Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/825

German sch and English sh, and of t for the German k; and, still more remarkable, the modification of k and g into ts when these letters precede e or i, as in tserke for kerke, i.c., kirk, church. The explanation of this last peculiarity may perhaps be found in the contact of the Frisian with Slavonic languages, in which the modification is sufficiently common.

A brief sketch of Frisian grammar was published along with the poems of Gysbert Japiex; but the first separate treatment of the older forms of the language was by Rask, whose Frisisk Sproglære (Copenhagen, 1825; German translation by Buss, Freiburg, 1834) brought him into controversy with Grimm, who, in his Deutschen Grammatik, devoted some attention to the same subject. Moritz Heyne has also given a good treatment of Frisian in his Kurze Laut- und Flexionslehre der Altgermanischen Sprachstämme, 1874. Richthofen's Altfriesisches Wörterbuch, Göttingen, 1840, practically supplanted the older work of Wiarda (Aurich, 1786), and its position has not been affected by the publication of Haan Hattema's Idioticon Frisicum, Leeuwarden, 1874. Outzen's Glossarium der Friesischen Sprache (unfortunately a posthumous publication from very illegible manuscripts), Copenhagen, 1837, deals mainly with North Frisian. For West Frisian we have the posthumous and incomplete Lexicon Frisicum (A-Fecor), by Justus Halbertsma, The Hague, 1874; and for East Frisian lexicography we have materials in Ehrentraut's Friesisches Archiv, Oldenburg, 1847-54, 2 vols., Posthumus and Halbertsma's Onze reis naar Sageltesland, Franeker, 1836, and J. Cadovius Müller's Memoriale linguæ frisica, written in the early part of the 18th century, and published by Dr Kükel- han, 1875. J. ten Doornkaat Koolman began in 1877 a Wörter- buch der Ostfriesischen Sprache, which, along with much irrelevant matter, contains valuable eontributions to the subject. The Ostfriesisches Wörterbuch, by Sturenburg (1857), is a dictionary, not of Frisian, but of the Low German spoken in East Friesland, which has incorporated comparatively few Frisian words. A list of Frisian personal names forms an appendix to Outzen's Glossarium; and Bernhard Brons, in his Friesische Namen und Mittheilungen Durüber, Emlen, 1877, furnishes lists of East, West, and North Frisian Christian names, and a collection of Frisian family names, with the dates at which they make their first appearance in church books or other historical documents.

