{"title":"The Frisian exception. Why are there hardly any traces of written Frisian from the eighth and ninth centuries?","authors":"M. Mostert","doi":"10.1080/03044181.2021.1980961","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Frisians did not develop anything like the written works produced by their neighbours in the ninth century. They knew forms of pragmatic literacy, as is clear from surviving coins and runic inscriptions. Narrative sources written by Anglo-Saxons and Franks show that their kings were able to deal with correspondence in a manner appropriate to their position, although for anything resembling poetry and traditions about the past they resorted to orality. The best Frisian poetry survives in legal texts. But the inhabitants of the area called Frisia never developed into a unified ‘people’, neither politically nor indeed linguistically. They lacked a need to develop a written literature of their own.","PeriodicalId":45579,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY","volume":"47 1","pages":"597 - 610"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2021.1980961","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
ABSTRACT The Frisians did not develop anything like the written works produced by their neighbours in the ninth century. They knew forms of pragmatic literacy, as is clear from surviving coins and runic inscriptions. Narrative sources written by Anglo-Saxons and Franks show that their kings were able to deal with correspondence in a manner appropriate to their position, although for anything resembling poetry and traditions about the past they resorted to orality. The best Frisian poetry survives in legal texts. But the inhabitants of the area called Frisia never developed into a unified ‘people’, neither politically nor indeed linguistically. They lacked a need to develop a written literature of their own.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Medieval History aims at meeting the need for a major international publication devoted to all aspects of the history of Europe in the Middle Ages. Each issue comprises around four or five articles on European history, including Britain and Ireland, between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. The Journal also includes review articles, historiographical essays and state of research studies.