plants would only have been available in certain areas of Frisia – such as dyers madder (Rubia tinctorum: red) for the terpen-area and dyers broom (Genista tinctoria: yellow) for West-Frisia –, whilst others would have been available throughout the whole of Frisia – such as woad (Isatis tinctoria: blue), weld (Reseda luteola: yellow) and different kinds of tree bark and nuts (brown). Some vegetables would also have been used for dyeing, like onions – which give a warm yellow to orange hue. The use of some of those dyes and hues are known from dye-analyses from archaeological finds. For example, the Rasquert, Aalsum and Oostrum hats found in the terpen-area have decorative stitching which was dyed red with dyers madder and the Dokkum-Berg Sion cap was dyed in a deep brown hue. It’s also known that one of the pieces of fabric on the Bernuthsfeld tunic in Ost-Friesland (Germany) was dyed yellowish-green with birch leaves. These finds attest to how colourful the early middle ages might have been!