In this blog post, we will explain that the Frisian lands might as well be named the United Frisian Emirates. Of course, there are some differences with the modern United Arab Emirates. The Emirati have camels and goats, while the Frisians have cows and sheep. It is hot and dry instead of wet and cold, albeit things are changing with global warming. Palm trees can be planted soon on the long dykes of the Wadden Sea. Also, the sea they live by is called the Persian Gulf and not the North Sea. But here differences end. Full stop. So, what then unites the Emirati and the Frisians?
For long, the Arab tribes of the Persian Gulf lived off trade, copper, pearls, and, as every seaside people, on piracy. Always a profitable economic activity when living along the highways of the sea. In the year 1971, these desert principalities formed the federal state of the United Arab Emirates. It was in total seven emirates that joined the federation, namely: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Sharjah, Ras al-Khaimah, and Umm al-Quwain. All seven emirates are located on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf.
This is no different from medieval Frisia, either. In the High Middle Ages, Frisia was a federation of seven independent republics. The Seven Sealands, as they called themselves, were: Westfriesland, Westergo, Oostergo, Stellingwerven (variable including the province of Drenthe), Ommelanden (variable with the town of Groningen), Ostfriesland, and Butjadingen, together with Riustringen (also written as Rüstringen) and Wangerland. These Seven Sealands were united under the Treaty of the Upstalsboom, meaning probably 'high tree'. All Seven Sealands were located on the southern shores of the North Sea. Read our blog post The Treaty of the Upstalsboom. Why solidarity is not the core of a collective to learn more about this NATO-like early federation.
One Frisian land not mentioned but also an independent small republic at the Wadden Sea coast in the High Middle Ages is Land Wursten, at the confluence of the rivers Weser and Elbe. The Wurstfriesen, however, were not part of the Treaty of the Upstalsboom. Find more about the history of Land Wursten in our blog post Joan of Arc, an inspiration for Land Wursten.
Concerning piracy? Aij, like the Emirati, the Frisians did that too, as stated. One might even argue that the Frisian identity is largely the result of a long-standing raiding culture that started in Late Antiquity and continued into the High Middle Ages. Read, for example, our blog posts Our civilization – It all began with piracy and Yet Another Wayward Archipelago - the Wadden Sea, and you will understand why piracy belongs to the psyche of the Frisians and Ostfriesen, but likewise of the Dutchmen and Zealanders, including pirates of the early modern period like the Watergeuzen, Klaus Störtebeker, and Grutte Pier who are even considered freedom fighters to this day.
The United Arab Emirates has an economic liberal policy. The federation created economic and tax-free zones to attract international investment and trade. A worldwide trade network has been established, also through air with big commercial airlines like Emirates, Etihad, and FlyDubai. Early-medieval Frisia more or less invented free trade. Frisian merchants (and slavers!) belong to the founding fathers of economic liberalism. Responsible for (re-)boosting the money economy. Yes, free trade, free(dom), and Frisian became even synonyms during the Early Middle Ages. Their international trade networks were maybe not global yet, but certainly the biggest in north-western Europe. Frisian seafarers and Rhine skippers transported their merchandise overseas and over rivers, from Paris to Stockholm, and from Trier to London. Read also our posts Porcupines Bore U.S. Bucks. The Birth of Economic Liberalism and Late Little Prayers at the Lorelei Rock. Reckless Rhine Skippers in Distress to get a fuller picture of these egocentric sea and river traders.
In the early modern period, Frisians were still known as the central freighters of Europe, lasting until the end of the eighteenth century when the French conquered the Republic of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly known as the Dutch Republic. Thanks to the French, the sea trade with the North Sea and the Baltics was annihilated for good, killing eleven centuries of maritime trade. And, indeed, the number seven keeps coming back: the seven Emirates, the seven Sealands, and the seven United Provinces of the Netherlands. Now the reader understands why there are seven kingdoms in the series Game of Thrones.
Last but not least, in the comparison, almost sixty years ago oil was found in the area that is now known as the United Arab Emirates. Since then, the wealth of the Gulf has become unparalleled. At the time of writing (May 2019), the United Arab Emirates is the eighth biggest oil producer in the world with a production of more than 3,000,000 barrels per day. One barrel is almost 160 liters of oil.
For medieval Frisia, it was the same. It was not oil, though, but another fossil fuel, namely peat. Some say it is a slowly sustainable energy source because peat grows relatively quickly at 10-15 centimeters over a century. But this aside. Just like Gulf Arabs, Frisians happened to sit on organic gold. Zwischen Watt und Moor ('between Wadden Sea and peatland'), as they say in the regions of Nordfriesland and Ostfriesland. From the coast of Flanders all the way up along the North Sea coast to Nordfriesland, just south of the Danish border, extensive peatlands existed. We estimate at least 25,000 square meters of peatlands. Square meters. We are not talking cubic meters yet. Easily a meter deep on average. It was the Frisians who started to exploit these peatlands commercially and, thus, systematically. It supplied them, and later the Dutch and Germans, with much wealth, from the Early Middle Ages well into modern history. Maybe it was this wealth that was the real foundation of the Dutch Republic, the birth of the Netherlands. We will come back to it further below.
