The Frisian trade in the Dark Ages; a Frisian or a

Frankish/Frisian trade? *

Stéphane Lebecq 1992. In: Carmiggelt, A.,(ed). Rotterdam Papers VII, pp. 7-15

This paper will address itself to three questions. The first, suggested to me by recent
developments in historiography, consists in asking whether one can legitimately speak of
a large-scale Frisian trade from the seventh to the ninth centuries. Since I maintain that
one can, I shall then examine whether, since the climax of this trade occurs around 800,
that is, when the whole of Frisia falls under Carolingian domination, one should not
rather speak of large-scale Frankish/Frisian trade, as did Herbert Jankuhn.1 Having
established that Frisian trading owed much of its success to Frankish influences, I shall
then examine what might have been the role of the Frisians themselves in the origins and
in the early development of their commercial ventures.

Did the Frisians really engage in large-scale, long-distance trading during the Dark Ages?
Formerly Henri Pirenne attributed a role to those he called the 'bateliers Frisons', whom
he credited with stimulating the rather small scale commercial exchanges which he
recognized in Northern Europe after Charlemagne and the forces he represented had been
forced by Mahomet and the expansion of Islam to turn their back on the Mediterranean.2
Nor have historians of Frisian trade, from H.A. Poelman and Peter Boeles to Barbara
Rohwer and Dirk Jellema,3 neglected these arguments: sometimes even anticipating
Pirenne's ideas, they have most often confirmed and indeed amplified them; all of these
historians have detected the traces of Frisian traders in various out-of-the-way places - the
Rhineland especially, but in England, in Neustria and in Scandinavia as well - between
the seventh and the ninth centuries, without any break. But some authors (and not always
the least of them) exaggerated the evidence, forcing the texts to say more than they
actually did, making inconsiderate use of linguistic, and even of legal evidence, or inter-
pretating with insufficient care the distribution in Northern Europe of coins and other
archaeological material which came from the Middle and Lower Rhine.

After years of intellectual sloth during which the Frisians continued to receive the main,
and even the exclusive credit for developing long-distance trading in the whole of
Northern Europe during the Early Middle Ages, a healthy reaction began during the
1960s. Sometimes this was formulated with moderation (for example in the treatment of
the Meuse region by Georges Despy),4 and sometimes in a much more systematic manner
(for example in the works of Aksel Christensen on the Baltic and Scandinavian areas).5
The time has surely come to sort out these various contradictory viewpoints and to
attempt to give a general interpretation which will avoid the excesses of historical
idealism on the one hand, and those of the hypercritical historical methods on the other.
After a long investigation of Frisian merchants and sailors during the Dark Ages,6 and
thanks to the help of the books and papers recently published by the best scholars,7 I think
that it is possible to draw some conclusions. After a period of moderate growth during the
seventh and most of the eighth century, Frisian merchant activity reached its climax
toward the end of the latter century and the beginning of the next.

* Many thanks to Judith Van Heerswynghels and Bailey Young, who helped me to translate this paper.
1. Jankuhn 1953.
2. See for instance Pirenne 1951.
3. Poelman 1908, Boeles 1951, Rohwer 1937, Jellema 1955.
4. Despy 1968.
5. Christensen 1966 and Christensen 1969.
6. Lebecq 1983a and b; Lebecq 1986.
7. Among the historians: Claude 1985, Devroey 1985, Johanek 1985 and 1987, Verhulst 1970, 1985, Verhulst
and Doehaerd 1981. Among the archaeologists: Ellmers 1985 and 1990, Hodges 1982 and 1988, Hodges
and Whitehouse 1983, Müller-Wille 1985, Van Es 1980, Van Es and Verwers 1980, Verwers 1988.
Though in the early days this commerce was run from various bases (like Walcheren/
Domburg, the Handelsterpen and so on), it tended to become concentrated on Dorestad
(which reached its maximum growth in the period 770 to 830), with Frisian merchants
acting as the main exporters of Rhenish agricultural and craft products towards eastern
England and Jutland. Beyond this area rather strictly limited, in fact, to the southern part
of the North Sea, they had a more episodic presence in the English Channel (particularly
at Hamwih and in the Seine valley up to the Saint-Denis fairs), and in the Baltic, notably
along the seaway between Haithabu and Lake Mälaren.

What strikes me most is the permanence of the network of searoutes leaving Frisia, and
the correlative importance of certain trading colonies in foreign lands. One can hardly fail
to be impressed by the number of exchanges linking Rhenish Frisia and Northumberland,
for example, exchanges echoed in the hagiographical literature - especially in the Vita
Liudgeri 8 - as well as in the poems and letters of Alcuin. It is symptomatic that the latter,
writing around 800, can think of no other natural trading link between the region of
Aachen, where he was then living, and the distant city of York, where he came from, than
the naves Fresonum.9 Archaeology and numismatics have recently brought forward new
evidence of these links: Peter Addyman claims to have identified a Frisian quarter in the
Northumbrian town,10 and Michael Dolley has been able to reconstruct a hoard of coins
from Dorestad discovered along the Ouse River during the eighteenth century, 11 Nor is a
possible confirmation from the study of runes to be excluded, for there appear to have
been simultaneous and identical modifications in the Northumbrian and the Frisian
alphabets at the end of the eighth century,12 changes which one is inclined to attribute
more to the influence of the trading milieu than to 'the milieu of missionaries.

