Lex Frisionum, the "Law Code of the Frisians" was recorded in Latin during the reign of
CharlemagneCharlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe...
, after the year785, when the Frankish conquest of Frisia was completed by the final defeat of the Frisian king Radboud. The law code covered the region of the
FrisiansThe Frisians are an ethnic group of Germanic people living in coastal parts of The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. They are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia. They inhabit an area known as Frisia...
. 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.
Lex Frisionum, the "Law Code of the Frisians" was recorded in Latin during the reign of
CharlemagneCharlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe...
, after the year785, when the Frankish conquest of Frisia was completed by the final defeat of the Frisian king Radboud. The law code covered the region of the
FrisiansThe Frisians are an ethnic group of Germanic people living in coastal parts of The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. They are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia. They inhabit an area known as Frisia...
. 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 podestatPodestà is the name given to certain high officials in many Italian cities, since the later Middle Ages, mainly as Chief magistrate of a city state , but also as a local administrator, the representative of the Emperor.The term derives from the Latin word potestas, meaning power...
or imperial governor. In the Lex Frisionum three districts of
FrisiaFrisia is a coastal region along the southeastern corner of the North Sea, i.e. the German Bight...
are clearly distinguished: the law governs all of Frisia, but West Frisia "between
ZwinThe Zwin is a nature reserve at the North Sea coast, on the Belgian-Dutch border. It was founded in 1952. It has an area of 1.25 square kilometres in Knokke-Heist, Belgium and 0.33 square kilometres in Sluis, Netherlands....
and
VlieThe Vlie or Vliestroom is the seaway between the Dutch islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. The Vlie was the estuary of the river IJssel in medieval times...
" and East Frisia "between
LauwersThe Lauwers is a river in the Netherlands. It forms part of the border between the provinces of Friesland and Groningen. From the 730's to Widukind's defeat in 785 it was part of the border of the Frankish Empire....
and Weser" have certain stated exceptional provisions
At the partition treaty of Verdun (843) the whole of Frisia became part of
LotharingiaLotharingia was a region in northwest Europe, comprising the Low Countries, the western Rhineland, the lands today on the border between France and Germany, and what is now western Switzerland. It was born of the tripartite division in 855 of the kingdom of Middle Francia, itself formed of the...
; at the treaty of Meersen (870) it was briefly divided between the kingdoms of the East Franks (
AustrasiaAustrasia formed the north-eastern portion of the Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks, comprising parts of the territory of present-day eastern France, western Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Metz served as its capital, although some Austrasian kings ruled from Rheims, Trier, and...
) and the West Franks (
NeustriaThe territory of Neustria or Neustrasia, meaning "new [western] land", originated in 511, made up of the regions from Aquitaine to the English Channel, approximating most of the north of present-day France, with Paris and Soissons as its main cities...
), but in 808 the whole country was united to 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-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
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
ThuringiaThe Free State of Thuringia is located in central Germany. It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen
Bundesländer...
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 is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to a painful task. In some cases, the accused was considered innocent if they survived the test, or if their injuries healed; in others, only death was considered proof of innocence...
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 ground based on the of fines (compositio) and wergeld, the laws from the Lex Frisionum date from the first half of the 7th century at 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 printer Joannis Basilius Herold from
BaselBasel is Switzerland's third most populous city . With 830000 inhabitants in the tri-national metropolitan area , Basel is Switzerland's second-largest urban area....
made a compilation of all Germanic laws from the time of Charlemagne, Originum ac Germanicarum Antiquitatum Libri.... Among them he printed the Lex Frisionum, but from what source, or how corrupt his text, is unknown.
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.