91

12 The Frisian monopoly of coastal transport in the

6th-8th centuries AD
Detlev Ellmers
Abstract
On their way west the Slavonic tribes at c AD 560 interrupted the transcontinental trading routes which led from
Byzantium via the eastern parts of middle Europe to Scandinavia. From that time on the only trade connection
between Scandinavia and the Mediterranean was maintained by the Frisians who, in their coastal vessels, sailed cargo
from England as well as from the Merovingian empire along their shores to Scandinavia, and vice versa. This paper
deals with this monopoly situation of Frisian trade.
Maritime Frisians
The strongest impulse to the coastal seafaring of the
Frisians was given by an event far outside Frisia
(Ellmers 1985a; 1985c). In the middle of the 6th century
Avaric and Slavonic tribes invaded large parts of eastern
Europe and interrupted the trade connections from
Byzantium to Scandinavia. At this time nobody was able
to cross the North Sea directly from the British Isles to
Scandinavia and the latter depended for its whole supply
of goods from western, central and southern Europe
completely on Frisian coastal trade. In all Scandinavia
for 200 years or more before the Viking Age, there is not
one single find of foreign origin that came there without
Frisian intermediate trade (Bakka 1971).
At the beginning of this phase of Frisian monopoly
in trade they had no towns which could serve as trading
centres. Frisian traders were peasants, skippers and
merchants in one person and lived throughout their
country in small farms erected on top of artificial hills
(terpen) near tidal creeks and streams. In a 7th century
layer in one of these, excavated at Hessen in the town of
Wilhelmshaven, there was found a slipway on which flat
bottomed boats could be built (Ellmers 1972). Another
important find was a side rudder of the firrer type which,
today, is still in use on the traditional sailing boats of
Steinhuder Meer, a lake north of Hannover. This type of
rudder was specific to smaller vessels within the
shipbuilding tradition of the cog. In the late 12th
century, Hanseatic cogs replaced the firrer by a stern
rudder (Ellmers 1985b, 15ff).
The firrer of Hessen tells us that the farmer-
merchant there intended to build boats of the cog type
on his slipway. A flat bottom was essential on Frisian
craft which were designed for the special conditions
encountered when sailing the shoals of the Wattenmeer
along the Frisian shores.
The economic base of the farm at Hessen was
sheep of two different breeds with different types of
wool. From this raw material cloth of very high quality
was woven in many different varieties. Provided with
this excellent home-made commodity our farmer-
merchant sailed to the beach markets along the Frisian
borders to meet neighbouring merchants or customers.
One of these rural beach markets has been excavated on
the Jutish (Jutland) west coast near Dankirke, south of
Ribe (Thorvildsen & Bendixen 1972). Located near the
farm of a rich customer, this market place lay close to the
shore where flat bottomed boats could beach and dry out
at low tide and where merchandise could be sold to
visitors to the market. The presence of Frisian
merchants is confirmed by stray finds of not less than 13
coins which, among other small objects, had been lost
during the process of buying and selling.
Frisian landing places
From c AD 650 Frisian merchants started to settle at
these beach markets along their borders and thus
founded the first trading centres with permanent
settlement east of the former Roman empire, on the
shores of the North Sea. Dorestad on the Rhine, south of
Utrecht, near the border with the Franks, is the best
known example (van Es & Verwers 1980). Around AD
625 there was nothing but an official manor house and
some fortification, under the protection of which a beach
market was organised and coins were struck for use
there. Some 50 years later abundant finds indicate the
first permanent settlement.
Southern goods were brought by riverboats along
the River Rhine to Dorestad and transferred to coastal
vessels bound for England, on the one hand, and for the
eastern parts of Frisia and Scandinavia on the other (see
Lebecq, this volume). Due to this key position
Dorestad, in a short time, became the most flourishing
of the Frisian trading ports. The houses of the
merchants were built in a long row along the riverbank
so that ships of the merchants and of their customers
could beach in front of the appropriate house. For this
pattern, the German historian Walter Vogel created the,
not very suitable, term Einstrassenanlage. All trading
towns of the early Middle Ages are laid out after this
pattern as a long row of houses along the waterfront.