As far as the longer-range trading activities of the Frisians are concerned, I note that the
presence of the Frisian traders at Saint-Denis is cited only once (in 753), in company with
the Anglo-Saxons who are cited more often, and since well before that date.13 This leads
me to wonder whether Hamwih did not serve as the stepping-stone which led them,
thanks to a well-known shipping route hitherto much used by the Anglo-Saxons,14 to
extend their activities to the lower Seine valley. On the other hand, I maintain that one
must not underestimate, let alone deny, as did Aksel Christensen, the Frisian presence in
the Baltic. First of all, it is now practically certain, thanks to the excavations of Herbert
Jankuhn and Heiko Steuer,15 that the Frisians took part in founding the southern
settlement at Haithabu - that is to say the first permanent trading settlement on the Baltic
shore of the isthmus of Jutland; and that they were thus among the first (mid-eighth
century) to grasp the economic value of the portage which, linking the upper valley of the
Treene to the Schlei Fjord, eliminated the long circumnavigation of the Danish peninsula.
Would the Frisians have taken an interest in opening this window on the Baltic if they
were not motivated by a desire to send their ships farther out among the lands washed by
this sea? I think not. And one cannot avoid associating with the founding of this first
trading link the importation first at Helgö (in the second half of the eighth century) then at
Birka (in the first half of the ninth) of an impressive number of products which originated
from the Rhineland or from more distant parts of the West.16

8. Lebecq 1983b, p. 109; Lebecq 1990b.

9. Lebecq 1983b, p. 23.
10. Addyman 1976, p. 29.
11. Dolley 1965-1966.
12. Elliott 1980, p. 37-38.
13. Lebecq 1983b, p. 400-405.
14. Lebecq 1983b, p. 90; Hodges 1981.
15. Jankuhn 1986; Steuer 1974.
16. Holmqvist 1961- 1972; Lundstrom 1968; Arbman 1937; Ellmers 1985; Müller-Wille 1985.
Fig. 1. Great Frisia during the Dark ages

It is also quite symptomatic that if Christensen quotes from the Vita Anskarii the
complaint of the old man from Birka, evidently a Swede, who toward the middle of the
ninth century deplores that his people can no longer reach Dorestad, 17 he omits mentio-
ning the story of the old Christian woman of Birka, whose name, Frideburg, has nothing
Swedish about it, and who requested her daughter Catla to make the journey to Dorestad
after her death in order to distribute her fortune among the churches and the poor.18 I am
convinced that an act of redemptive charity of this sort could only have come from a
Frisian woman living in Birka, - and that there must have been a Frisian colony on the
distant shores of Lake Mälaren.
So I think that the scope of Frisian trading ventures should not be underestimated, and
that the concept of 'trader-farmers', which has been invoked by authors as scrupulous as
Edith Ennen, Jan Dhondt or, more recently, Richard Hodges,19 is too ambiguous.

17. For the Vita Anskarii, see Lebecq 1983b, p. 134-135. Christensen 1966 and 1969.
18. Lebecq 1983b p. 131-133; Lebecq I 990a.
19. Ennen 1975, p. 47; Dhondt 1968, p. 165; Hodges 1982, p. 88.
How could a trader who made one or more voyages every year between Dorestad and
York, or between Dorestad and Haithabu, or between Dorestad and Alsace, even if only
during the summer season, and who from time to time settled down in a distant trading
settlement, be still considered to be a peasant, when he must necessarily be away from
home during the critical agricultural works of the summer?

In any event, the historian ought to know exactly what he is talking about when he refers,
on the particular authority of written sources, to Frisian traders or seamen. If we are
justified in raising this issue, it is because some sources lead one to think that the use of
this word was not always unambiguous. This is the case, for example, of the diploma by
which, in 829, Louis the Pious confirmed the concession to the Bishop of Worms of the
rights to all the tolls levied in his city on the 'negotiatores vel artifices seu et Frisiones',
as if the Frisians were the only foreign merchants who frequented this great Rhenish
market, whereas the term may have only been employed as a mere synonym for long-
distance traders.20Another example is provided by a West Saxon poem, no doubt written
during the tenth century, in which the poet chooses to invoke the example of the wife of a
Frisian seaman to praise conjugal fidelity: it would seem that in this case the Frisian is
simply the archetype of the long-distance sailor.21 One gathers therefore that the use of the
word Frisian need not always imply a particular ethnic or geographic identity. I do not
understand, however, how one can derive from a legitimate scepticism of this sort an
argument against the historical importance of the Frisians' historic role in stimulating
maritime exchanges during the earliest part of the Middle Ages. On the contrary, if their
name has become a synonym for a long-distance merchant or sailor both in Anglo-Saxon
poetic literature and in a Rhenish diplomatic formula, the Frisians must have justified this
identification by their activities.
Notwithstanding, there is little doubt that for most writers - at any rate for those
untouched by poetic conventions or the usages of the chancellery - the Frisians were
considered to be people who came from Frisia. But does it mean that they were Frisians
in the ethnic sense of the term, that is to say people whose origins, recent or remote, were
to be found in those maritime regions where, notably upon the terpen, an original culture
had developed22 and where the Frisian language had begun to separate itself from the old
common speech known as Nordseegermanisch?23

