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According to Pliny the Younger, in Roman times, the Frisians (or, as it may be, their close neighbours, the Chauci) lived on terps, man-made hills. According to other sources, the Frisians lived along a broader expanse of the North Sea (or "Frisian Sea") coast. Frisia at this time comprised the present-day provinces of Friesland and North Holland.
Though it is impossible to know exact numbers and migration patterns, research has indicated that many Frisians were part of the wave of ethnic groups to colonise areas of present-day England alongside the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, [24] starting from around the fifth century when Frisians arrived along the coastline of Kent. [25] [26]
The earliest Frisian records name four social classes, the ethelings (nobiles in Latin documents) and frilings, who together made up the "Free Frisians" who might bring suit at court, and the laten or liten with the slaves, who were absorbed into the laten during the Early Middle Ages, as slavery was not so much formally abolished, as evaporated.
In 775, Charles the Great made Frisia officially part of the Frankish Kingdom. The wars ended with the last uprising of the Frisians in 793 and the pacification of them. Counts were appointed by the Frankish monarchs. However, Danish Vikings raided Frisia in the end of the 9th
The Viking rule in Frisia was terminated, nevertheless in view of the continuous threat, the local peasants were granted the Frisian freedom (West Frisian: Fryske frijheid), which excluded them from the feudal customs in the Frankish Empire, with no suzerain above them than the Emperor himself.
The earliest Frisian records name four social classes, the ethelings (nobiles in Latin documents) and frilings, who together made up the "Free Frisians" who might bring suit at court, and the laten or liten with the slaves, who were absorbed into the laten during the Early Middle Ages, as slavery was not so much formally abolished, as evaporated.
It was written more than 500 years after the last unambiguous reference to the ancient Frisii (the Panegyrici Latini in c. 297), and at a time when medieval Frisia and the Frisians were playing a dominant role in North Sea trade. The idea that the Frisians might have settled in Scotland and Ireland has triggered several imaginative histories.
[1] [2] (Because the early Frisians and Anglo-Saxons were formed from largely identical tribal confederacies, their respective languages were very similar. Old Frisian is the most closely related language to Old English [ 3 ] and the modern Frisian dialects are in turn the closest related languages to contemporary English.)