''Lex Frisionum'' (the "Law of the Frisians", or more freely the "Frisian Law") was recorded in Latin during the reign of
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...
, after the year 785, when the Frankish conquest of Frisia was completed by the final defeat of the Saxon rebel leader
Widukind
Widukind, also known as Wittekind and Wittikund, was a leader of the Saxons and the chief opponent of the Frankish king Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars from 777 to 785. Charlemagne ultimately prevailed, organized Saxony as a Frankish provinc ...
.
The law code covered the region of the
Frisians
The Frisians () are an ethnic group indigenous to the German Bight, coastal regions of the Netherlands, north-western Germany and southern Denmark. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland an ...
.
Content
The Frisians were divided into four legal classes, to whom the law, or those transgressions of it that incurred set fines, applied. They were the nobles, the freemen, the serfs and slaves. The clergy are not mentioned in the ''Lex Frisionum'' as they were not liable to civil law.
The Frisians received the title of freemen and were allowed to choose their own
podestat or imperial governor. In the ''Lex Frisionum'' three districts of
Frisia
Frisia () is a Cross-border region, cross-border Cultural area, cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. Wider definitions of "Frisia" ...
are clearly distinguished: the law governs all of Frisia, but West Frisia "between
Zwin and
Vlie" and East Frisia "between
Lauwers
The Lauwers () is a river in the Netherlands. It forms part of the border between the provinces of Friesland and Groningen. From the 730s to Widukind's defeat in 785, it was part of the border of the Frankish Empire.
The former Lauwerszee an ...
and
Weser
The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...
" have certain stated exceptional provisions.
At the partition treaty of Verdun (843) the whole of Frisia became part of
Lotharingia
Lotharingia was a historical region and an early medieval polity that existed during the late Carolingian and early Ottonian era, from the middle of the 9th to the middle of the 10th century. It was established in 855 by the Treaty of Prüm, a ...
; at the
treaty of Meersen (870) it was briefly divided between the kingdoms of the
East Franks (
Austrasia
Austrasia was the northeastern kingdom within the core of the Francia, Frankish Empire during the Early Middle Ages, centring on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers. It included the original Frankish-ruled territories within what had ...
) and the
West Franks (
Neustria
Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks during the Early Middle Ages, in contrast to the eastern Frankish kingdom, Austrasia. It initially included land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, in the north of present-day ...
), but in 880 the whole country was reunited under Austrasia.
The first twenty-two chapters of the Lex Frisionum are entirely concerned with schedules of fines (''compositio'') and
wergeld, the compensations due victims or their kin, scheduled according to the social ranks of perpetrator and victim. Remarkably, the fine for killing a woman was exactly the same as for a man of the same rank, a feature of Frisian law that links it to
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
law, and stands apart from all other German codes. A further eleven chapters contain the 'Additions of the Wise Men' (''Additio sapientum''), ten subheadings from the judgements of Wiemar and of Saxmund of whom nothing is known, as well as sections from the ''
Lex Thuringorum'' ("Law Code of the
Thuringia
Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area.
Er ...
ns") to cover instances not previously covered.
A noble's defense was to gather a specified number of "
oath-helpers" willing to swear that the crime was not committed.
The only
trial by ordeal
Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused (called a "proband") was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience.
In medieval Europe, like ...
mentioned (twice) in the Lex Frisionum is the ordeal by boiling water. A stone had to be withdrawn from a seething cauldron: if the blisters were healed within three days, the man was innocent.
Transmission
On numismatic grounds based on the amounts of fines (compositio) and
wergeld, the laws from the Lex Frisionum date from the first half of the 7th century at the latest.
There are no surviving manuscripts of the Lex Frisionum. The only testimony is the oldest printed version, which dates from 1557. In that year, the scholar
Joannis Basilius Herold made a compilation of all Germanic laws from the time of Charlemagne, ''Originum ac Germanicarum Antiquitatum Libri...'', printed by
Heinrich Petri of
Basel
Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...
. Among them was printed the Lex Frisionum, but from what source, or how corrupted was Herold's text, is unknown; the title-page of his edition indicates that the material was drawn from the library (now dispersed) of the
monastery of Fulda
The Abbey of Fulda (; ), from 1221 the Princely Abbey of Fulda () and from 1752 the Prince-Bishopric of Fulda (), was a Benedictine abbey and ecclesiastical principality centered on Fulda, in the present-day German state of Hesse.
The monastery ...
.
The surviving version is apparently a rough draft, still retaining
pagan
Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the ...
elements, which doubtless would have been edited out in the finished version, which Charlemagne apparently contemplated assembling for each of the Germanic peoples in his empire.
See also
*
Early Germanic law
References
External links
Lex Frisionum Start Page
and full original Latin text, with English translation by Kees Nieuwenhuijsen
Information on the ''lex Frisionum'' and its manuscript tradition on the ''{{lang, la, Bibliotheca legum regni Francorum manuscripta'' website
A database on Carolingian secular law texts (Karl Ubl, Cologne University, Germany, 2012).
D.J. Henstra, The Evolution of the Money Standard in Medieval Frisia, Groningen, 2000
Germanic legal codes
8th century in Francia
History of Frisia