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12 The Frisian monopoly of coastal transport in the6th-8th centuries ADDetlev Ellmers

AbstractOn their way west the Slavonic tribes at c AD 560 interrupted the transcontinental trading routes which led fromByzantium 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 cargofrom England as well as from the Merovingian empire along their shores to Scandinavia, and vice versa. This paperdeals with this monopoly situation of Frisian trade.

Maritime FrisiansThe strongest impulse to the coastal seafaring of theFrisians was given by an event far outside Frisia(Ellmers 1985a; 1985c). In the middle of the 6th centuryAvaric and Slavonic tribes invaded large parts of easternEurope and interrupted the trade connections fromByzantium to Scandinavia. At this time nobody was ableto cross the North Sea directly from the British Isles toScandinavia and the latter depended for its whole supplyof goods from western, central and southern Europecompletely on Frisian coastal trade. In all Scandinaviafor 200 years or more before the Viking Age, there is notone single find of foreign origin that came there withoutFrisian intermediate trade (Bakka 1971).

At the beginning of this phase of Frisian monopolyin trade they had no towns which could serve as tradingcentres. Frisian traders were peasants, skippers and

merchants in one person and lived throughout theircountry in small farms erected on top of artificial hills(terpen) near tidal creeks and streams. In a 7th centurylayer in one of these, excavated at Hessen in the town ofWilhelmshaven, there was found a slipway on which flatbottomed boats could be built (Ellmers 1972). Anotherimportant find was a side rudder of the firrer type which,today, is still in use on the traditional sailing boats ofSteinhuder Meer, a lake north of Hannover. This type ofrudder was specific to smaller vessels within theshipbuilding tradition of the cog. In the late 12thcentury, Hanseatic cogs replaced the firrer by a sternrudder (Ellmers 1985b, 15ff).

The firrer of Hessen tells us that the farmer-merchant there intended to build boats of the cog typeon his slipway. A flat bottom was essential on Frisian

craft which were designed for the special conditionsencountered when sailing the shoals of the Wattenmeeralong the Frisian shores.

The economic base of the farm at Hessen wassheep of two different breeds with different types ofwool. From this raw material cloth of very high qualitywas woven in many different varieties. Provided withthis excellent home-made commodity our farmer-merchant sailed to the beach markets along the Frisianborders to meet neighbouring merchants or customers.One of these rural beach markets has been excavated onthe Jutish (Jutland) west coast near Dankirke, south ofRibe (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 outat low tide and where merchandise could be sold tovisitors to the market. The presence of Frisianmerchants is confirmed by stray finds of not less than 13coins which, among other small objects, had been lostduring the process of buying and selling.

Frisian landing placesFrom c AD 650 Frisian merchants started to settle atthese beach markets along their borders and thusfounded the first trading centres with permanentsettlement east of the former Roman empire, on theshores of the North Sea. Dorestad on the Rhine, south ofUtrecht, near the border with the Franks, is the bestknown example (van Es & Verwers 1980). Around AD625 there was nothing but an official manor house and

some fortification, under the protection of which a beachmarket was organised and coins were struck for usethere. Some 50 years later abundant finds indicate thefirst permanent settlement.

Southern goods were brought by riverboats alongthe River Rhine to Dorestad and transferred to coastalvessels bound for England, on the one hand, and for theeastern parts of Frisia and Scandinavia on the other (seeLebecq, this volume). Due to this key positionDorestad, in a short time, became the most flourishingof the Frisian trading ports. The houses of themerchants were built in a long row along the riverbankso that ships of the merchants and of their customerscould beach in front of the appropriate house. For thispattern, the German historian Walter Vogel created the,not very suitable, term Einstrassenanlage. All trading

towns of the early Middle Ages are laid out after thispattern 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 aconsiderable area of open beach between houses andriverbank, where ships landed by beaching. The gap wasbridged by carefully made causeways, which led fromevery merchants house to the ships landing places, thusdemonstrating that a lot of the trade was carried outdirectly from ship to house and vice versa. In addition tothe trade within the houses there was a secondsignificant area of trade and other activities at thelanding places. The ever growing distance between

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houses and ships made it possible for archaeologists todistinguish between the finds from both areas and toprove money exchange near the ships, from stray findsof coins, weights and balances. Not less than sixsuspension lugs for cauldrons and one cauldron handlebear witness to the cooking of hot meals for the shipscrews who, after weeks of sailing in cold and rainyweather, wanted to have their first warm meal at thelanding place. Of course, the sailors had to repair their

ships at these landing places, as the recovery of many losttools indicates. Stones, which had been used as sinkersfor nets or fish traps, provide evidence for fishing.