Certainly not, especially since the Frisian expansion during the fifth to seventh centuries
took place to the detriment of such pre-existing peoples as the Caninefates, the Bataves
and the Chamaves who were not necessarily subjected to a complete acculturation;24 and
further because this expansion was halted, then rolled back during the seventh to ninth
centuries by a Frankish reconquest with the result that, at the time of the climax of Frisian
commerce, let us say about 800, Frisia itself was totally contained within the empire of
Charlemagne.25
Frisia in its heyday, then, that is Carolingian Frisia, was immense: as the terms of the Lex
Frisionum of 802 indicate,26 it retained the boundaries of the period of independence. It
stretched from the Weser up to Sincfal, that is to say as far as the point where the current
Belgian-Dutch frontier touches the sea: the whole of the Zeeland archipelago was thus
included. We must not imagine a straight frontier: often, where the country was practi-
cally uninhabited, it came close to the sea; elsewhere, especially along the lower Dutch
rivers, the natural and inevitable passageways between the hinterland and the coast, it
plunged deeply inland. The limits, which were clearly defined later during the Middle
Ages, of the diocese of Utrecht which Willibrord created in 695 as the diocese of the
20. Lebecq 1983b, p. 422. Lebecq 1990c.
21. Lebecq 1983b, p. 37-39; Lebecq 1990c.
22. Halbertsma 1963; Lebecq 1980.
23. Kuhn 1955.
24. Blok 1979, with many bibliographical references including a number of works by the same.
25. Blok 1979; Lebecq 1978.
26. Siems 1980.
Frisians, indicate that the Lek and Waal valleys were Frisian as far as and including
Teisterbant (or, if one prefers, the Tiel region) since the Annales Fuldenses still refer in
885 to these 'Frisiones qui vocantur Destarbenzon' - of these 'Frisians said to be of
Teisterbant'.27

Fig. 2 Frisian trade routes during the 7th-9th centuries.

1. Great routes. 2. Secondary routes. 3. Places where the presence of Frisian traders is either
testified or can safely be presumed.

This is as much as saying that Dorestad, situated at the point where the Lek and the Rhine
diverge and the undoubted largescale trading centre at the heyday of Frisian commerce,
was in Frisia (the Cosmographer of Ravenna clearly makes it at the end of the seventh
century the 'patria Frisonum'),28 and that its inhabitants were unanimously considered to
be 'Frisians' (in the Annales Fuldenses in 837 as well as in the so-called Annales of
Saint-Bertin in 863).29 Nonetheless the famous emporium is presented by these same
authors as a specific place in regard to the rest of Frisia. The so-called Annalist of Saint-
Bertin describes, for example, how in 836 the Normans devastated both Dorestad and
Frisia; more especially, when relating the proposed partition of 839, he clearly distin-
guishes within Lothair's part the' ducatum Fresiae usque Mosam' and the 'comitatum
Testrabenti cum Dorestado'.30 It appears from this that, if Dorestad at its height unquestio-
27. Lebecq 1983b, p. 324.
28. Lebecq 1983b, p. 206-208.
29. Lebecq 1983b, p. 318-319 and 313-314.
30. Lebecq 1983b, p. 310.
nably belonged to Frisia, it was perceived as relatively marginal, or in any case as
specific, since it was expressly named in the proposed partition alongside much vaster
territorial holdings.

Dorestad's specificity can be attributed to two kinds of reasons. In the first place - and it is
in this regard that the special dispositions concerning it in the proposed division of the
Empire and consequently of its wealth appear particularly significant -, the town had an
enormous importance in the eyes of contemporaries, which made it a real stake in the
power struggles. Around 790/ 800 Luidgar, recounting the life of Gregory of Utrecht,
presents it as the' vicus famosus',31 and in 834 the so-called Annalist of Xanten refers to
the' vicus nominatissimus'. 32 This emphasis was soon to reach its highest point when
Rimbert came to speak of the town's 'many churches',33 and when a tradition took shape
which would carry their number as high as fifty-five!34

From all appearances, contemporaries were struck by the topographic and economic
importance of the site. This ought not to surprise us because, since 779 at the latest,
Dorestad harboured one of the principal customs stations of the Carolingian empire, the
northernmost at any rate,35 where merchants from the North had to pay to the procura-
tores or ministeriales a 10% levy on all of their cargo.36 Dorestad was likewise the home
of the most prolific Carolingian mint after that of the Palace; issues struck there have
been found from York to Haithabu,37 and these types were imitated often enough, as they
were at Haithabu from 825 on, thus furnishing Scandinavia with its first monetary instru-
ments.38
This evocation of the Carolingian presence at Dorestad leads me to speak of the second
fact which could explain why the settlement appeared to be special in the eyes of
contemporaries: I mean its ethnic character. If the whole southwest of Frisia, from
Zeeland up to Teisterbant - what Bede calls 'Fresia Citerior'39 had been for centuries a
zone of contact between Franks and Frisians, and even if the former had launched a
military colonization since the end of the seventh century the better to control the latter,40
it is certainly at Dorestad that we perceive most clearly the rapprochement of the two
peoples. This is particularly true of our central concern here, the merchant population of
the town. If it was in fact the merchants globally considered as 'Frisians' who fled
definitively from the town in 863, according to the Annalist of Saint-Bertin, 41 it seems
that these merchants might individually come from a Frankish or from an authentically
Frisian background.
I shall quote two pieces of evidence: first, the only merchant from Dorestad whose name
has been preserved, the 'black Hrotberet' with whom Alcuin may have voyaged from
York, and who in any case refused to welcome him under his roof in 780, bears an
indisputably Frankish name.42 Secondly, even if it seems sure that the terpen area was the
startpoint of the first merchant expansion of the Frisians towards Scandinavia, at the same
time as the ethnic migration towards 'Northern Frisia' Dorestad had just as certainly
become by the time of Ansgar (first half of the ninth century) the main point of departure
to Haithabu and Birka.43 How can one avoid concluding from these two facts that the
trading population to whom the vicus owed its fame derived just as much from the