At Dorestad, in the course of time, the River
Rhine shifted away from this row of houses, leaving a
considerable area of open beach between houses and
riverbank, where ships landed by beaching. The gap was
bridged by carefully made causeways, which led from
every merchants house to the ships landing places, thus
demonstrating that a lot of the trade was carried out
directly from ship to house and vice versa. In addition to
the trade within the houses there was a second
significant area of trade and other activities at the
landing places. The ever growing distance between
92 Ellmers: Frisian monopoly of coastal transport in the 6th-8th centuries AD
houses and ships made it possible for archaeologists to
distinguish between the finds from both areas and to
prove money exchange near the ships, from stray finds
of coins, weights and balances. Not less than six
suspension lugs for cauldrons and one cauldron handle
bear witness to the cooking of hot meals for the ships
crews who, after weeks of sailing in cold and rainy
weather, wanted to have their first warm meal at the
landing place. Of course, the sailors had to repair their
ships at these landing places, as the recovery of many lost
tools indicates. Stones, which had been used as sinkers
for nets or fish traps, provide evidence for fishing.
To sum up, even in those Frisian ports with
permanent settlements, especially of merchants in a row
of houses along the waterfront, the old beach market
with all its activities along the ships landing places
played a continuing role.
Frisian ships
In the late 8th century Charlemagne struck coins at
Dorestad depicting a sailing vessel of banana shape side
view (see Lebecq, this volume, Fig 11.3). This type of
ship is an early version of the hulc in which the Frisians
sailed to England and English merchants sailed to
Frisia. At Utrecht an 18 m long hull of this type has been
excavated and dated to the 8th century. And as the word
hulc means something being hollowed out, the hulc of
Utrecht was constructed on top of a huge logboat
(Ellmers 1972, 59ff, but see Vlek 1987 for an opposing
view). After the prototype of the Dorestad coin, another
coin was struck in the early 9th century by illiterates at
Hedeby (near Schleswig on the shore of the Baltic)
where Frisian merchants settled in large numbers to
organise the transit trade from the North Sea to the
Baltic. The ship on this coin differs very much from the
hulc of the Dorestad coin. Instead of the round side view
of the hulc, she has an angular one, with flat bottom, long
and straight stem and stern posts, a side rudder of firrer
type and side planking in clinker technique (the heads of
the clinker nails are to be seen on some issues). All these
features are typical of early cogs. Some of the coins even
show the broken line of the flat bottom with both ends
being bent upwards some degrees. Ships of this
construction are designed for sailing the Wattenmeer in
between the dunes and the shore. At low water the cog
would take the ground; as the tide rose the water could
get underneath the bent-up ends of the bottom to make
the ship float again. Without these bent-up ends the flat
bot t omed shi p woul d st i ck t o t he gr ound. The
Wattenfahrt is the reason why the Frisians used two
different types of ship for their trade; the hulc for trade
with England, and the cog for trade to the east, that is, to
the Continental Saxons and, especially, to Scandinavia
(Ellmers 1972, 63ff). Though the first evidence for
Frisian contact with the Slavonians is not earlier than
the late 8th century, we cannot completely exclude
earlier Frisian trade even to them.
Frisians in the Viking Age
For Scandinavia this cog-route, especially in the 7th and
8th centuries AD, was the only trade connection to
western, middle and southern Europe. We can hardly
imagine what a relief it was to the Scandinavians when,
towards the end of the 8th century, for the first time,
they discovered an alternative sailing route from
Norway via the Shetlands to the British Isles. In the
early 9th century they opened a third trade connection
from Sweden along the Russian rivers to Byzantium and
to the Islamic world. Thus the Scandinavians ended the
Frisian monopoly and initiated a new chapter in the
history of shipping: the age of the Vikings.
In spite of the loss of the monopoly and in spite of
all the Viking raids in Frisia, the archaeological sources
available do not give the slightest hint at a decline of
Frisian trade. Only Dorestad, in the course of the 9th
century, lost its predominance, but Tiel inherited its
English trade and Utrecht its trade to the east. Other
Frisian ports began to flourish even in Viking times.
There is some very interesting evidence for Frisian
presence in one of the centres of the Viking world. As we
know, the clinker seams of cogs and related boats were
not fastened by iron rivets like Viking ships but by
J-shaped iron nails, which are much smaller than those
of Celtic ships (see, for example, Marsden, this volume).
By these small nails we are able to identify the
shipbuilding tradition of cogs even when all timber has
rotted away.
At Birka, near Stockholm, the nails of a 10th
century cog have been excavated. We learn from them
that Frisian merchants at that time sailed to Birka in
their own ships. And when, in 1159, the Hanseatic
league was founded at Lubeck, Frisian merchants
became members of the league and provided the
merchants from Westfalia with the necessary ships for
their trade with Gotland. Thus the Frisian cog became a
Hanseatic one: but that is a new chapter in maritime
history (Ellmers 1985b; 1985c).