Frisia Coast Trail.com

How to settle the scores in medieval Frisia when you killed someone: the function of a weregeld.

This blog is a virtual hike. Grab a coffee and go 200 kilometers per hour. When ploughing through piles of research on where the Frisians roamed, we stumbled upon interesting Frisian place names. A few weeks ago we, the two Frisian bastards, took another hike. We walked a track of 31 km along the river Vecht . In the early medieval times this river was the most important water highway between Dorestad and Scandinavia. In this period mostly Vikings and Frisian traders roamed

Liudger succeeded where other evangelists failed. He finally managed to convert the pagan Frisians to Christianity, because he “spoke their language”. Did he really? A very thorough study from Hinne Wagenaar reveals quite a startling truth about this Frisian apostle. Some time ago I stumbled upon an article from Hinne Wagenaar, called " Liudger, apostle of the Frisians ". A question in Cameroon sparked his interest in this Frisian apostle. As a professor in theology he was

Nordfriesland or North Frisia. The western coast and islands of the region of Schleswig. Stretching from the Danish town Tønder in the...

Here are some maps that help you locate the Frisians in the early Middle Ages (500-800 AD). We combined old maps, archaeological finds, old scriptures and historical research. In our previous blog post we pinpointed several locations where the 5 Frisian kings set foot. In this blog post we focus on the Frisian territories of those kings. Here we go. When you look for maps to locate the Frisian territories around 500 and 800 AD you will often bump into the Magna Frisia map.

We plotted the exact locations of the whereabouts of the five Frisian kings Finn, Audulfus, Aldgils, Redbad, and Poppo. We might have even hit some royal DNA samples. GPS, ready, go! Just follow and click the blue pins on the map below. Plotting the Frisia Coast Trail hike When shaping the Frisian Coast Trail we are especially interested in historical Frisian locations. Where well known medieval Frisian kings lived is a vital part of the Frisia Coast Trail. In this blog pos

This blog post is not about the Westfrisian writer Hendrik Jan Marsman (1937–2012), better known by his pen name Bernlef . Nor is it...

At the time of writing this blog post (2018), many supranational organizations, whether governmental or judicial, are struggling with their legitimacy and survival; it is almost becoming tedious. Take, for example, the European Union with a humiliating Brexit and its seemingly endless debates on urgent monetary and migration policy reforms. Consider the International Criminal Court (ICC), accused of being biased, with parties leaving the treaty, some even boycotting it from t

From 2012 onward, about 5,000 foreign fighters from various European countries travelled to the Levant to join the fighting. Six years later, roughly fifteen percent had died in combat. Others remained in the Middle East—imprisoned or drifting toward new conflict zones as terrorist groups lost ground. But some returned home. This wave of returnees is alarming, yet, regrettably, not unprecedented. Nearly a thousand years ago, laws were already being drafted to address the very

Not much is known about Redbad’s death. Many Frankish fragments use his year of death as a historical point of reference for many events. One story tells about his strong wish to make sure his heritage ends up with the rightful owners. It is 719. Redbad has been ill for six years. He suffers from a never ending pain. What he suffers from is not told. The old king feels the end is coming. But he is not intending to die without sorting out his legacy. In July 2012, the artis

“I can not live without the company of my forefathers” , Redbad said in an interview in 718. In 2018 this sentence caused turmoil in the social media and the European Union. Having such an impact 1300 after your death deserves some further investigation, we believe. This article is about a medieval king, freedom of religion, Google Ads, movie trailers, ancient scriptures, paganism, Zuckerberg, censorship, a candid bishop, Frankish kings, freedom of speech and social media.

It was not the city of Parisius  ('Paris'). Nor that of Londinium  ('London'). Believe it or not, the early-medieval center for expensive...

This is the story of the land reclaimed from the former Middelzee—a shallow inland sea that once split the present-day province of Friesland in two, separating the ancient pagus Westrachia  (modern district Westergo) from pagus Austrachia (modern district Oostergo). The name Middelzee  literally means 'middle sea.' Closing this watery rift took centuries. Through a succession of smaller and larger embankments—continuing into the early seventeenth century—new land was steadil

pumping station Lely by Joh. H. van Mastenbroek August 21, 1930, Wieringermeer in the province of Noord Holland. The reclamation of just another piece of the Zuiderzee 'southern sea' was completed. A wooded area, when it was still land, that was called Creilerwoud. Land lost to the sea eight centuries ago during the most destructive All Saints' Flood in the year 1170. The embanked land—or polder  in the Dutch language—is now being named Wieringermeerpolder instead of Creiler

After the Roman Empire had incorporated a big chunck of the British Isles in the first century AD, the empire needed a military force to def

On May 5th, 2018, it was exactly two centuries since Karl Marx was born. When the good man published the first volume of Das Kapital  in 1867, he was, in fact, about 1,300 years too late to turn the tide. The ship had already sailed—quite literally. Ships of selfish and ruthless Frisian merchants in pursuit of personal wealth, to be precise. If only Karl had known... the world might have looked—let’s say—a little different today. One might say that the Frisians had much in c

In March 714, Redbad's army reached the shores of Cologne . That is deep in the Frankish heartlands and way out of the traditional Frisian coastal territories. Sure, Frisians were smelly bastards, but eau de Cologne wasn't invented yet. Was Redbad ahead of his time or why else did he end up there? A movie about this Frisian king will be released in 2018 as a tribute. In 2019, it will be 1300 years ago that he died. In a previous article we explored the battles of Redbad . We

King Redbad died in 719. Some 1300 years later, as a tribute a  movie  about this Frisian king will hit the silver screen in the Dutch cinemas. Redbad repeatedly ended up fighting his neighbours, the Franks. Where and how often will be explored in this article. As a hikers blog that follows the whereabouts of Frisian history, we are especially interested in specific battle locations in order to add them in our trail itinerary. How often and where Redbad battled is pretty u

This blog post is about the town of Medemblik—the grande dame  of the Westfriesland region in the province of Noord Holland in the Netherlands. A place steeped in legend, said by some to have been the seat of the heathen King Radbod. But more than myths, Medemblik stands at the heart of a harsh and stubborn history: that of the ‘beastly’ Westfrisians. For centuries, the bestiales Fresones —the beastly Frisians—were forced to defend themselves against both the unforgiving elem

Hwasa thene vthemeda husath ieftha howath ieftha oppa sinne werf set, sa skel hi thes wachtia, hwetsa hi deth. Who receives a foreigner...