The unfree in early medieval Frisia

Gepubliceerd op 26 februari 2025 om 19:17
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.
 
Why write about this subject?
Slavery was a reality and a part of the early medieval world which is often – fortunately - very hard for us to understand today. Owning other people was a practice which seems to have existed at all times throughout human history, all over the world. It is known that ancient civilisations like the Mesopotamians, Greeks and Romans held slaves, but also the Arabs and Chinese in Asia, Cherokee and Inca’s in America, and the Mali and Aksumite Empires in Africa. Slavery was – and still is – such a common practice around the world that many of our ancestors probably both once were slaves and slave holders. We decided to write a post about this sensitive topic to, on the one hand, give face to many of our early European ancestors who once underwent this dreadful fate, and on the other, to give an insight into the stratification of the early medieval world, wherein keeping of slaves was a part of everyday life.
 
To understand how our early ancestors were able to justify slavery, we need to get into a different mindset according to their culture and era. In the early medieval world, the family or clan was the primary focus of existence. To fall outside of the group was therefore considered equal to be socially dead. One was without honour, and could as such be treated accordingly. A primary example of this way of thinking in regard to prisoners-of-war is referred to by prominent Roman lawyers, such as Ulpian, Florentius and Justinian, as ‘res mancipium’, “the victor’s power over his slave or possession”, in order to morally justify slavery: a slave was a person who was the recipient of an advantage or a gift – his or her life has been spared when it rightfully should have ended. A similar mentality is expressed in the ‘Atlamál in grænlenzko’ in which Atli’s thrall (slave), Beiti, suggests to spare the life of Hogni – the opponent of Atli – because of his courage, and instead the cowardly thrall Hjalli could be killed since he could already be seen as half dead:
 
61. Beiti þet mælti
Toko vér Hialla
Hoggom vér hálft yrkiom
lifira svá lengi
61. “Then Beiti was saying
Let’s catch Hjalli
Since he already is half-dead
However long he will live”
(transl. S. Brink, stanza 61)
 
The historian S. Brink points out that a different conception of freedom seems to have existed in the early middle ages, based on the right to belong to a community instead of freedom defined as individual freedom as it is today in the West. It is against this background that we have to understand how our ancestors were able to accept and even justify the existence of slavery.
 
Contemporaneous societies
We will first take a look at the position of the unfree in Frisia’s neighbouring societies to get an idea how the unfree in early medieval Frisian society itself could have looked like. We’ll highlight the stratification of the unfree with examples from their neighbouring cultures; Carolingian Francia, Anglo-Saxon England and Scandinavia.
 
Carolingian West- and East-Francia
During the ninth and tenth centuries, the so-called feudal agrarian revolution was taking place. This meant that slaves were collectively transferred to semi-free tenants. The slaves that were transferred to semi-free tenants were the servi manuales. These were slaves working and living on estates called latifundae and villae. They were supervised by the estate holder and his steward and had no legal or social rights. If a freeman owned such a slave it was known as a household slave, or mancipii and servi for male slaves and ancillae for female slaves. The second type of slaves were the servi casati, a sort of unfree tenants who worked for themselves on their own farms, but payed rents to their masters. Legally speaking, the servi casati were slaves, but socially speaking they were hard to distinguish from free tenants. During the feudal agrarian revolution, the landowning upper classes found it financially more profitable to release their slaves and instead employ them as peasant on small farms belonging to their estates. During the feudal agrarian revolution, many of the previous mentioned servi manuales and servi casati were merged into a working class of semi-free tenants known as colliberti  in West-Francia and  hörig in East-Francia. The lowest-ranking slaves that remained, the household slaves, became known as  leibeigen. Interestingly enough, high-ranking slaves also existed before the feudal agrarian revolution, namely the  servi principes. They were part of the royal household slaves and carried out advanced administrative tasks. During the feudal agrarian revolution, the  servi principes  were slowly replaced by monks. In Bavaria these royal slaves were also known as adalschalks.
 
