Husum, but formerly it extended farther both to the north and south. In historical times these North Frisians were subjects of the Danish kingdom and not connected in any way with the Frisians of the empire. They are first mentioned by Saxo Grammaticus in connexion with the exile of Knud V. Saxo recognized that they were of Frisian origin, but did not know when they had first settled in this region. Various opinions are still held with regard to the question; but it seems not unlikely that the original settlers were Frisians who had been expelled by the Franks in the 8th century. Whether the North Frisian language is entirely of Frisian origin is somewhat doubtful owing to the close relationship which Frisian bears to English. The inhabitants of the neighbouring islands, Sylt, Amrum and Föhr, who speak a kindred dialect, have apparently never regarded themselves as Frisians, and it is the view of many scholars that they are the direct descendants of the ancient Saxons.
In 1248 William of Holland, having become emperor, restored to the Frisians in his countship their ancient liberties in reward for the assistance they had rendered him in the siege of Aachen; but in 1254 they revolted, and William lost his life in the contest which ensued. After many struggles West Friesland became completely subdued, and was henceforth virtually absorbed in the county of Holland. But the Frieslanders east of the Zuider Zee obstinately resisted repeated attempts to bring them into subjection. In the course of the 14th century the country was in a state of anarchy; petty lordships sprang into existence, the interests of the common weal were forgotten or disregarded, and the people began to be split up into factions, and these were continually carrying on petty warfare with one another. Thus the Fetkoopers (Fatmongers) of Oostergoo had endless feuds with the Schieringers (Eelfishers) of Westergoo.
This state of affairs favoured the attempts of the counts of Holland to push their conquests eastward, but the main body of the Frisians was still independent when the countship of Holland passed into the hands of Philip the Good of Burgundy. Philip laid claim to the whole country, but the people appealed to the protection of the empire, and Frederick III., in August 1457, recognized their direct dependence on the empire and called on Philip to bring forward formal proof of his rights. Philip’s successor, Charles the Bold, summoned an assembly of notables at Enkhuizen in 1469, in order to secure their homage; but the conference was without result, and the duke’s attention was soon absorbed by other and more important affairs. The marriage of Maximilian of Austria with the heiress of Burgundy was to be productive of a change in the fortunes of that part of Frisia which lies between the Vlie and the Lauwers. In 1498 Maximilian reversed the policy of his father Frederick III., and detached this territory, known afterwards as the province of Friesland, from the empire. He gave it as a fief to Albert of Saxony, who thoroughly crushed out all resistance. In 1523 it fell with all the rest of the provinces of the Netherlands under the strong rule of the emperor Charles, the grandson of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy.
That part of Frisia which lies to the east of the Lauwers had a divided history. The portion which lies between the Lauwers and the Ems after some struggles for independence had, like the rest of the country, to submit itself to Charles. It became ultimately the province of the town and district of Groningen (Stadt en Landen) (see Groningen). The easternmost part between the Ems and the Weser, which had since 1454 been a county, was ruled by the descendants of Edzard Cirksena, and was attached to the empire. The last of the Cirksenas, Count Charles Edward, died in 1744 and in default of heirs male the king of Prussia took possession of the county.
The province of Friesland was one of the seven provinces which by the treaty known as the Union of Utrecht bound themselves together to resist the tyranny of Spain. From 1579 to 1795 Friesland remained one of the constituent parts of the republic of the United Provinces, but it always jealously insisted on its sovereign rights, especially against the encroachments of the predominant province of Holland. It maintained throughout the whole of the republican period a certain distinctiveness of nationality, which was marked by the preservation of a different dialect and of a separate stadtholder. Count William Lewis of Nassau-Siegen, nephew and son-in-law of William the Silent, was chosen stadtholder, and through all the vicissitudes of the 17th and 18th centuries the stadtholdership was held by one of his descendants. Frederick Henry of Orange was stadtholder of six provinces, but not of Friesland, and even during the stadtholderless periods which followed the deaths of William II. and William III. of Orange the Frisians remained stanch to the family of Nassau-Siegen. Finally, by the revolution of 1748, William of Nassau-Siegen, stadtholder of Friesland (who, by default of heirs male of the elder line, had become William IV., prince of Orange), was made hereditary stadtholder of all the provinces. His grandson in 1815 took the title of William I., king of the Netherlands. The male line of the “Frisian” Nassaus came to an end with the death of King William III. in 1890.