By the way, the fact that the peatlands of former Frisia have been fully exploited means that in the process, huge amounts of carbon have been unlocked and released into the atmosphere. Wetland ecosystems are, in fact, one of the most efficient carbon sinks. As far as we know, no scientific estimations have been made yet about the amount of carbon that has been unlocked throughout the centuries of peat exploitation in former Frisia, from the town of Ostend in Flanders (Belgium) to the hamlet of Misthusum in southern Jutland (Denmark). We estimate that it could have been around two to three billion tons of carbon, but please, we stand corrected. Voilà, the proud Frisian climate debt and contribution to global warming, melting glaciers, and still rising sea levels.
Black Peat or Brown Gold
We are not going to debate in this blog post about Black Pete climbing through chimneys and all, to deliver gifts to kids and thus becoming black with soot. No, we will go more in-depth about commercial peat exploitation in medieval Frisia and what it meant for the landscape and, thus, for the Frisian identity.
Land and landscape determine to a large extent the identity and culture of a people. Their specifics and the ever-changing nature of the landscape, whether naturally or anthropogenically, influence how people who are dependent on land interact with each other and how they organize and adapt themselves. Even more so when land becomes scarcer and scarcer. Think, indeed, of the impact the current debate on nitrogen emissions has had, and will have. Think also of wind and solar energy that will claim more and more space, either on land or at sea. Think of the still trembling effects of the (former) mining of coal, gas, and salt, and what it did to the psyche of the people of the provinces of Limburg and Groningen especially. Think of the ultra-complex structure and governance of water irrigation and protection. Et cetera, and so forth. One of the effects of land use that becomes clear but whose nature and importance are not fully understood and felt yet by society is the growing disconnect between central and local, and between city life and countryside. In other words, the valve for the pressure on scarce useable land is 'identity'.
In the year 961 or 962, the Hispano-Arabic traveller Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub from Tortosa in Spain visited Frisia. One of the things he noticed was that the land was soaked in salt and therefore unfit to bring forth any crops. He further described shepherds who dug out blocks of a kind of mud, dried them, and then burned them. Of course, this was the elegant process of peat cutting. What the purpose was of burning the blocks of soil, early hiker Ya'qub did not tell us. Or maybe he simply did not understand what he saw.
From archaeological research, we know peat cutting started in the coastal zones of what is now the coast of Flanders up to the River IJ, near the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, during the Early Iron Age between 700 and 500 BC. The oldest traces of peat cutting in the Netherlands have been found in the Westmadepolder (polder meaning 'embanked land') between the cities of Rotterdam and The Hague. Calculations indicate that between 800 and 400 BC, around 40,000 cubic meters of peatland were dug out here.
Peat as fuel was also needed for the commercial production of sea salt. The North Sea, with a sodium-chloride percentage of ca. 3.5, provided an endless supply of salt. Of course, if you have saline peat, you can extract salt out of that, too. But, most probably, this latter type of commercial salt production was only introduced in the Early Middle Ages. Before that, peat was solely or primarily used as fuel. Fuel to produce, as said, sea salt at first. Later, during the Roman period, peat as fuel was also used for the production of allec 'fish sauce' and related garum, and for the production of lime needed for stone constructions. Perhaps salt was needed for tanneries, too. During the Early Iron Age, sea salt was being produced at, for example, De Panne in the region of Flanders in Belgium, and at Monster in the province of Zuid Holland in the Netherlands.
Large-scale peat cutting activity during the Roman period already had its effect on the environment and landscape. Big floods in the Flemish coastal zone and in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands during this period were a consequence of lowered land after peat had been dug out. This was alongside local combinations of marine transgression, a higher-energy North Sea due to lower sedimentation in the sea, and the slow defrosting process, thus shrinking process, of the deeper soils since the last Ice Age. A defrosting process known as the Great Watering, which was at its height in the fourth century AD. Everything taken together, not the best set of factors for a durable coastal environment.
To date, no archaeological indications exist that salt was being produced commercially above the River IJ, nor in the terp region (terp being an artificial dwelling mound) of Flanders, Germany, and the Netherlands before the Middle Ages. Also, peat cutting started along the Wadden Sea coast only at the end of, or after, the Roman period. Besides, dried dung provided terp dwellers with fuel for heating and craft already. On the salt marshes of north-western Germany and the Netherlands, cow dung was available in abundance. Furthermore, dung was not needed to fertilize the land, since tidal marshlands were fertilized through regular flooding by the sea. So, maybe there was less need to cut peat on a large scale.
In the treeless, barren region of Nordfriesland, the practice of cow dung being dried for fuel by Warft (i.e. terp) dwellers of, for example, Hanswarft, continued well into the '50s of the last century. A region, by the way, where people live on tidal marshlands unprotected by (high) dykes to this day. Islands flooded by the sea during storms several times every year still exist. Lastly, since this blog is written by hikers, dried dung as fuel is exactly how it is used to heat houses and trekking lodges at higher altitudes in Nepal, where trees are scarce, too.