To sum up, even in those Frisian ports withpermanent settlements, especially of merchants in a rowof houses along the waterfront, the old beach marketwith all its activities along the ships landing placesplayed a continuing role.

Frisian shipsIn the late 8th century Charlemagne struck coins atDorestad depicting a sailing vessel of banana shape sideview (see Lebecq, this volume, Fig 11.3). This type ofship is an early version of the hulc in which the Frisianssailed to England and English merchants sailed toFrisia. At Utrecht an 18 m long hull of this type has beenexcavated and dated to the 8th century. And as the wordhulc means something being hollowed out, the hulc ofUtrecht was constructed on top of a huge logboat(Ellmers 1972, 59ff, but see Vlek 1987 for an opposingview). After the prototype of the Dorestad coin, anothercoin was struck in the early 9th century by illiterates atHedeby (near Schleswig on the shore of the Baltic)where Frisian merchants settled in large numbers toorganise the transit trade from the North Sea to theBaltic. The ship on this coin differs very much from thehulc of the Dorestad coin. Instead of the round side viewof the hulc, she has an angular one, with flat bottom, longand straight stem and stern posts, a side rudder of firrertype and side planking in clinker technique (the heads ofthe clinker nails are to be seen on some issues). All these

features are typical of early cogs. Some of the coins evenshow the broken line of the flat bottom with both endsbeing bent upwards some degrees. Ships of thisconstruction are designed for sailing the Wattenmeer inbetween the dunes and the shore. At low water the cogwould take the ground; as the tide rose the water couldget underneath the bent-up ends of the bottom to makethe ship float again. Without these bent-up ends the flatbottomed ship would st ick to the ground. TheWattenfahrt is the reason why the Frisians used twodifferent types of ship for their trade; the hulc for tradewith England, and the cog for trade to the east, that is, tothe Continental Saxons and, especially, to Scandinavia(Ellmers 1972, 63ff). Though the first evidence forFrisian contact with the Slavonians is not earlier thanthe late 8th century, we cannot completely exclude

earlier Frisian trade even to them.

Frisians in the Viking AgeFor Scandinavia this cog-route, especially in the 7th and8th centuries AD, was the only trade connection to

western, middle and southern Europe. We can haimagine what a relief it was to the Scandinavians wtowards the end of the 8th century, for the first tthey discovered an alternative sailing route fNorway via the Shetlands to the British Isles. Inearly 9th century they opened a third trade connecfrom Sweden along the Russian rivers to Byzantiumto the Islamic world. Thus the Scandinavians endedFrisian monopoly and initiated a new chapter in

history of shipping: the age of the Vikings.In spite of the loss of the monopoly and in spi

all the Viking raids in Frisia, the archaeological souavailable do not give the slightest hint at a declinFrisian trade. Only Dorestad, in the course of the century, lost its predominance, but Tiel inheritedEnglish trade and Utrecht its trade to the east. OFrisian ports began to flourish even in Viking timThere is some very interesting evidence for Fripresence in one of the centres of the Viking world. Asknow, the clinker seams of cogs and related boats wnot fastened by iron rivets like Viking ships butJ-shaped iron nails, which are much smaller than thof Celtic ships (see, for example, Marsden, this volumBy these small nails we are able to identify

shipbuilding tradition of cogs even when all timber rotted away.At Birka, near Stockholm, the nails of a

century cog have been excavated. We learn from ththat Frisian merchants at that time sailed to Birkatheir own ships. And when, in 1159, the Hanseleague was founded at Lubeck, Frisian merchbecame members of the league and provided merchants from Westfalia with the necessary ships their trade with Gotland. Thus the Frisian cog becamHanseatic one: but that is a new chapter in marithistory (Ellmers 1985b; 1985c).