HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Lex Frisionum'', the "Law Code of the Frisians", was recorded in Latin during the reign of
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Em ...
, 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, 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 province, massacred th ...
. The law code covered the region of the
Frisians The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany ...
.


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 are clearly distinguished: the law governs all of Frisia, but West Frisia "between
Zwin The Zwin is a nature reserve at the North Sea coast, on the Belgian- Dutch border. It consists of the entrance area of a former tidal inlet which during the Middle Ages connected the North Sea with the ports of Sluis and Bruges inland. The Zw ...
and
Vlie The Vlie or Vliestroom is the seaway between the Dutch islands of Vlieland, to its southwest, and Terschelling, to its northeast. The Vlie was the estuary of the river IJssel in medieval times. In 1666 the English Admiral Robert Holmes burnt ...
" 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 and ...
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 ( la, regnum Lotharii regnum Lothariense Lotharingia; french: Lotharingie; german: Reich des Lothar Lotharingien Mittelreich; nl, Lotharingen) was a short-lived medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. As a more durable ...
; at the
treaty of Meersen The Treaty of Mersen or Meerssen, concluded on 8 August 870, was a treaty to partition the realm of Lothair II, known as Lotharingia, by his uncles Louis the German of East Francia and Charles the Bald of West Francia, the two surviving sons of E ...
(870) it was briefly divided between the kingdoms of the
East Franks East Francia (Medieval Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the East Franks () was a successor state of Charlemagne's Carolingian Empire, empire ruled by the Carolingian dynasty until 911. It was created through the Treaty of Verdun (843) which divided t ...
(
Austrasia Austrasia was a territory which formed the north-eastern section of the Merovingian Kingdom of the Franks during the 6th to 8th centuries. It was centred on the Meuse, Middle Rhine and the Moselle rivers, and was the original territory of th ...
) and the
West Franks In medieval history, West Francia (Medieval Latin: ) or the Kingdom of the West Franks () refers to the western part of the Frankish Empire established by Charlemagne. It represents the earliest stage of the Kingdom of France, lasting from about ...
(
Neustria Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks. Neustria included the land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, approximately the north of present-day France, with Paris, Orléans, Tours, Soissons as its main cities. It la ...
), 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 Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld (in archaic/historical usage of English), weregeld, etc.), also known as man price ( blood money), was a precept in some archaic legal codes whereby a monetary value was established for a person's life, to ...
, 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 were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
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 The ''Lex Thuringorum'' ("Law of the Thuringians") is a law code that survives today in one 10th-century manuscript, the Codex Corbeiensis, alongside a copy of the '' Lex Saxonum'', the law of the Saxons. The code was compiled in the first decad ...
'' ("Law Code of the
Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...
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 was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. In medieval Europe, like trial by combat, tr ...
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 Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld (in archaic/historical usage of English), weregeld, etc.), also known as man price ( blood money), was a precept in some archaic legal codes whereby a monetary value was established for a person's life, to ...
, 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 , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS) ...
. 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 (German ''Kloster Fulda'', Latin ''Abbatia Fuldensis''), from 1221 the Princely Abbey of Fulda (''Fürstabtei Fulda'') and from 1752 the Prince-Bishopric of Fulda (''Fürstbistum Fulda''), was a Benedictine abbey and ecclesiasti ...
. The surviving version is apparently a rough draft, still retaining pagan 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 Germanic law is a scholarly term used to described a series of commonalities between the various law codes (the ''Leges Barbarorum'', 'laws of the barbarians', also called Leges) of the early Germanic peoples. These were compared with statements ...


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