Reclamation of peatlands in West Frisia, i.e. the area between the coastal zone of Flanders and the former River Vlie in the Netherlands, started near the current town of Medemblik in the region of Westfriesland in the province of Noord Holland. It is assumed these activities mainly focused on creating arable land. This meant draining the boggy peat soil with ditches and canals. This, in turn, led to an oxidation process of peat, as well as the drying out and crumbling of soil. Therefore, the soil started to settle, shrink, and became more vulnerable to sea floods. Likewise, many freshwater lakes emerged in these lowered lands bordering the southern shores of the North Sea. If you do not protect the shores, due to wave action, lakes themselves erode and carry away peat soil, too. The larger the surface of a lake or sea inlet becomes, the greater the volume of water that is set into motion during storms, and hence the force that swallows land. Gullies like Marsdiep, Vlie, and Jetting, today known as the Blauwe Slenk, pushed more and more water with great force onto the shores (Schroor 2015).
The starting pistol for this degradation process was fired around the turn of the eighth and ninth centuries. When, in the last decades of the twelfth century, temperatures also rose, leading to more rainfall and a higher frequency of storms, most of the peatlands disappeared and turned into either (inlet) sea or lakes. This process was locally accelerated because of the commercial production of salt.
These early-medieval reclamations stimulated, or possibly even caused, the widening of the River Vlie that flowed east of Medemblik, connecting Lake Almere with the Wadden Sea and North Sea. This process, in turn, had all sorts of ecological, house-of-cards-falling consequences, including contributing to the process of Lake Almere turning into a full-fledged inland sea named Zuiderzee 'southern sea'. There are accepted theories that the very start of the creation of the Zuiderzee began with the Romans. It was army commander Drusus who had canals dug between 12 and 9 BC, primarily to improve military transportation. One of those canals might have connected the River Vlie with Lake Flevum/Lake Almere (Verhagen 2022). Connecting the lake with the sea through a canal is comparable to pulling the plug from a bathtub.
Another activity that 'helped' to create the Zuiderzee was the exploitation of Moer Wardt or Moerwaard. This was a salt-marsh area south of the Wadden Sea island of Vlieland, consisting of peatland covered with sea clay. Because this area was regularly flooded by the sea, the peat was very rich in salt. Today, the name Waardgronden of this part of the Wadden Sea still reminds us of this former land. From medieval chronicles, we know this area was heavily commercially exploited, and canals were dug, like the Monnikensloot canal, also called De Pan, which accidentally refers to the production of salt. Jetting was another canal, connecting the seaside settlement of Harlingen with the River (annex sea strait) Vlie.
All these high-medieval ditches and canals enhanced the emergence of sea gullies and widened the western part of the Wadden Sea. Possibly, salt was isolated from the ashes of burned peat on Moerwaard itself and then transported to the mainland to, among others, the settlement of Harlingen. At the end of the twelfth century, the western part of the Wadden Sea had fully merged with Lake Almere (Schroor 2015). Needless to say, this whole lake-turning-into-sea phenomenon has meant a giant loss of land.
During the ninth century, peatlands were claimed by nature south and west of the town of Medemblik, including the peatlands of the area of De Beemster. De Beemster became a big lake, was reclaimed by man from nature in the early seventeenth century, and is now a UNESCO-listed heritage site. In the eleventh century, the area of Spaarnwoude followed, and much land was lost to water. The result was that around the year 1200, all peatlands of Frisia north of the River IJ, i.e., most of the present-day province of Noord-Holland, had been cultivated or had been lost to the many emerging lakes. As stated, even a completely new inland sea, Zuiderzee, had emerged due to this cultivation of land.
Also, at the terp region opposite to the town of Medemblik, on the other side of the River Vlie, i.e. bordering the province of Friesland to the west, peatlands were being exploited. Here, peat cutting and salt extraction out of saline peat took place. This started in the eighth century. A bit later, the terp region of Ostfriesland followed, too. Archaeological research in the northeast of the province of Friesland revealed heaps of burned ashes with a diameter of up to twenty-five meters and two meters thick. The production of salt out of peat was at its height in the present-day provinces of Friesland and Groningen, and in the region of Ostfriesland during the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. Again, much loss of land happened during these centuries. Think of the bays and bights of Lauwers, Dollart, Jade, etc. All bays and bights east of the River Vlie that emerged or were enlarged in this period.
Medieval testimonia of Frisian salt production activity have been documented in writing as well. In the year 775 or 776, the abbey in Lorsch near the city of Frankfurt in Germany received as a gift seventeen culinas ad sal faciendum. These were ‘salt kitchens’ located on the island of Schouwen between the River Scheldt and a water called Sonnemare. The water stream Sonnemare seems to be the border between the dominium of Voorne and the modern province of Zeeland. Culinas were buildings or sheds used for salt boiling. In 877, Saint Gertrud Abbey in Nivelles, Belgium possessed in Frisia terram et mancipia ad salem. Charles the Bald ceded these lands to Saint Gertrud Abbey. In 897, this property was confirmed as in Fresia terra ad sal acquirendum and must have been located somewhere in the current province of Zeeland or coastal Flanders. That the province of Zeeland was an area where salt production took place in early ages is known further from a trader from Trier in Germany whose ship was loaded with salt. This was documented in the late sixth century already (Tuuk 2021).
