Talk:Frisii

Article updated
Updated the article with much expanded (and I hope, better) material. Created the talk page with banners. Notuncurious (talk) 00:57, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

File:Continental.coast.150AD.Germanic.peoples.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion
The 150AD image shows the province of Flevoland it seems, land that was not there until the 1980's or so. Urk is not an island, also faulty. The whole Zyderzee is not there. Currentday Zeeland province also shows current borders with the Deltaworks, it is impossible all that land could be anywhere near dry if they are not in place. Deleting the image is probably for the best. -Lezzmeister — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.251.185.210 (talk) 13:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Relationship between ancient Frisii and modern day Frisians
I'm confused about something in the Frisii article. In the lead, we read:


 * The Frisii were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Zuiderzee and the River Ems, who are the ancestors of the modern-day ethnic Frisians.

but in the article on Frisians, in the section Frisians, the second paragraph is:


 * From the 3rd through the 5th centuries Frisia would suffer marine transgressions that made most of the land uninhabitable, aggravated by a change to a cooler and wetter climate.[7][8][9][10] Whatever population that the Romans had allowed to remain dropped dramatically, and the coastal lands would remain largely unpopulated for the next two centuries. When conditions improved, Frisia received an influx of new settlers, mostly Angles andSaxons, who intermarried with what remained of the earlier population. These people would eventually be referred to as 'Frisians', though they were not necessarily descended from the ancient Frisii. It is these 'new Frisians' who are largely the ancestors of the medieval and modern Frisians.

It seems to me that the first statement from the Frisii article is not strongly supported by the information in the paragraph from the Frisians article. Could someone who knows this subject clarify this for me? CorinneSD (talk) 20:53, 21 December 2014 (UTC)


 * It's possible both are correct. Where would the Frisii have gone when their lands flooded? Most likely they would move to the nearest high ground, lands thought to be occupied by the Angles and Saxons. Moreover, this process would take awhile and be gradual, barring a very sudden change of climate. So this "Angle and Saxon" population on the fringes of the old Frisii territory would be significantly Frisii, such that when the "Angles and Saxons" moved into the Frisian lands, amongst their number would be large numbers of Frisii descendants, along with the remnant Frisii still living there. It seems improbable from a logical point of view for the Frisii to have just disappeared and dispersed into the wider Germanic world rather than trying to stay on in the nearest high ground, from where they would hope to return to their lands, given that as individuals and families they would have no way to predict how long their lands would be flooded. So while the Frisians are "not necessarily descended from the ancient Frisii", in all probability they substantially are. There's just no way at present to prove this conjecture. D P J (talk) 18:40, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not too sure about that. Archeology shows that, in the days of the migration period, the lands of the Frisii (as Tacitus described them) became unpopulated for some time. Later repopulation coincided with the migration of Angles, Saxons and Jutes to Britain. Since the English language seems to be somewhat related to the present West Frisian language, the conclusion that some of them stayed behind and settled there to become the "new" Frisians is not altogether impossible. Some theories about ethnogenesis in the migration period include that people who invaded and settled in a new area, took the name of the former inhabitants of that country, because they were associated with that name by the outside world. The Boi (from Bohemia) and the Toi (from Thuringia) for instance, both Celtic tribes, were replaced by a Slavic and Germanic population during these times. They took the name of the new country they were residing in. Bohemians and Thuringians took an invented identity. The same could be true of the modern Frisians. The historian Blok, writer of the Dutch work "De Franken in Nederland" (The Franks in the Netherlands) suggested that the old population of the Frisian lands (Tacitus's Frisii) moved away to the south to join the Franks. Just to be replaced by people from Saksony and the Jutland peninsula (Angles, Juts and what have you). The use of the "sk" or "sch" combination in the modern Frisian language (which also occurs in Dutch) may be an implication of their partly Scandinavian heritage. Of course this is all very ambiguous. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 19:25, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The original text is far too dramatic here and echoes Dutch language expressions (sloppy use of future tense and pluperfect). I made some repairs. There is indeed archeological evidence of a remaining population, especially in the Groningen area. The general idea that depopulation was the result of sea level rise is outdated since two decades, though general surveys still repeat the older view. Long-term tectonic movements are largely irrelevant here; moreover, in some regions (e.g. Jutland) they actually led to surface rise! Climatic deterioration might have resulted in more storm surges, but cooling off is inversely linked to long-term sea level rise. Most village sites have been silted over, but this might as well be the result of migration wars, depopulation and lacking maintenance of terps and ditches.Otto S. Knottnerus (talk) 10:38, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The Dutch wiki-page for the Frisii mentions since a few days the relation between the old Frisians and the Franks. Already in 1954 de Bonen demonstrated that at least some part of the Frisians was absorbed into the Franks. But lately it is demonstrated that Frisii and Frank mean both the same. It means both 'free'. There is a saying in the Netherlands 'Frank and Free'. Meant as a doubble confirmation and using alliteration. Very common in the early middel age poetry. So the 'old' Frisians did not just disapear, they started calling themselves with an alternative word for 'Free', most likely when more tribes joined the Franks like the Usipeti, Tencteri, Sugambri en Bructeri. Doesn't it make sense to start with a new name for a new tribe, but still with the same meaning for 'Free' as to say that they do not belong to the Roman Empire? And indeed, the Frisians were never part of the Roman empire. Although they were very friendly towards them and payed a form of taxes. It is very likely that they were economicaly very tight connected to the Romans. Most likely it was not the water that drove them away, as they had already dealed with fluddings for 500 years, but the Roman third century crisis causing hyperflation. In Vlaanderen, less then 400 km to the south, the Roman economical structures stayed in tact and that must have been reason to move. 300 years later the Franks must have still known that the area was called Frisia but it was never important enough to mention. Only when the new Frisians became wealthy in the fith/sixth century it became important enough for the Franks to start writing about the new Frisian inhabitants. We dont know if the Franks remembered the Frisian inherritage like they still new that some Franks were of Sugambri descent. Lz89z1 (talk) 19:22, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

We should keep in mind that Wikipedia aims to summarize what has been published in the fields with the most relevant expertise. It is not part of our mission to debate beyond what is published. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:30, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Huns?
The article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns says:

In the German "Saga of Tidreck of Bern", its written versions beginning from the 13th century, the Huns are called Frisians. Frisia was often called Hunaland in the Middle Ages.[111][112]

Is this correct? If so, it should be mentioned on this page. Bayle Shanks (talk) 05:53, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

excess speculative material about neighbouring peoples in the lead
I have removed the following from the lead. It currently does not reflect anything explained in more convincing detail in the body of the current article, is not well-sourced, and it interrupts discussion of the Frisii themselves. Perhaps something similar but better written can eventually be integrated into the body of the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)