Frisians

Prior to the appearance of the modern Frisians, their namesake, the ancient Frisii, enter recorded history in the Roman account of Drusus's 12 BC war against the Rhine Germans and the Chauci.

[12] They occasionally appear in the accounts of Roman wars against the Germanic tribes of the region, up to and including the Revolt of the Batavi around 70 AD.

[14] The discovery of a type of earthenware unique to fourth century Frisia, called terp Tritzum, shows that an unknown number of them were resettled in Flanders and Kent,[15] probably as laeti under Roman coercion.

From the third through the fifth centuries, Frisia suffered marine transgressions that made most of the land uninhabitable, aggravated by a change to a cooler and wetter climate.

[citation needed] These people would eventually be referred to as 'Frisians' (Old Frisian: Frīsa, Old English: Frīsan), though they were not necessarily descended from the ancient Frisii.

[22] Slightly later, the Frisian nobles came into increasing conflict with the Franks to their south, resulting in a series of wars in which the Frankish Empire eventually subjugated Frisia in 734.

During the 13th century, however, the counts of Holland became increasingly powerful and, starting in 1272, sought to reassert themselves as rightful lords of the Frisian lands in a series of wars, which (with a series of lengthy interruptions) ended in 1422 with the Hollandic conquest of Western Frisia and with the establishment of a more powerful noble class in Central and Eastern Frisia.

Across these areas, evidence of their settlement includes place names of Frisian origin, such as Frizinghall in Bradford and Frieston in Lincolnshire.

The evidence for this are the dwelling mounds or terps (værfter) in the area that are built after the same method as the ones alongside the Wadden Sea further south.

More recently, the retired journalist Benny Siewertsen wrote a partisan pamphlet on Frisian heritage in Denmark.

[41] Today, there exists a tripartite division of North, East and West Frisians; this was caused by Frisia's continual loss of territory in the Middle Ages.