Ghandi's Salt March – The history of humankind is – also –a history of salt. When India was still a colony of Britain, the British controlled the salt production and export. No one had the right to trade in salt, and no one had the right to produce salt, not even for personal use. Instead, salt was taxed heavily. It was non other than Gandhi who decided to walk to the coast in 1930, a hike of 390 kilometers, to slowly walk from Sabarmati Ashram to the salt marshes of Dandi. A protest against the salt taxation and against British occupation. Indeed, the famous Salt March.
Peat cutting and salt production was not only along the Dutch and Flemish coast, i.e. West Frisia and Mid Frisia, and in Ostfriesland a commercially lucrative activity. Also, in the region of Nordfriesland, south of the Danish border, salt production was serious business. In the Early Middle Ages, Frisians, probably from the region of Ostfriesland, migrated to the region of Nordfriesland and introduced their skills to extract salt from saline peat. The medieval historian Saxo Grammaticus wrote in his Gestae Danorum 'deeds of the Danes' of 1160 that the North Frisians cooked salt out of clod. Read also our blog post Burn Beacon Burn. A Coastal Inferno – Nordfriesland about the colonization of the region of Nordfriesland.
Famous, but not unique, is the story of the prosperous town of Rungholt. A rich town thanks to commercial salt production. It, however, had to pay a heavy price for excavating and burning so much peat. In the year 1362, Rungholt, together with its inhabitants, disappeared overnight in the waves of the dark-green sea during the Saint Marcellus flood. Read our blog post How a town disappeared overnight. The case of Rungholt and be warned what irresponsible use of land, especially mining activities, can have as a consequence.
Frisians started to reclaim peatlands more inland, too. In the twelfth century, Frisians colonized a sandy ridge within an extensive peat area which is known today as Saterland in the northwest of Germany. Today, this isolated community consists of four villages with approximately 15,000 inhabitants. These are the villages Strücklingen (Strukelje), Ramsloh (Roomelse), Sedelsberg (Seedelsbierich), and Scharrel (Schäddel). Later, the town of Friesoythe was added to the municipality as well. Saterland happens to be the only area where the East Frisian language has survived, called the Seeltersk speech, although the odds for its future survival are exceptionally grim. Fewer than a thousand speakers are left to date, and they are generally not the youngest of age. Check our page Language to pick up some words of Seeltersk.
Let's turn to West Frisia again, the area comprising of the present-day provinces of Noord Holland, Zuid Holland, and Zeeland, and parts of the province of Utrecht and the coast of Flanders as well.
Commercial peat cutting in West Frisia had far-reaching consequences, not only on the environment but also on cultural identity. From the tenth and eleventh centuries, the counts of West Frisia began the reclamation and cultivation of the extensive peatlands of what is today more or less the province of Zuid Holland and parts of the province of Utrecht up to the Utrecht Hill Ridge. The latter is a push moraine from the Pleistocene glacial period, about 150,000 years old.
The way the Frisian counts, as well as the bishopric of Utrecht, approached reclamation was innovative for that time. Revenues from this industry became an important base of power for the counts of West Frisia to gain more independence, and thus eventually led to the rise of Holdland or Holtland, later corrupted into Hollant and Holland. Since the region of Holland was the driving force within the Dutch Republic to become independent from the Kingdom of Spain, the brown gold played a pivotal role in the emergence of the Netherlands as such. The counts of Frisia, and subsequently of Holland, were the oil sheikhs of the Wadden Sea.
The innovative approach became known as the Great Reclamation Period. It was so successful that the concept was exported at the beginning of the twelfth century to peat areas bordering the Lower River Weser around the city of Bremen and bordering the Lower River Elbe around the city of Hamburg. It even led to several settlements in the Bremen-Hamburg area. Settlers locally known as Frisians and Hollers, the latter meaning 'those from Holland.' The lands became known as Hollerland. This so-called cope contract concept was exported to the British Isles and other parts of Frisia too (Van Doesburg 2019, Van Bemmel et al. 2022, Mostert 2022).
As an anecdote – names of persons who exported the concept of cope contracts to the marsh areas around Bremen and Hamburg have been documented. These were Helekinus (Helekin), Arnoldus (Arnold), Hiko (Hijo), Fordolt, Referic (Referik), and priest Heinricus (Hendrik) who emigrated in the year 1113 to this region and agreed with the local bishop to a cope contract. More highly skilled migrants from Frisia and Holland came in the decades that followed. Frisians settled also in the area of Süsel in East Holstein. The area, known as Stedingen Land, developed into a more or less autonomous region similar to the republican, self-governed Frisian lands just north of it. In 1234, however, a serious crusade was organized against the self-willed people of Stedingen Land; for more, go to our blog posts Terrorist Fighters from the Wadden Sea. The Era of the Crusades and “Ich mag Ihre Pelzer- und Schustertöchter nicht!” – a kiss of death.
