Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/824

 788 FRISIANS I. (622-638), sought to secure a footing among them by erecting a mission church at Utrecht on the Frisian frontiers, but the Frisians captured the place and destroyed the church. The preaching of Amandus and Eligius had little effect, and the honour of being the first success ful missionary among the Frisians was left to Wilfrid of York, who in 677-678 was hospitably received by the king Aldegild (Adgillus or Aklgisl). Under Aide- gild s successor Radbod a persecution of the new faith ensued, and though Radbod was driven from West Friesland by King Pippin, after the battle of Dorstadt in 689, he maintained his independence in Eastern Frisia, and Christianity was safe only as far as the wavering frontier of the Franks extended. On Pippin s death, Radbod not only recovered his western territory, but sailed up the Rhine as far as Cologne, and defeated Charles Martel. His successor, Aldegild II., was again driven eastward ; the western districts fell finally into the power of the Franks ; and Wdlibrord, the missionary, who had begun his labours in the country about 700, obtained a permanent see at Utrecht. The last independent prince of the Frisians, Poppo, was defeated by Charles Martel in 754, and Charlemagne still further extended the Frankish authority. At the same time he granted the Frisians important priv ileges, gave them the title of freemen, and allowed them to choose their own podestat (potestas), who should govern them under the protection of the empire. About this time the country of the Frisians was divided into three distinct districts : Western Frisia, stretching from the Sincfal to the Fly or Flevum, that is, from the modern Zwin (a branch of the Scheldt northward of Bruges) to the Meuse ; Middle Frisia, from the Fly to the Laubach, that is, from the Meuse to the Zuyder Zee ; and Eastern Frisia, from the Zuyder Zee to the Weser. At the treaty of Verdun (843) Frisia went with Lotharingia; at the treaty of Mersen (870) the district between the Laubach and the Weser was assigned to the kingdom of the Eastern Franks, while the rest, with Lotharingia, passed to the kingdom of the Western Franks ; in 880 the whole country was again united with Germany; and in 911, when Lotharingia recognized Charles, the king of the West, Frisia adhered to Conrad, the king of the East. The history of West Frisia gradually loses itself in that of the bishopric of Utrecht and the countship of Holland, the first count of Holland, Thierry I., being the son of Gerulph, count of Frisia, and practically continuing the Frisian line. In 1248 William of Holland, having become emperor, re stored to the Frisians in his country their ancient liberties in reward for the assistance they had rendered him in the siege of Aix-la-Chapelle ; but in 1254 they revolted, and William lost his life in the contest which ensued. William IV. received a new donation of West Frisia in 1345. Meanwhile, the rest of the Frisians in the more eastern dis tricts maintained their independence, and for a long time governed themselves after a very simple republican fashion. Each of the seven confederated Frisian maritime states &quot;Sieben Friesischen Seelande&quot; had its own administration, and consisted of a number of locally independent districts. For matters of general concern there was an annual assembly at the Upstalsbom, or &quot; Tree of the Superior Court,&quot; near Aurich. According to Okko Leding, who in 1878 published atEmden an interesting study on Die Freiheit der Frieseii im Mittelalter und ihr Buiul mit den Versammlungeii Id Upstalsbom, it appears that these assemblies were allowed to fall into desuetude in the first half of the 13th century, were resumed from 1323 to 1327, anew discontinued, and again resumed in 1361. The counts disappear in East Frisia about the end of the 1 1th century, and in Middle Frisia after 1233. Though in religious matters nominally subject to the bishopric of Bremen, it was not till the crusade of 1234, and the famous defeat of the Stedingera (a people of the Weser marches) in the battle of Altene.sch or Oldenesch, that the Frisians really recognized the authority of the Romish Church. In the course of the 14th century the whole country was in a state of anarchy ; petty lordships sprang into existence, the interests of the common weal were forgotten or disregarded, and district carried on hostilities against district. Thus the Fetkoopers or Fat- mongers, as they were called, of Ostergo, had endless feuds with the Schieringers or Eelfishers of Westergo. This state of matters favoured the attempts of the counts of Holland to push their conquests further, but the main body of the Frisians were still independent when the countship of Holland passed into the hands of Philip the Good of Burgundy. Philip laid claim to the whole country, but the people appealed to the protection of the empire, and Frederick III. in August 1457 recognized their direct dependence on the empire, and called on Philip to bring forward formal proof of his rights. Philip s successor, Charles the Rash, summoned an assembly of notables at Encklmysen in 1469, in order to secure their homage ; but the conference was without result, and the duke s attention was soon absorbed by other and more important affairs. In 1498 Maximilian detached the country between the Laubach and the Fly from the empire, and gave it as a fief to Albert of Saxony, but it was the Schieringers alone (the name had by this time become the title of the popular faction) who submitted uncomplainingly to the arrangement, and the Fetkoopers, or faction of the nobility, had to be put down by force of arms. This the duke did with the utmost severity, and his successors carried out his despotic policy with only too faithful consistency. In Eastern Frisia the anarchy was brought to a close by the formation of a confederation established in 1430, and the election of Edzard Cirksena to the office of president. Ulrich, the successor of Edzard, was made count of the country between the Ems and the Weser by the emperor Frederick III. in 1454. In the early part of the 16th century the Reformation was introduced by Edzard I., who patronized the preaching of Meister Jorgen von der Diire, or Magister Aportanus, as he was called in Latin. Under the Countess Anna, who ruled during the minority of her son Edzard II., the countship became, mainly through the agency of John a Lasco, the seat of a very flourishing Protestant church, and the refuge of the persecuted of many lands. Edzard II. proved an able ruler, published a body of laws for his people in 1515, introduced primogeni ture into his family, extended his authority over Harlinger- land and Jcver, and was appointed by Charles V. governor of Groningen. His successor, Edzard III., was made a prince of the empire by Ferdinand III. in 1654. By the death of Charles Edzard, in 1744, the male line of the dynasty came to an end, and the king of Prussia took pos session of the countship. After various vicissitudes, it was ceded to Hanover, in 1815. The Frisian language is a member of the Low German branch of the Teutonic, and presents special interest to the English philologist as the nearest of all extant forms to the Saxon basis of his own tongue. It is still spoken in the country districts of the present province of West Friesland; in a much more Germanized con dition it still exists in Saterland, in East Friesland ; in strangely differentiated dialects it holds its own in many of the islands along the coast ; and, in spite of the en croachments of Low German on the one hand, and Danish on the other, it survives in the country between Husum and Tondern. Among its peculiarities may be mentioned the dropping of the final n, which is such a favourite termination in German (thus even ma for man, as in Halbertsma, the proper name) ; the use of sk for the