31. Lebecq 1983b, p. 99.

32. Lebecq 1983b, p. 335.
33. Lebecq 1983b, p. 132; and Lebecq 1990a.
34. In the Passio Friderici written by Odbert in the beginning of the eleventh century: see Lebecq 1983b, p. 117.
35. Lebecq 1983b, pA19: or Atsma and Vezin 1986, p. 38-41. See Verkerk 1988, p. 166.
36. Lebecq 1983b, p. 411-413; Verkerk 1988, p. 167.
37. Enno van Gelder 1961; Morrison and Grunthal 1967, p. 90-91,126-128,160-162; Lebecq 1983a, p. 60-66.
38. Malmer 1966, p. 60-63 and 204-209.
39. Lebecq 1983b, p. 234.
40. Blok 1979.
41. Lebecq 1983b, p. 313-314.
42. Lebecq 1983b, p. 21.
43. Lebecq 1983b, p. 132-135; Lebecq 1989; Lebecq 1990a.
Frankish countries south and southwest (one thinks naturally of the lower Rhine and
Meuse valleys) as from the distant Frisia of the terpen to the North?

Before we ask whether the Pippinids had set about deliberately - and successfully -
attracting to Dorestad the commercial dynamism of the North and settle it there by
associating with it the force of Austrasia, we must acknowledge that the Carolingian State
was the main beneficiary of the success of Frisian commerce - at least during the period
of its greatest activity. The most obvious gain was certainly economic. The State was the
first to benefit, which is as much as to say the Carolingian family. The revenues resulting
from coinage, and especially those, which are much easier to perceive, deriving from
customs duties must have been considerable. To be sure, out of concern for the salvation
of their souls, the Pippinids had abandoned (at the latest from the time of Pippin Ill, more
plausibly since the day of Pippin II, in 695) one tenth of their revenues to the church of
Utrecht, which thus acquired the ripaticum along the bank of the Lek;44 to be sure, for the
same reasons, this or that ecclesiastical establishment might be dispensed from paying
customs fees - as was the case with the monks of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in 779.45
But it is significant that one of the rare tolls that Louis the Pious continued to collect from
the merchants supplying his palace in 828 was precisely the one perceived at Dorestad.46

Beside the State, the whole of Carolingian society drew profit from the commercial
dynamism of the Frisians. The success of the latter in obtaining and then in defending for
so long their positions in the distant marketplaces of Northern Europe, stimulated the
economic growth of their own hinterland. This was particularly true of the Rhineland: the
Frisians guaranteed the distribution of the products of the many glassware-, pottery- and
metallurgy-workshops of the Cologne basin and the Eifel country. The Austrasian
aristocracy, the principal social basis of Carolingian power, must have derived enormous
benefits from Frisian trading. It was without doubt the principal consumer of the luxury
goods imported from the British Islands, from Scandinavia and from the far-distant
Oriental hinterland; more particularly, it also supplied the Frisians with their return
freight: the considerable surpluses of their estates in grains and wine.47 Nor is it to be
excluded that the existence of these distant markets prospected and then serviced by the
Frisians was directly connected with the undeniable growth of agriculture, and perhaps
more precisely viticulture, experienced in the Rhenish regions during the 'Carolingian
Peace', between 750 and 830.48
But this peace, as we know, was only relative, and the Carolingians had several chances
to feel the threats that were brewing to the East and especially to the North before the
storm really broke. This enables us to devine the political advantages that the Frisian
control of the Northern seaways and of certain river-systems in central Europe put in the
hands of the Frankish rulers. Nor did they fail to use them: in the first place in the field of
military techniques, by requisitioning Frisian boats and men. Charlemagne did so twice:
once in 789, on the Elbe and the Havel, against the Wilzes; and later in 791 on the Rhine,
the Main and the Danube, against the Avars.49 Furthermore, they used Frisian traders as
ambassadors to distant lands reputed to be hostile: this was probably the case in 809
during a period of tension between Charlemagne and the Danish King Godfred.50 At the
least, they carried useful information.51 From this point of view we can hardly imagine
that Charlemagne, and even more Louis the Pious did not grasp the opportunity that the

44. According to the diplomas given in 777 and 815 to the church of Utrecht. Lebecq 1983b, p. 409-412.
45. See above, n. 35.
46. ccording to the Praeceptum Negotiatorum. Lebecq 1983b, p. 437.
47. Cf. a famous poem by Ermoldus Nigellus: Lebecq 1983 b, p. 26-30. See Devroey 1985.
48. Lebecq 1983a; Devroey 1985.
49. According to the Annales Regni Francorum and the Annales Laureshamenses: Lebecq 1983b, p. 295 et
301-302.
50. According to an interpretation of the Annales Mettenses Lebecq 1983b, p. 330-331.
51. Just as, at the end of the IXth century, Alfred was to use the information given to him by the merchants
Ohthere and Wulfstan: Lebecq 1987.
Frisian traders provided to penetrate into the Scandinavian world which they soon
perceived as the source of great dangers to the Empire. It is enough to read through the
Vita of Ansgar to measure to what extent the successive missionary ventures of the Saint
in the North, whether actually directed by Louis the Pious or merely followed by him,
were dependent on the movements of long-distance traders.52

Whether the Carolingians made the best use of the advantages the Frisian traders offered
them, or whether they served as a really effective instrument, is another story. What is
important to remember is that Frisia at the climax of its commercial success, was in fact a
province of the Carolingian Empire, and that the activities of its traders, whether
exploited by the ambitions of Frankish power or not, were particularly stimulated by the
prosperity of the Frankish-Rhenish hinterland. Finally, perhaps for this very reason, the
Frisian center of gravity shifted markedly to the South, to Dorestad, that is where under
the authority of Imperial and Episcopal officials, business was carried on by a population
that was Frankish as well as Frisian.