Below we will zoom into the cope model type of reclamation of the peatlands of the provinces of Zuid Holland and Utrecht. It is, however, instructive to know that in other areas different types of reclamation existed, like the drifting settlements in the provinces of Noord Holland, Friesland, and Groningen. Here, parallel with the quarrying process, villages steadily moved inward into peat areas, sometimes leaving their churches and graveyards, often situated on handmade mounds (terps), behind. This explains why you can find astray churches in the landscape today. The reason why villages were adrift is under scholarly debate. Probably, it had to do with sinking soils, rising groundwater, and growing distances between the farmsteads and the newly created arable land (Van Doesburg 2019). Another factor probably was that the cope model reclamation was designed and directed top-down by feudal counts and bishops, institutions, as we will see in a moment, whereas this was not the case in northern Frisia, where these governmental institutions were largely absent.
How was the Great Reclamation organized?
The Great Reclamation Period started in the tenth century and was completed around 1300. It began at the peatland villages Rijnsaterwoude and Esselijkerwoude in the modern province of Zuid Holland. The counts of West Frisia and the bishops of Utrecht granted peatland concessions to contractors called locatores. These locatores, to quote Van Doesburg (2019), organized the reclamations, prepared the establishment of villages, were responsible for water management, and recruited colonists to carry out the actual reclamation work. You could say locatores were the project developers of the Middle Ages (Van Bemmel et al 2022).
Colonists received a contract for a plot of land which they were allowed – and this was the innovation within a feudalistic organized society – to dispose of freely. These plots were called a cope. In return for receiving a cope, the farmer and his family had to pay an annual tax called a tijns, which amounted to one penny, also penning, denier, denarius, etc. Later, the tax was raised, as we will see below. Furthermore, these colonist farmers were obliged to perform defensive military tasks when called upon by the count, the so-called heervaart. In the western parts of the Netherlands, toponyms and family names with the suffix cope, koop, or schop exist, like Benschop, Boeicop, Boskoop, Galecop, Gerverscop, Goedkoop, Heikenkoop, Herbertscop, Middelkoop, Nieuwkoop, Oukoop, Rijerscop, Teckop, and Vuylcoop. Koopgoot St in the city of Rotterdam is not part of this list ;-) . Copes also received exotic, foreign names like Demmerik (i.e., Denmark), Prijs (i.e., Paris), Pavijen (i.e., Pavia), Poortugaal (i.e., Portugal), Portengen (Bartangen, i.e., Britannia), Raven (i.e., Ravenna; albeit etymology unsure), and Spengen (i.e., Spain).
Original measurements of a cope, also called a hoeve meaning 'farmstead', were 30 roede wide and 6 voorling deep. A roede measured approximately 4 meters, and a voorling 205 meters. Hence, an acreage of 115 by 1,250 meters. In other words, ca. 14.5 hectares. A cope or a hoeve measurement of 30 roede by 12 voorling was also common in the deltas of the River Rhine and River Meuse (Henderikx 2001, Van Bemmel 2022). Note that the exact measurements of a roede and voorling differed slightly between regions since no universal standards existed, of course.
To make things more complex, often the size of a hoeve was indicated with morgen as a unit of measurement. A morgen, literally meaning 'morning', is the amount of land a farmer was able to plough in, indeed, the morning. A hoeve measured 16 to 18 morgen, therefore about 0.85 hectares (Van Bemmel 2022). At least it gives you a different perspective when your colleagues at the office greet you with 'good morning'. Up for some serious ploughing today? Furthermore, the size of a hoeve was also determined by the quality of the land. If the quality was poor, of course, 16 morgen might not have been enough to sustain a farm.
Measurements of a cope were a practice of the feudal system already. The standard 30 roede by 6 voorling, generally was considered to be enough for one farmer's family to live off. The word voorling is related to the Dutch word voor meaning 'furrow', also compare the Mid Frisian word fuorge for 'furrow.' A voorling was the distance during ploughing after which the beast of burden had to rest before turning around and plough the next furrow in the opposite direction.
Another feature was that the dimensions of copes were elongated, whereas the dimensions of traditional, medieval plots were more evenly squared. The reason for rectangular, elongated plots of land was efficiency. Yes, they did think it through back then. When ploughing a cope, fewer turns with the plough and beast of burden were necessary compared to the smaller square-sized plots of before, thus saving time in the morning. Additionally, straight, stretched pieces of land lined with ditches made the discharge of abundant water quicker. Every kink or bend in a ditch slows down the flow of water. Drier land enhances the productivity of land. This concept was later taken to the extreme by statesman Sicco Mansholt from the province of Groningen in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Because colonist farmers received a contract and were free to use the land, it socially meant people gained more liberties. The cope model of social organization was very different from the centuries before and from the Carolingian feudal society, where most farmers were unfree and ‘property’ of a homestead. The cope model, along with the massive reclamation, better irrigation techniques, new ploughing techniques, i.e., the turnover of soil, and smarter seasonal variation of crops and fallow land, led to an agricultural revolution (Van Bemmel 2022). The agricultural revolution, hand in hand with more personal liberties from around the year 1000 onward, profoundly changed the early medieval society of West Frisia and subsequently of Holland.