Anglo-Saxon England
The stratification of the unfree in Anglo-Saxon England was similar to that on the Continent. In England, household slaves also comprised the bottom of the social hierarchy. Male slaves mainly worked as farming slaves, such as plowmen, shepherds or swineherd. Male slaves were referred to by the words  þeow, þræl, þegn and wealh, but the Latin servi also existed. Female slaves – þeowe or Latin ancillae – seem mainly to have carried out household chores. Grinding seed on a quern, milking cows, sheep and goats as well as doing laundry, carrying water from the well and being wet nurses were presumably tasks performed by female slaves. Some of the jobs performed by female slaves are reflected in terms referring to them, such as dæge (baker) and birele (one who carries the drinking cup). Slave women also served as concubines (see Scandinavia). A specific counterpart of the  servi manuales, working on estates, isn’t reflected in the terms for slaves in Anglo-Saxon England, which doesn’t necessarily means there weren’t any slaves working on royal farms. The  servi casati, however, does seem to have a direct counterpart, namely; the  esne, kotsetla  and  laet. The counterpart of the servi principes  is reflected in an interesting will from the end of the tenth century of the noblewoman Æthelgifu. In her will it becomes clear her household comprised also a priest, special female singers who were to sing in the church and a goldsmith, all of whom were slaves. Anglo-Saxon society was rapidly influenced by the feudal agricultural revolution after the Norman conquest in 1066. Corresponding groups to the colliberti  from the Continent are found in Wessex and Western Mercia with the same name and in other parts of England as  gebur. This group seems to have been distinct from another large social group known as  servi, from which the modern English word ‘serf’ is derived.
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Of the abovementioned terms for the unfree, the word þegn could refer to both an aristocrat and a slave, meaning something more like ‘servant’ than ‘slave’, and being related to the Old High German word ‘thegen’. Wealh was a term used in earlier Anglo-Saxon times, referring to non-Germanic speakers. The continuation of the word is still visible in the words ‘Wales’, ‘Wallonia’ – the French part of Belgium – and ‘walnut’. Terms for slaves referring to neighbouring groups of people were quite common to denote the unfree across all cultures. A similar example to ‘wealh’ is the word ‘slave’ itself, which originally referred to someone from Eastern Europe, a Slav. Interesting to note is also the meaning of the word kotsetla. This word literally means an inhibitor of a small house ‘kot’, which is still commonly used in Flemish, and to a lesser extend in Dutch, to refer to a dormitory or house.
 
Scandinavia
In Scandinavia, the unfree class remained unchanged for longer than in the previous two societies. Household slaves existed in Scandinavia too, of which the male slaves (þræll and þjónn) also mainly worked the land. Additionally, thralls were used as executioners when someone had to be murdered, as is often reflected in Icelandic sagas. A counterpart of the  servi manuales  can be found in thralls who worked on large farms belonging to noblemen or kings. These large farms did, however, differ in scale from the estates found on the Continent in Carolingian Francia. Counterparts of the  servi casati  are not known from surviving terms from Scandinavia, although it seems unlikely that they did not exist. As in Anglo-Saxon England, female slaves (ambátt, þý and þerna) mainly seem to have carried out household tasks. From terms referring to a specific type of female slave, it is known that female slaves were also given specific tasks such as weaving (seta) and baking (deigja – which is a direct counterpart to the dæge in Anglo-Saxon England). It should also not be underestimated that female slaves served as ‘concubines’. There also existed a specific term referring to a female slave kept for sexual purposes, namely frilla. Intercourse with another person's slave woman was one of the topics most often covered in early medieval law codes, from which it can be derived that this abomination unfortunately seems to have been common practice throughout, and a shocking part of, the early medieval world. At the other end of the spectrum, certain thralls are also known to have had specifically skilled and highly valued tasks. An example of which was the bryti. This was a kind of unfree foreman of relatively high standing who ran a large farm in the name of a nobleman or king. Another skilled and highly regarded trade in Scandinavia was the blacksmith’s. We find an example of this in the Völundarkviða, in which Wayland the Smith is captured and crippled by the king Niðhað and forced to forge for him the most magnificent jewellery and ornaments. Such slaves can be considered the Scandinavian counterpart of the servi principes. Scandinavian society doesn’t seem to have been influenced much by the feudal agrarian revolution. A new class of serfs would remain absent in Scandinavia for most of the Middle Ages, with the main emphasis remaining on (house) slaves for farming.
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The word ambátt is a continuation of the Latin ‘ambactus’, to which the Dutch and German words ‘ambacht’ (craft, trade) and ‘ambt’ (official) are related. The word ambátt came to be used to specifically refer to a female slave in Scandinavia. A parallel to the word þerna can be found in Old High German ‘thiorna’, which is related to the regional Dutch word ‘deerne’, meaning ‘young girl, maiden’. Over time, a semantic shift in the meaning of the word thiorna took place, similar to the English word ‘serf’.
 