Since Frisian trade in its heyday seems to have been in fact a Frankish/Frisian affair, and
since the period was also marked by the pre-eminence of Dorestad over all other trading
centers, it is tempting to ask whether, on the one hand, the latter's rise was not a product
of the Frankish conquest, and whether, on the other, the settlement was not indeed a
Frankish foundation, or at any rate a re-foundation. To begin with, it is probable that
before the earliest Frankish attempts at expansionism had achieved any success the
Frisians had already extended their antennae in the three fundamental directions which
were to be durably marked with the seal of Frisian mercantile dynamism. For the first
coins that the Frisians struck in great quantities, beginning around 600, those gold
trientes conveniently known as the 'Dronrijp type', have mostly been found (outside of
Frisia of the terpen, where they were presumably struck) in southeast England (Kent, East
Anglia), along the east coast of Jutland from the mouth of the Elbe up to Limfjord, and in
the Rhineland, up to Coblence and even as far as Lake of Constance.53 We have every
right to doubt that a priori the distribution of these finds is a reliable proof of the active
presence of Frisians abroad, but we cannot but be struck by the fact that this distribution
foreshadows with great precision the triple fields of Frisian activity during the great days
of their trading. Furthermore, there are other links with the overall history of the Frisian
people: England, after all, had been the destination of migrations during previous
centuries; the western coast of Jutland was in the process of becoming a colony of a Frisia
which was by all evidence overpopulated; and the Rhineland was the natural hinterland
which produced the very items (wood, wheat and wine) which Frisia itself lacked. These
considerations enable us to suppose that since the beginning of the seventh century
Frisian traders had been sailing in the wake of earlier migrants or accompanying their
contemporaries in search of new lands; and that for them maritime ventures raised no
insurmountable difficulties since boats had always been present in their homeland,
indispensable instruments of communication, and even of survival.54

At all events, if they possessed at Walcheren/Domburg a good port of embarkation for

England, in use from the end of the sixth century according to the testimony of. the
coins,55 and if the northern terpen soon the Handelsterpen, served as a good departure
point for the Baltic and Scandinavia beyond,56 we cannot perceive until about 630/650 the
emergence of a good shipping base for trade with the Rhineland. When one does appear,
it is on a site whose Celto-Roman place-name is a clear indication of its antiquity,57 but

52. Lebecq 1983b, p. 128-129 and 136; Lebecq 1989 and 1990a.
53. Lebecq 1983a, p. 50-53.
54. Lebecq 1983a, p. 165 sq.; Ellmers 1990.
55. Roes 1954; Jankuhn 1958; Lebecq 1983a, p. 142-144.
56. Halbertsma 1963; Brandt 1985.
57. Blok and Gysseling 1959; Blok and Koch 1964.
which does not seem to have played an important role during the Roman and early
Merovingian period. The site was Dorestad, whose name appears for the first time on
coins struck by Frankish minters who came from Maastricht 58 According to a well-
established tradition, 630 was the time when Dagobert established positions in the lower
Rhine valley, created a church in Utrecht, and as numismatists have recently discovered -
enabled the minters Rimoaldus and Madelinus to transfer their mints from Maastricht to
Dorestad.

The Frankish seizure of the lower Rhine valley in the second quarter of the seventh
century had a number of different implications: no doubt the ambitious desire to recover
the old Roman frontier along the Rhine, with its numerous forts (notably that one of
Levefanum, close by Dorestad)59 was part of it; maybe the spirit of religious proselytism
played a role; in any case it meant a desire, from the part of the Franks, to attract a
profitable commerce into their orbit, by making of Dorestad the necessary 'relais
monetaire' - to adopt Jean Lafaurie's phrase - between Gaul and the northern lands.60

But, lacking the means and the perspectives, the Merovingians failed to capture that
commerce: it was a Frisia which had entirely reconquered its independence that gave
unmistakable signs of mercantile expansion during the second half of the seventh century.
These range from the first explicit mention, by Venerable Bede, of a Frisian merchant in a
foreign marketplace (London, 679)61 to the prodigious production in Frisian workshops of
those small silver coins which one should rather call 'proto-deniers' or 'proto-pennies'
than' sceattas', which were struck, circulated, imitated and discovered everywhere around
the North Sea.62 But the most telling sign is without a doubt the renewed vigour of
Dorestad itself. For, the evidence leaves no room for doubt, the new port and the new
settlement created to the east of the earlier dwelling area, built up along the Rhine which
had itself shifted notably to the east, preceded by two decades the victorious return of the
Franks, under Pippin II, to Dorestad. The combined testimony of archaeology and of
dendrochronology agree that the renewal of the port of Dorestad dates to around 675,
particularly the first phase of construction of the remarkable river front reconstructed by
W.A. van Es and W.J.H. Verwers consisting of a continuous wharf backed by buildings
with quarters for the traders.63 These installations were in use fifteen years before struggle
began again in the vicinity of Dorestad, twenty years before Pippin's definitive victory
over the Frisian King Radbod, and forty years before the Franks gained firm and
definitive control over 'Citerior Fresia' thanks to the decisive victory of Charles Martel.64