With the reclamation of the peatlands, the amount of arable land increased as well. This led to a surplus of crops and, therefore, stimulated the introduction of trade and the money economy in the rural areas in the twelfth century. The counts of West Frisia/Holland were confronted with increasingly richer farmers whilst their incomes were relatively stable. From the twelfth century, the tax for a cope was raised, from one denarius to four denarii. A tax raise of 400 percent. Hopefully, it does not inspire current governments. Anyhow, it made Count Floris II, known as Floris the Fat for no reason, filthy rich. Fatboy Floris was known as someone who surpassed his forefathers in power, prestige, and wealth. And, probably in body weight, we add.
The peat area of the River Meuse-Merwede, a lower branch of the River Rhine, was reclaimed by the counts of West Frisia. This did not do much good for the relations with the bishops of Utrecht, who considered it their turf, their colony. The River Meuse-Merwede area was the border area between the region of Holland under the jurisdiction of the West-Frisian counts and the bishopric of Utrecht. Not only did the counts make good money out of the reclamation, but they also built a stronghold at the town of Vlaardingen at the confluence of the rivers Meuse and Merwede. The town of Vlaardingen might be a continuation of the Roman settlement Flenium.
At this stronghold, the Fladertingi 'people of Vlaardingen' demanded tolls from passing ships. This illegal toll threatened the trade between the trading town of Tiel in the Central Netherlands, upstream of the River Waal, with the English coast. Furthermore, the subversive actions of the West-Frisian counts resulted in a fall in toll revenues at the town of Tiel more upstream. This toll was held by the bishop of Utrecht (Van der Tuuk 2021). The conflict that arose between the two eventually led to the Battle of Vlaardingen in the year 1018, which was won by the Frisian Count Dirk III. Revenge for the Frisians, at last, after the lost Battle at the Boorne in the year 734. In a way, a tariff war, as we are familiar with throughout history up to this day.
Merwede – The word Merwede of the River Merwede originates from the word meriwidu meaning something like 'dark wood'. Compare the component meri with the words 'murky' and 'mire', and the component widu with the word 'wood', not 'widow'. Of course, we would have preferred 'dark or black widow' but it is not meant to be, according to etymologists.
It is history repeating itself when at the beginning of the nineteenth century, King William I of the brand-new Kingdom of the Netherlands immediately disregarded the agreement reached during the Congress of Vienna of 1815, according to which the entire River Rhine, from Switzerland up to the North Sea, was declared a free trade zone. King William I refused to end the levying of tolls at the harbours of Dordrecht and Rotterdam. According to the king, the tidal influence of the sea extended all the way to the town of Gorinchem and, therefore, Dordrecht and Rotterdam were not part of the River Rhine. Thus he was legally entitled to levy tolls (Hendriksma 2017). Internationally, the king did not make many friends with this creative reasoning. He did not either with the Pope and the Vatican. For this, check our blog post A Dutch king once yelled: “Je suis Frison, et je suis plus têtu que vous!”
Anyway, the massive reclamation and cultivation of the interior in the Middle Ages came with a price that amounted to more than the tijns tax. Namely, the change of identity of the Frisians living in West Frisia, along the western coast of the Netherlands. Social and landscape-related organization and identity are closely intertwined, as explained earlier. The massive reclamation and cultivation of land led to urbanization, which attracted large numbers of colonists from outside. Mainly from the south. This must have led to a situation of different dialects of Frisian, also called Coastal Dutch in linguistic classification: Western, Central, and Eastern Dutch. In such a situation, a koine can arise. A koine is a hyper-dialect, a blend of all the different dialects to function as the new common speech of the melting pot of peoples that emerged within a short period of time. How Holland became Dutch!
From ca. 1050 onward, Frisian place names started to disappear in the landscape of West Frisia and were replaced by Frankish ones (Cordfunke 2018). Read our blog post Take a virtual hike through Zuid-Holland and Utrecht to check out the Old Frisian place names in these two provinces, or check out the real name of Brooklyn Bridge in New York. Not only was the whole topsoil scraped away a few meters deep, similar to the Canadian tar sands of today, together with all its archaeological history, but it also led to the phenomenon of roaming villages. Villages wandered from one place to another after all the peat was dug out and sold. It was a true social paradigm shift.