The position of the unfree in Frisia
The Lex Frisionum, written around 800 AD in Latin, gives us more insight into the types of classes of unfree in Frisia. Five different terms for unfree appear in the Frisian law code, from which it can be deduced that there was a stratification similar to that in the societies mentioned above before the feudal agrarian revolution. First of all, slaves were mentioned by the terms servi and mancipia. The terms for these slaves bear similarities to the household slaves of the Carolingian Empire. It is plausible, however, that such slaves worked not only on ordinary farms, but also on royal or chieftain’s farms. Another term that was mentioned was that of the semi-free, the litus. This term is etymologically and substantively related to the Anglo-Saxon laet, which makes the liti a counterpart to the servi casati. This is confirmed by the fact that a litus had significantly more rights than a servus in the Lex Frisionum: the former isn’t equated with livestock – as is the servus – (Tit. VII. 1. De Rebus fugitivis); the former would get a fine when working on the day of the Lord, instead of getting caned (Tit. XVIII. 1-2. De die Dominico); and the former was allowed to marry (VI. 1. De coniugiis ignoratisi).
Female slaves are also mentioned in the Lex Frisionum. They are referred to by the word ancillae, which is also the same word used for female household slaves in the Carolingian Empire. They also probably mainly performed household chores. Besides ancillae, there is also a specific term known that refers to a female slave who was kept for sexual purposes, namely bortmagað.
There is, however, also evidence that female slaves performed other, highly-esteemed tasks. Women who weaved fresum ( = Frisian cloth) were held in high esteem, and injuring women engaged in this task carried a high penalty in the form of wergild (Tit. VI.23-24. Haec iuditia VVlemarus dictavit). It is possible that female slaves also had to perform this task, just as the seta in Scandinavia. Besides women who make Frisian cloth, the harp player’s and the gold smith’s were also highly regarded trades (Tit. VI.23.). However, references to unfree who worked these highly regarded trades aren’t mentioned in the Lex Frisionum. Though, the name Wela(n)du is mentioned on a seventh-century gold solidus found in Schweindorf (Ost-Friesland, Germany). This shows that the saga of Wayland the Smith was also known in – parts of – Frisia, and that perhaps high-ranking slaves also served here as (gold) smiths.
The feudal agrarian revolution remained absent in Frisia for almost the entire Middle Ages. Whereas other areas were governed by a count, duke or bishop with feudal men, in Frisia during the so-called ‘Frisian Freedom’, a de facto continuation of the early mediaeval administration took place: Frisian noblemen locally controlled and governed an area by means of regional and supra-regional assemblies, called a ‘thing’, of which the one at the Opstalsboom near Aurich is the best known. Slavery gradually declined in Europe under the influence of Christianity, but serfdom replaced it. For Frisia, this meant that the slaves probably merged into a semi-free class at some point in the high or late Middle Ages.
 