It seems then that if the Franks under Dagobert were the first to develop Dorestad, hoping
to use it to draw some part of Frisian commerce closer to their own power-centers, it was
the Frisians themselves, having regained independence, who most fully exploited the
natural advantages of this site strategically located in the delta, making it the focal point
of their trading ventures. It may have been from here that Bede's Frisian set out for
London; no doubt Wilfrid disembarked here from the merchant vessel before spending
the winter of 678/679 in Frisia;65 certainly many of the so-called 'sceattas' were struck
here. At the same time the settlement became the focus of Frisian military power. Thus
Dorestad, which in the seventh century written sources is called only a castrum 66 (surely
referring to the ancient Levefanum of the Table of Peutinger),67 or as the 'patria
58. Zadoks-Josephus-Jitta 1961, p. 8-10; Lafaurie 1967.
59. Blok 1979; Lebecq 1978.
60. Lafaurie 1967, p. 198.
61. Lebecq 1983b, p. 232.
62. Dolley 1976, p. 352; Zadoks-Josephus-Jitta 1961, p. 10; Hill and Metcalf 1984.
63. Van Es and Verwers, in Dorestad 1978; or Van Es and Verwers 1980, vol. I, p. 294-303.
64. Blok 1979; Lebecq 1978.
65. Though the Eddius Stephanus 'Vita Wilfridi' is not so precise, I agree with Hodges 1982, p. 88 and 90, that
Wilfrid landed in Dorestad in 678.
66. [text note 66 missing in original]
67. Van Es 1980, p. 181; Verhulst, in Verhulst and DeBock-Doehaerd 1981, p. 204.
Frisonum' (this is the expression, as we have seen, of the distant Ravenna Cosmographer)
68
became the principal stake in the wars of 690/695.

Only after the area had fallen definitively under Frankish control was the term castrum
replaced by the use, which became rapidly systematic, of the terms portus (first
appearance in 779),69 vicus (from about 790/800),70 and emporium (used from 834).71
It was also under their authority that the major work of building the port complex was
accomplished: phase 2/A of the Archaeologists, dated between 700/725 and 750/775.72
Under Frankish power the mercantile dynamism of the Frisians from the North and the
Franks from the South were made to converge in this single, favoured site. Similarly, one
century later (808), the Danish King Godfred would attract to the new settlement of
Haithabu Danish, Slavic and Saxon merchants as well as Frisians.73 Under the Frankish
dominium, finally, Dorestad became the obligatory point of concentration for traffic
coming from or bound for the Rhineland, eastern England or the Scandinavian market-
places, reducing the other ports - whether within greater Frisia or on its frontiers - to mere
relay-stations.

In summary, it seems that the mercantile potential of the area, perceptible and to some
extent developed during the days of independence, was expanded and above all
confirmed and made highly profitable by the integration of Frisia into the regnum
Francorum. It thus benefited from a prosperous and soon pacified hinterland, which was
interested, moreover, in the development of distant markets; a major gain was the more
rational organization of the site of Dorestad, where unprecedented structures were built.
The 'large-scale long-distance Frisian trading' of the Early Middle Ages, which succeeded
in turning the North Sea and sometimes some of its annexes (the Rhineland to be sure,
but the Baltic and the English Channel as well) into a unified commercial space in the
eighth and ninth centuries, seems to have resulted from the encounter of Frisian
dynamism and technical skills (principally nautical) on the one hand, and the ambition of
the early Carolingians, who succeeded in pacifying the Frisian hinterland and stimulating
its growth, on the other. Furthermore, at the same time, the Frankish power sought, by
what was to start with a diffuse form of imperialism mixed with a certain concern for
missionary work, to penetrate the foreign and threatening Northern realms. In fact, the
'great Frisian trade' was in its heyday, but only then, the 'Frankish/Frisian trade of
Dorestad'.