It should be noted, note only the identity of West Frisia changed as a result of the Great Reclamation. Also peatlands outside the territory of Frisia in the Central Netherlands were culturally influenced. The region of the River Kromme Rijn, literally 'bended Rhine', between the towns of Wijk bij Duurstede and Utrecht was cultivated from the late tenth century onward as well. Here too, settlers from outside the region came to get a cope contract in the new land, and among the them Frisians, albeit also many locals took up the reclamation. Toponyms Vriesenlant, Vriesenhoeve, and Vreeshuservelt, and the name of the De Vriese family in Utrecht probably testify of this. We say 'probably' because another possibility is also possible, namely that it was not Frisians but friesen, i.e. those who cut land and dig ditches to irrigate swampy lands. Therefore, the toponyms with vries(en) or vrees might not refer to a people but to a profession. Similar as known in Switzerland and southern Germany. For more on this confusion, which is sometimes painful for the average proud Frisian of today, check our blog post From Patriot to Insurgent: John Fries and the First Tax Rebellions.
The Frisian character of the people disappeared, and it was the already mentioned Count Floris the Fat, see his possibly somewhat too slender image below, who in the year 1101 no longer named himself count of Frisia but Florentius comes de Hollant 'Floris count of Holland'. The same year, by the way, that the Saxon Henry the Fat, newly appointed margrave of Frisia east of the River Lauwers, was murdered by the Frisians. His life came to an end near the present-day town of Norden in the district of Aurich. Henry the Fat should have been more careful in Norden, since Frisians had slaughtered an army of more than 10,000 Vikings at that same spot in 884. We are off-topic. Rebranding himself as Floris the count of Holland was, you might say, the deathblow to Holland being Frisian in identity. Of course, after reading this blog post, the reader understands that 'sheikh of Holland' would have been a more appropriate title for Floris than count. Anyhow, from this time onward, the Frisian language disappeared as well in West Frisia, scraped away like its topsoil.
Frisia versus Holland – The oldest reference of the name Holland is Holtland, used in the registers of the diocese of Utrecht in the ninth and tenth centuries. The word 'holt' or 'hold' means (ascending) wood. These were the wooded lands on the geest soils near the mouth of the River Old Rhine, near the present-day towns of Valkenburg and Wassenaar in the current province of Zuid Holland. There is a minority report from a scholar suggesting it is actually 'hol' and not 'holt' or 'hold', and therefore, meaning low-lying land (Halbertsma 2000). Be that as it may, at the end of the eleventh century, the name Holdland or Hollant surfaces and is being used more and more to indicate the area along the North Sea coast.
In 1063, Count Robert the Frisian, count of Flanders, gained influence in West Frisia through his marriage with the widow of the count of Frisia, Gertrude of Saxony. The counties named in this context were Holdlandiae and Fresie. Holdlandiae was what for centuries was named 'circa horas Reni', i.e. the areas around the borders of the River Old-Rhine. 'Fresie' was what before was named 'Westflinge', i.e. west of the River Vlie, more or less the current region of Westfriesland, the Wadden Sea island of Texel, the region of Waterland, and the region of Kennemerland, all part of the current province of Noord Holland. In the first quarter of the twelfth century, 'Hollant' indicates the area between the current town of Petten in the north to that of Vlaardingen in the south, including the region of the River Meuse-Merwede (Henderikx 2001).
The exception to the rule was the region of Westfriesland in the current province of Noord Holland. This region had fiercely opposed the counts of West Frisia and remained Frisian in identity much longer, until they were finally subdued to the county of Holland by force and genuine war atrocities at the very end of the thirteenth century. For more on this final battle, read our blog post Guerrilla in the Polder. The Battle of Vroonen in 1297. To this day, the Westfrisian speech contains many elements of the former Frisian language. In the north of the province of Noord Holland, Frisian might have been spoken until the seventeenth century.
Epilogue
Not only were the medieval Seven Sealands of Frisia addicted to fossil fuel, namely peat, but the Republic of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands probably owed its Golden Age more to the possession of cheap fuel and to trade with the Baltics and Scandinavia than to its infamous trade with the Far East. Peat was especially cheap in the Republic because transportation costs were very low as well, thanks to a flat country intersected with thousands and thousands of canals, rivers, lakes, and other waterways. Oh yes, besides fuel, the Atlantic slave trade was also of great importance for the economy of the Republic... With slaves, the Republic could produce economic products like tobacco, sugar, and coffee in the West.
The addiction to fossil fuel remained in the Netherlands. Quite soon after all the peat had been dug out, a huge gas field was discovered in the ‘50s in the previous century. It was enormous and predominantly located in the province of Groningen, a region that used to be part of Frisia. The Dutch kept extracting gas until the soil started to collapse and earthquakes demolished houses in the already poor and aging province. Recently, the central government has decided to 'turn off' the gas and reimburse all the damage caused to the crumbling houses. Up to now, that promised money is mainly paid to smart but costly damage experts and their reports, and to lawyers. Always lawyers.
As compensation, we suggest the following: both lawyers and damage experts, as well as smart politicians and senior administrators involved, promise to live the rest of their lives in the province of Groningen. Thus, the money meant for reimbursement will benefit the local community, eventually. Yes, development aid that will work, and a brilliant way of compensation for the last five decades of profits.