How did people become unfree?
In the early middle ages, people could fall into unfreedom in various ways. Most common was probably captivity resulting from warfare and other forms of conflict. Slaves could be obtained in war as prisoners of war, but also as booty resulting from campaigns and raids. Slaves would then be gathered and traded at a slave market. They were then be collected and traded in a slave market in Europe or - more often - in the Middle East. An example of a notorious slave market in the ninth century was Dublin. Early medieval Frisian trade involved, among other things, the trade in slaves. In the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, written around 730 AD, Bede writes that a Frisian merchant in London bought the nobleman Imma and allowed him to buy his freedom again, after he was captured in a battle between the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and could not be killed by his rivals. However, Frisians were also sold as slaves by ‘Northmanni’ after the latter raided the Frisian shires of Oostergo and Westergo, and the trading centre of Dorestad, as the entry for 846 in the Annales Xantenses narrates. As such, Frisian were – like every other early medieval people – both victims and participants in the early medieval slave trade. On the other end of the spectrum, people could also pass into unfreedom more or less voluntarily for a limited time, for example as a consequence of financial difficulties. This so-called ‘debt-slavery’ would end when the debt was regarded as paid by the one to whom the debt was owed.
 
Conclusion
The above shows that slavery was common in the early middle ages and that it had broadly the same structure and organisation throughout Europe. The division of the unfree into servi manuales,  servi casati  and  servi principes  shows that there was no such thing as one type of slave, but that the unfree class was much more nuanced than that. As a slave one could be given the most monotonous, dirty jobs in the fields or household, but on the other hand one could also perform one of the most prestigious tasks in society. The differences between free and unfree were mostly legal and social rights, which in some cases were not significantly different from each other. This shows that, even though most slaves had terrible fates, this did not always had to be the case. During the feudal revolution, people gained more rights with the formation of a new class of semi-free serfs, but at the same time the high-ranking tasks of slaves disappeared with it. Eventually, slavery disappeared completely in Europe due to a gradual decline in the Middle Ages under the influence of Christianity.
 
Our reconstructions
In order to make the early medieval class society part of our depiction, and to give a face to our early medieval ancestors who lived in slavery, we decided to include the unfree class in our depiction of early medieval Frisia. We base our reconstructions on the so-called Salzburger Kalendarium – a Carolingian calendar from 818 AD on which the seasons are depicted personified. According to A. Strassmeier, the Kalendarium shows different classes, from nobles to slaves. Since the prosperous class of the nobility was reflected in their clothing - in the form of intensity of colour and fineness of fabric - and jewellery, the unfree class, on the contrary, will have been characterised by very light or no colour of clothing and without jewellery. Therefore, on the Salzburg Kalendarium, the April figure, with its lack of colour in clothing, is, in our opinion, with certainty a slave. Taking into account the knowledge of this post and artistic interpretation, the June figure and November figure could possibly be depictions of the semi-free serfs, according to our own understanding. For this reason, our reconstructions of unfree people wear austere clothing of coarsely spun linen and wool with very light or no colour. The photos were taken at the reconstructed Iron Age farm at Orvelte.

 

Sources and further reading:

  • Brink, S., Thraldom. A history of slavery in the Viking age (Oxford 2021) 46-62, 122-124, 129-135, 184-197. (If interested in this subject, we highly recommend this publication).
  • Looijenga, J.H., Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150-700 (Groningen 1997) 180.
  • Nijdam, H., ‘De middeleeuwse Friese samenleving. Vrijheid en recht’ in: D. Spiekhout, A. ter Brugge en M. Stoter (red.), Vrijheid, Vetes, Vagevuur. De middeleeuwen in het Noorden (Leeuwarden 2022) 21-31, aldaar 24-26.
  • Strassmeier, A., Das fränkische Heer der Merowingerzeit. Teil 1 (Berlijn 2014) 18.

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