68. Lebecq 1983 b, p. 206-208.

69. In a diploma to Saint-Germain-des-Pres: Atsma and Vezin 1986, p.38-41.
70. According to Luidgar Vita Gregorii: Lebecq 1983b, p. 99.
71. In the so-called Anna1es Bertiniani: Lebecq 1983 b, p. 307.
72. Van Es and Verwers 1980, vol. I, p. 303.
73. According to the Annales Regni Francorum: Lebecq 1983 b, p. 303-304; and the excavations of the main
settlement: Jankuhn 1986.
Bibliography
ADDYMAN, P.V., 1976. Excavations in York 1973-1974. Second interim Report. (Edited by the
York Archaeological Trust), York.
ARBMAN, H., 1937. Schweden und das Karolingische Reich. Studien zu den Handelverbin-
dungen des IX. Jahrhunderts, Stockholm.
ATSMA, H., & J. VEZIN, 1986. Chartae Latinae Antiquiores, t.XVI, France IV. Dietikon-Zürich.
BLOK, D.P., 1979. De Franken in Nederland (third edition). Bussum.
BLOK, D.P., & M. GYSSELING, 1959. Studies over de oudste plaatsnamen van Holland en
Utrecht. Amsterdam.
BLOK, D.P., & A.C.F. KOCH, 1964. De naam Wijk bij Duurstede in verband met de ligging der
stad. Mededelingen van de Vereniging voor Naamkunde 40, 34-51.
BOELES, P.C.J.A., 1951. Friesland tot de elfde eeuw, 2d ed., 's-Gravenhage.
BRANDT, K., 1985. Die Bedeutung der Langwurten für die frühmittelalterliche Wirtschaft in der
Nordseemarsch. In: Duwel et aI., 1987, 291-311.
CHRISTENS EN, A.E., 1966. Birka uden Frisere. Handels og Sofartsmuseet pa Kronborg Arbog
25, 17-38.
CHRISTENS EN, A.E., 1969. Vikingetidens Danmark. Paa oldhistorisk baggrund. Copenhagen.
CLAUDE, D., 1985. Aspekte des Binnenhandels im Merowingerreich auf Grund der Schrift-
quellen. In: Düwel et al., 1987,9-99.
DESPY, G., 1968. ViIles et campagnes aux IXe et Xe siecles. L'exemple du pays mosan. Revue du
Nord 50, 145-168.
DEVROEY, J.P., 1985. Reflexions sur l'economie des premiers temps carolingiens (768-877):
grands domaines et action politique entre Seine et Rhin, Francia 13,475-488.
DHONDT, J., 1968. Das fruhe Mittelalter. Frankfurt/Main.
DOLLEY, M., 1965-1966. 'New light on the pre-1760 Coney Street (York) find of coins of the
Duurstede Mint. Jaarboek voor Munt- en Penningkunde 52-53, 1-7.
DOLLEY, M., 1976. The coins. In: Wilson 1976,349-372.
DORESTAD 1978. (Specia] issue of Spiege1 Historiael 13, No. 4).
DÜWEL, K., H. JANKUHN, H. SIEMS & D. TIMPE, 1985. Untersuchungen zu Handel und
Verkehr der vor- und fruhgeschichtlichen Zeit in Mittel- und Nordeuropa. Teil III: Der Handel des
fruhen Mittelalters. Gottingen.
DÜWEL, K., H. JANKUHN, H. SIEMS, & D. TIMPE, 1987. Untersuchungen zu Handel und
Verkehr Der vor- und fruhgeschichtlichen Zeit in Mittel- und Nordeuropa. Teil IV: Der Handel del
Karolinger und Wikingerzeit. Gottingen.
ELLIOT, R.W.V., 1980. Runes (third edition). Cambridge.
ELLMERS, D., 1985. Die Bedeutung der Friesen für die Handelsverbindungen des Ostseeraumes
bis zur Wikingerzeit. In: Society and Trade ... 1985,7-54.
ELLMERS, D., 1990. The Frisian monopoly of coastal transport in the 6th-8th centuries A.D. In:
McGrails (ed.) 1990. 91-92.
ENNEN, E., 1975. Die Europiäsche Stadt des Mittelalters. Gottingen.
ENNO VAN GELD ER, H., 1961. De Karolingische Muntslag te Duurstede, Jaarboek voor Munt-
en Penningkunde 48, 15-42.
ES, W.A. V AN, 1980. Gedachten over Dorestads functie, Westerheem 29,174-189.
ES, W.A. VAN, & W.J.H. VERWERS, 1980. Excavations at Dorestad I. The harbour: Hoogstraat
1 (2 vol.). Amersfoort.
HALBERTS MA, H., 1963. Terpen tussen Vlie en Eems. Een geografisch-historische Benadering
(2 vol.). Groningen.
HILL, D. & D.M. METCALF, 1984. Sceattas in England and on the Continent (British
Archaeological Reports, British Series 128). Oxford.
HODGES, R., 1981. The Hamwih Pottery: the local and imported wares from 30 years
excavations at Middle Saxon Southampton and their European context. London/Southampton.
HODGES, R., 1982. Dark Ages Economics. The origins of towns and trade (AD. 600/1000).
London.
HODGES, R., 1988. Primitive and Peasant Markets. Oxford.
HODGES, R., & D. WHITEHOUSE, 1983. Mohammad, Charlemagne and the origins of Europe.
London.
HOLMQVIST, W., 1961/1972. Excavations at Helgö (4 vo]). Stockholm.
JANKUHN, H., 1953. Der frankisch-friesische Handel zur Ostzee im frühen Mittelalter.
Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 40, 193-243.
JANKUHN, H., 1958. Die frühmittelalterlichen Seehandelsplatze im Nord- und Ostseeraum.
Studien zu den Anfängen des europäischen Stadtewesens, Reichenau-Vortriige 1955-1956.
Lindau/Konstanz, 451-498.
JANKUHN, H., 1986. Haithabu. Ein Handelsplatz Der Wikingerzeit, 8th ed. Neumünster.
JELLEMA, D., 1955. 'Frisian trade in the Dark Ages'. Speculum 30,15-36.