Also, the Emirate or Gulf Arabs are preparing for a future without fossil fuel and have invested heavily in diversification of their economy. Maybe they picked up the lessons of medieval Frisia relatively late, but they proved to be quick(er) learners than the heirs of Frisia: the Dutch, Flemish, and the Germans.
Suggested music
Midnight Oil, Beds Are Burning (1987)
Further reading
Bemmel, van A.A.B., Cohen, K.M., Doesburg, van J., Hermans, T., Huiting, J.H., Poppe, E.L. & Vliet, van K., De dam bij Wijk en het Kromme Rijngebied in de middeleeuwen; Bemmel, van A.A.B., Bedijken, afdammen, verkavelen en ontginnen (2022)
Boer, de D.E.H. & Cordfunke. E.H.P., Graven van Holland. Middeleeuwse vorsten in woord en beeld (880-1580) (2010)
Brandon, P. & Bosma, U., De betekenis van de Atlantische slavernij voor de Nederlandse economie in de tweede helft van de achttiende eeuw (2019)
Broeke, van den P.W., Turfwinning en zoutwinning langs de Noordzeekust. Een verbond sinds de ijzertijd? (1996)
CIA Factbook (online)
Cordfunke, E.H.P., Een graafschap achter de duinen. Het ontstaan en de vorming van het graafschap Holland [850-1150] (2018)
Dijkstra, M.F.P., Rondom de mondingen van de Rijn & Maas. Landschap en bewoning tussen de 3e en 9e eeuw in Zuid-Holland, in het bijzonder de Oude Rijnstreek (2011)
Doesburg, van J., Medieval settlement dynamics in peatland reclamations in the western, central and northern Netherlands (2019)
Geel, van B. & Borger, G.J., Sporen van grootschalige zoutwinning in de Kop van Noord-Holland (2002)
Griede, J.W. & Roeleveld, W., De geologische en paleogeografische ontwikkeling van het noordelijk zeekleigebied (1982)
Gros, F., Marcher, une philosophie (2009)
Halbertsma, H., Frieslands oudheid. Het rijk van de Friese koningen, opkomst en ondergang (2000)
Heerma van Voss, L., Bouras, N., Hart, 't M., Heijden, van der M. & Lucassen, L. (eds.), Nog meer wereldgeschiedenis van Nederland; Mostert, M., Hollandse polders bij Bremen (2022)
Henderikx, P.A., Land, Water en Bewoning. Waterstaats- en nederzettingsgeschiedenis in de Zeeuwse en Hollandse delta in de Middeleeuwen (2001)
Hendriksma, M., De Rijn. Biografie van een rivier (2017)
Jong, ‘t H., De dageraad van Holland. De geschiedenis van het graafschap 1100-1300 (2018)
Klerk, de A., Vlaardingen in de wording van het graafschap Holland 800-1250 (2018)
Kramer, E., Valse start in het Vikingonderzoek (2019)
Kruse, A. & Paulowitz, B., Holler Colonies and the Altes Land: A Vivid Example of the Importance of European Intangible and Tangible Heritage (2019)
Kuipers, J.J.B., Jensma, G. & Vries, O., Nederland in de Middeleeuwen. De canon van ons middeleeuws verleden (2011)
Kunst, G., Landschappen als uitdragers van identiteit. 19 Friese schilders en hun visie op het landschap (2015)
Kurlansky, M., Salt. A world history (2002)
Lambers, J., Het geheim van de Gouden Eeuw der Republiek van de Verenigde Nederlanden. Mythen en werkelijkheid rond de turfwinning (website)
Leenders, K.A.H.W., The start of peat digging for salt production in the Zeeland region (2004)
Leeuwen, van J., Middeleeuws Medemblik: een centrum in de periferie. Archeologisch onderzoek naar de (vroeg)middeleeuwse handelsnederzetting en het oudste regionale centrum van West-Friesland in de periode 675-1298 (2014)
Nicolay, J., Het kweldergebied als cultuurlandschap: een model (2015)
Nieuwenhuijsen, K., Strijd om West-Frisia. De ontstaansgeschiedenis van het graafschap Holland: 900-1100 (2016)
Remkes, J., Wat wel kan: uit de impasse en een aanzet voor perspectief (2022)
Renswoude, van O., Het woud tussen werelden (2019)
Schrijver, P., Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages (2014)
Schroor, M., Harlingen. Geschiedenis van de Friese havenstad (2015)
Tuuk, van der L., Handelaren en ambachtslieden. Een economische geschiedenis van de vroege middeleeuwen (2021)
Ven, van de G., Turfwinning in Laag Nederland in de Middeleeuwen. Een inleiding op het thema en enige aspecten uit de geologische geschiedenis van het kustgebied (1996)
Verhagen, J.G.M., Op zoek naar de kanalen van Drusus. De Utrechtse Vecht in de Romeinse tijd (2022)
Zeeuw, de J.W., Peat and the Dutch Golden Age (1978)
Zijlmans, R., Troebele betrekkingen. Grens-, scheepvaart- en waterstaatkwesties in de Nederlanden tot 1800 (2016)