For the older forms of the language the sources are unfortunately scanty: no great literary monument like that of the Heliand or the Nibelunglied has been preserved, and the investigator has mainly to depend on the various legal codes or collections which were formed in the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, and have been published by Richthofen, Friesische Rechtsquellen, Berlin, 1840. The great Lex Frisionum is composed in Latin, and only contains a few Frisian terms, of comparatively small linguistic importance. The date of its recension is also a matter of conjecture, as there is no contemporary evidence either internal or external. By the older investigators it was assigned a high antiquity; but the more modern are for the most part of opinion that it is not earlier than the reign of Charlemagne. Haan Hettema in his Oude Friesche Wetten gives 802–804 as the probable date; while Richthofen thinks there are three portions, the first composed for use in Middle Frisia in the reign of Charles Martel or of Pippin, another for use in all Frisia, composed after Charlemagne's conquest in 785, and a third or supplementary and emendatory portion composed in 802. The first edition of the Lex Frisionum was published by B. J. Herold in his Originum ac Germanicarum Antiquitatum libri, Basel, 1557, but he gives no indication of the source of the manuscripts which he employed. Since his day there have been no fewer than than 13 editions—Lindenbrog, Codex legum Antiquarum, Frankfort, 1613; Sibrand Siceama, Lex Frisionum, Franeker, 1617; Schotanus, Beschryvinge van de Heerlyckheit van Frieslandt, 1664; Gärtner, Saxonum leges tres: accessit Lex Fris., Leipsic, 1730; Georgisch, Corpus juris Germanici, Halle, 1738; Schwartzenberg, Groot Placaat en Charterboek van Vriesland, Leeuwarden, 1768; Caneiani, Barbarorum leges antiquæ, Venice, 1781; Walter, Corpus juris German., Berlin, 1824; Gaupp, Lex Fris., Breslau, 1832; Richthofen, Friesische Rechtsquellen, Berlin, 1840; De Wall, Lex Fris., &c., Amsterdam, 1850; Hettema, Oude Fr. Wetten, Leeuwarden, 1851; and, finally, Richthofen in Pertz’s Mon. Germaniæ hist., vol. xv.; Hanover, 1863. Though it has been supposed that Lindenbrog and Siceama may have had access to some manuscript authority in addition to Herold's recension, there is no proof that such was the case; and the text still remains to all intents in the same state as when Herold left it. Some investigators have, owing to this absence of original evidence, even cast doubts on the authenticity of the code, but a comparison of the laws with undoubtedly genuine Frisian remains authorizes its acceptance. “I am convinced,” says Richthofen, "that no man in the time of Herold, not to say in our own time, could have devised such a forgery as the Heroldian text.” Among the minor collections of Frisian laws in Frisian, Low German and Latin are the "seventeen general acts or Küren," dating from the close of the 12th century, according to Richthofen, but of much earlier origin according to Leding—the Upstalsbom laws of 1323, the local laws of Rüstring, and of the Brockmannen or inhabitants of Brockmerland, published by Wiarda; the "Emsiger Domen," or Emsig decisions, published by Hettema, Leeuwarden, 1830; the Fivelgo laws, published by Hettema, Dokkum, 1841; and the Hunsingo Küren in the 2d volume of the Groningen transactions of the society "pro excolendo jure patrio," 1778. The title chosen by Wiarda for the laws of Rüstring—the Asegabuch,— though it has become perhaps the best known word of the whole Frisian vocabulary, is in reality not a genuine Frisian form, and never occurs in a Frisian document. The correct expression, according to Richthofen (Altfries. Wörterbuch, s.v. Asebok"), would have been Asebok or Asekbok, the former equivalent to the book out of which the “a” or law is to be seen, and the latter to the book in which the law is to be sought. In West Frisia the native language holds much the same relation to Dutch as the Scottish language holds to English in Scotland: it has no legal or educational position, but it preserves among the peasantry a considerable degree of vitality, and is even cultivated in a literary way by a small patriotic school. The chief place among West-Frisian authors is due to Gysbert or Gilbert Japiex, rector at Bolsward, whose Friesche Rijmlerye was first published at Bolsward in 1668, and has since been frequently reprinted—at Leeuwarden in 1681; at Franeker, 1684; with a glossary by Epkema, 2 vols., Leeuwarden, 1824; and under the editorship of Dykstra, 1853. The volume contains secular, and especially humorous, poems, fifty of the Psalms of David and other religious pieces, a number of letters, one or two prose essays, and fragments of the "Customs" of Leeuwarden. A popular comedy called Waatze Gribbert's Brilloft, or Gribbert's Bridal, dates from the beginning of the 18th century. The first edition appeared in 1812, at Leeuwarden, and the second in 1820, and there have been several since. Among the writers who have published in West Frisian during the 19th century, it is sufficient to mention Salverda Posthumus, J. H. Halbertsma, Deketh, Windsma, Van der Veen, and Dykstra. A society for the study of Frisian was founded in 1829 at Franeker-"Friesch genootschap voor geschied oudheid-en taalkunde," -and since 1852 it has published a journal called De vrije Fries. Other Frisian periodicals are Forjit my net, "Forget me not;" the Swanne-blummen, a Leeuwarden annual; and De Byekoer. In North Frisian the most valuable literary monument is De gidtshals, i.c., the Geizhals, or Curmudgeon, a comedy, composed by J. P. Hunsen, in the Silt dialect. The minor remains have been collected by De Vries, in his Nordfriesische Sprache nach der Moringer Mundart, Leyden, 1860; and by Johansen in Die Nordfriesische Sprache nach der Föhringer und Amrumer Mundart, Kiel, 1862.

There is one book which, more than any other, has attracted the attention of other than Frisian scholars. If the Oera Linda Look, as it is called, could be accepted as genuine, it would be, after Homer and Hesiod, the oldest document of European origin; but unfortunately it must be recognized as nothing more than a brilliant forgery. The first part of the manuscript, the book of the followers of Adela, professes to have been copied in 1256 from an ancient original, and gives an account of Neptune, Minerva, Minos, and other personages of classical antiquity, which would make them out to be of Frisian origin. According to J. Beckering Vinckers- who published De Onechtheid van het Oera Linda bok aangetoond uit de waartaal waarin het is geschreven, in 1875, and Wic heeft het Ocra Linda Bock geschreven in 1877—the real author is Cornelis Over de Linden, a ship-carpenter in the Royal docks at Den Helder, who was born in 1811, and died in 1873, and who appears to have forged the document for the purpose of giving importance to his invectives against the church, and of shedding dignity on his family, which is traced by the book back for about two thousand years.

Besides the works indicated above the following may be men- tioned-Ubbo Emmius, Rerum Frisicarum historia, Leyden, 1616; Pirius Winsemius, Chronique . . . . van Vriesland, Franeker, 1622; Wiarda, Ostfries. Geschichte, vols. 1-9, Aurich, 1791-1813, vol. 10, Bremen, 1817; Clement, Lebens- u. Leidensgeschichte Frieslands der Friesen, Kiel, 1845; Suur, Geschichte der Häuptlinge Ostfrieslands, Emden, 1846; Klopp, Gesch. Ostfrieslands, Weener, 1868-69; Friedländer, Ostfries. Urkundenbuch, Emden, 1874

FRITH or FRYTH, JOHN (cir. 1503-1533), an eminent pioneer of the Reformation in England, was born about the beginning of the 16th century at Westerham, Kent, where his father kept an inn. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards at King's College, Cambridge, where Gardiner, who subsequently became bishop of Winchester, was his tutor. Immediately after taking his B.A. degree, he trans- ferred his residence (December 1525) to the newly founded college of St Frideswide or Cardinal College (now Christ Church), Oxford, whither, along with other young men of distinguished talent, he had been invited by Wolsey. At Oxford the sympathetic interest which he showed in the