JOHANEK, P., 1985. Der 'Aubenhan Des Frankenreiches der Merowingerzeit nach Norden und
Osten im Spiegel der Schriftquellen. In: Düwel et al. 1985,214-254.
JOHANEK, P., 1987. Der frankische Handel der Karolingerzeit im Spiegel der Schriftquellen. In:
Düwel et al. 1987, 7-68.
KUHN, H., 1955. Friesisch und Nordseegermanisch. Us Wurk 4,37-46.
LAFAURIE, J., 1967. Découvertes nouvelles de tremisses de Dorestad, Bulletin de la Societe
francaise de Numismatique 22, 197-198.
LEBECQ, S., 1978. Francs contre Frisons (VIe/VIIIe siecles), La guerre et la paix au Moyen Age.
(Actes du 101e Congres des Societes Savantes). Paris, 53-71.
LEBECQ, S., 1980. De la protohistoire au haut Moyen Age: le paysage des terpen le long des
cotes de la Mer du Nord, specialement dans l'ancienne Frise. Le paysage rural. Realites et
representations (special issue of Revue du Nord 62), 125-154.
LEBECQ S., 1983a. Marchands et navigateurs frisons du haut Moyen Age, t.1, Essai. Lille.
LEBECQ, S., 1983b. Marchands et navigateurs frisons du haut Moyen Age, t.2, Corpus des
sources ecrites. Lille.
LEBECQ, S., 1986. Dans I'Europe du Nord des VIIe/IXe siecles: commerce frison ou commerce
franco-frison?, Annales. Economies. Societes. Civilisations 41,361-377.
LEBECQ, S., 1987. Ohthere et Wulfstan: deux marchands-navigateurs dans le Nord-Est europeen
it la fin du IXe siec1e.ln: Horizons marins, itineraires spirituels (VeIXV/IIe siècles), Melanges
offerts a Michel Mollat, 1.2, Paris, 167-181.
LEBECQ, S., 1989. Frisons et Vikings. Remarques sur les relations entre Frisons et Scandinaves
(VIIe/IXe siec1es). In: Les mondes normands (VIIlelXlIe siecles). Actes du 2e Congres de la
Societe d' Archeologie Medievale, Caen, 45-59.
LEBECQ, S., 1990a. Religiosa Femina nomine Frideburg. La communaute chretienne de Birka au
milieu du IXe siecle d'apres le chapitre 20 de la Vita Anskarii, Recueil d' etudes en hommage a
Lucien Musset, Cahier des Annales de Normandie 23, 127-137.
LEBECQ, S., 1990b. La famille et les apprentissages de Liudger d'apres les premiers chapitres de
la Vita Liudgeri d' Altfrid. In: Haut Moyen Age. Culture, education et societe. Etudes offeres a
Pierre Riche, Paris/Nanterre, 283-299.
LEBECQ, S., 1990c. On the use of the word 'Frisian' in the 6th/10th centuries written sources:
some interpretations. In: McGrail, 1990, 85-90.
LUNDSTROM, A., 1968. Helgö als frühmittelalterlicher Handelsplatz in Mittelschweden.
Fruhmittelalterliche Studien 2, 278-290.
MALMER, B., 1966. Nordiska Mynt fore ar 1000. Bonn/Lund.
MCGRAIL, S., 1990. Maritime Celts, Frisians and Saxons, (Council for British Archaeology,
research Report 71). London.
MORRISON, K.F., & H. GRUNTHAL, 1967. Carolingian Coinage. New York.
MULLER- WILLE, M., 1985. Westeuropaischer Import der Wikingerzeit in Nordeuropa. In:
Society and Trade... 1985, 79-102.
PIRENNE, H., 1951. Histoire economique de l' accident medieval. Paris.
POELMAN, H.A., 1908. Geschiedenis van den Handel van Noord-Nederland gedurende het
merovingische en karolingische Tijdperk. 's-Gravenhage.
ROES, A., 1954/1955. Les trouvailles de Domburg (Zelande). Berichten van de Rijksdienst voor
het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek 5, 65-69 and 6, 79-85.
ROHWER, B., 1937. Der Friesische Handel im fruhen Mittelalter. Kiel.
SIEMS, H., 1980. Studien zur Lex Frisionum, Ebelsbach.
SOCIETY AND TRADE in the Baltic during the Viking Age 1985, (7th Visby Symposium). Visby.
STEUER, H., 1974. Die Sudsiedlung von Haithabu. Studien zur frühmittelälterlichen Keramik im
Nordseekustenbereich und in Schleswig-Holstein. Neumünster.
VERHULST, A., 1970. Der Handel im Merowingerreich: Gesamtdarstellung nach schriftlichen
Quellen. Early Medieval Studies 2, 2-54.
VERHULST, A., 1985. Der frühmittelalterliche Handel der Niederlande und der Friesenhandel. In:
Düwel et a!., 1985, 381-391.
VERHULST, A., & R. DE BOCK-DOEHAERD, 1981. Nijverheid en Handel. In: Algemene
geschiedenis der Nederlanden (vol. I). Haarlem/Bussum, 183-215.
VERKERK, C.L., Les tonlieux carolingiens et ottoniens aus Pays-Bas septentrionaux, aux bouches
des grandes rivieres. Tonlieux, Foires et Marches avant 1300 en Lotharingie. (Publications de la
Section Historique de l'Institut Grand-Ducal de Luxembourg, vol. 104), Luxembourg, 159-180.
VERWERS W.J.H., 1988. Dorestad, a Carolingian town? In: R. Hodges and B. Hobley (ed.) The
rebirth of towns in the West (A.D. 7001 1050), (Council for British Archaeology, Research Report
68), 52-56.
WILSON, D., 1976. The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England. Cambridge.
ZADOKS-JOSEPHUS-JITTA, A.N., 1961. De eerste muntslag te Duurstede. Jaarboek voor Munt-
en Penningkunde 48, 1-14.