Bibliography—See Tacitus, Ann. iv. 72 f., xi. 19 f., xiii. 54; Hist. iv. 15 f.; Germ. 34; Ptolemy, Geogr. ii. 11, § 11; Dio Cassius liv. 32; Eumenius, Paneg. iv. 9; the Anglo-Saxon poems, Finn, Beowulf and Widsith; Fredegarii Chronici continuatio and various German Annals; Gesta regum Francorum; Eddius, Vita Wilfridi, cap. 25 f.; Bede, Hist. Eccles, iv. 22, v. 9 f.; Alcuin, Vita Willebrordi; I. Undset, Aarbger for nordisk Oldkyndighed (1880), p. 89 ff. (cf. E. Mogk in Paul’s Grundriss d. germ. Philologie ii. p. 623 ff.); Ubbo Emmius, Rerum Frisicarum historia (Leiden, 1616); Pirius Winsemius, Chronique van Vriesland (Franoker, 1822); C. Scotanus, Beschryvinge end Chronyck van des Heerlickheydt van Frieslandt (1655); Groot Placaat en Charter-boek van Friesland (ed. Baron C. F. zu Schwarzenberg) (5 vols., Leeuwarden, 1768–1793); T. D. Wiarda, Ost-frieschische Gesch. (vols. i.-ix., Aurich, 1791) (vol. x., Bremen, 1817); J. Dirks, Geschiedkundig onderzoek van den Koophandel der Friezen (Utrecht, 1846); O. Klopp, Gesch. Ostfrieslands (3 vols., Hanover, 1854–1858); Hooft van Iddekinge, Friesland en de Friezen in de Middeleeuwen (Leiden, 1881); A. Telting, Het Oudfriesche Stadrecht (The Hague, 1882); P. J. Blok, Friesland im Mittelalter (Leer, 1891).
FRITH (or Fryth), JOHN (c. 1503–1533), English Reformer and Protestant martyr, was born at Westerham, Kent. He was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, where Gardiner, afterwards bishop of Winchester, was his tutor. At the invitation of Cardinal Wolsey, after taking his degree he migrated (December 1525) to the newly founded college of St Frideswide or Cardinal College (now Christ Church), Oxford. The sympathetic interest which he showed in the Reformation movement in Germany caused him to be suspected as a heretic, and led to his imprisonment for some months. Subsequently he appears to have resided chiefly at the newly founded Protestant university of Marburg, where he became acquainted with several scholars and reformers of note, especially Patrick Hamilton (q.v.). Frith’s first publication was a translation of Hamilton’s Places, made shortly after the martyrdom of its author; and soon afterwards the Revelation of Antichrist, a translation from the German, appeared, along with A Pistle to the Christen Reader, by “Richard Brightwell” (supposed to be Frith), and An Antithesis wherein are compared togeder Christes Actes and our Holye Father the Popes, dated “at Malborow in the lande of Hesse,” 12th July 1529. His Disputacyon of Purgatorye, a treatise in three books, against Rastell, Sir T. More and Fisher (bishop of Rochester) respectively, was published at the same place in 1531. While at Marburg, Frith also assisted Tyndale, whose acquaintance he had made at Oxford (or perhaps in London) in his literary labours. In 1532 he ventured back to England, apparently on some business in connexion with the prior of Reading. Warrants for his arrest were almost immediately issued at the instance of Sir T. More, then lord chancellor. Frith ultimately fell into the hands of the authorities at Milton Shore in Essex, as he was on the point of making his escape to Flanders. The rigour of his imprisonment in the Tower was somewhat abated when Sir T. Audley succeeded to the chancellorship, and it was understood that both Cromwell and Cranmer were disposed to show great leniency. But the treacherous circulation of a manuscript “lytle treatise” on the sacraments, which Frith had written for the information of a friend, and without any view to publication, served further to excite the
