Upstalsboom

During the Frisian freedom period, the Upstalsboom (Old Frisian: Opstallisbame),^[a] also known as the Opstalsbam, was an assembly for emissaries of the Seven Sealands of medieval Frisia, located just outside the East Frisian town of Aurich (Saterland Frisian: Aurk) in modern-day Germany. The origins of the Upstalsboom, including its name, are unclear, but as far back as the 8th century the meeting place was used as a burial ground for the members of important Frisian families.

The Upstalsboom by Ludwig Kittel [de], 1921

Attested in writing as early as the first half of the 13th century, the assembly convened every year on the Tuesday after Pentecost to discuss issues pertinent to all Frisian lands. Although marked by weak central authority and regular infighting, Frisian territories showed great success repelling foreign invaders. In 1323, the Statutes of Upstalsboom were ratified, providing a legal framework for interaction between the Seven Sealands, such as prohibiting certain actions, prescribing punishments for crimes, establishing exchange rates for currencies, providing legal rights between citizens of different sealands, and establishing a defense pact. The punishments described in the 1323 ratification are considered to have been extreme for the time and place, but when the treaty was reaffirmed in 1361, additional punishments were scaled back. Different versions of the statutes exist today, but it is one of the few legal texts with both Old Frisian and Latin translations still in existence.

Description

The Upstalsboom's location in modern-day northern Germany

The Upstalsboom was an assembly located near the East Frisian town of Aurich in modern-day Germany.^[1][2] The assembly was a pan-Frisian alliance which met every year to discuss political and legal issues pertinent to the participating parties, known as the Upstalsboom League [Wikidata], especially those relating to foreign matters.^[3] Each sealand sent one representative, called a redjeven, from the community to serve as advisors at the Upstalsboom. Each redjeven went to the Upstalsboom on the Tuesday following Pentecost and served for one year.^[4] The name "Upstalsboom" ultimately means 'the tree of Upstal', but the meaning of Upstal is obscure; it may have referred to a place which was elevated and dry.^[5] Archeological evidence has shown that members of important families were buried at the site in the early Middle Ages as early as the 8th century.^[6][7] During its earliest period as an assembly, laws were established to affirm the payment of fines (Old Frisian: frede) paid to local counts.^[8] While it is unclear exactly when the league arose, it is believed that the original assembly was of East Frisian origin, particularly those communities between the Lauwers and Weser rivers, with the Central Frisians joining sometime thereafter.^[3][9] Although there were several different meeting places in throughout the Seven Sealands, the Upstalsboom is the only known assembly where members of different sealands met.^[1] The assemblies at the Upstalsboom have been compared to the medieval Icelandic Þingvellir, though it is unclear how much the Upstalsboom assemblies relied on an oral recitation of the legal code.^[10]

Seal of the Upstalsboom League from 1324

The oldest known Old Frisian legal text – the Seventeen Statutes (Da Saunteen Kesta), estimated as early as the first half of the 11th century – appears to have been issued by the Upstalsboom League, but the league itself is not attested in documents until around 1220.^[11] Beginning in 1220, it was embroiled in a conflict between two villages in the Ommelanden, which dragged Fivelingo, Hunsingo, Groningen, and several others into the conflict. When the villages in the Ommelanden made peace in 1250, they began waging war on Groningen.^[12] Although there was some cooperation in light of the Upstalsboom, violence between sealands and villages persisted.^[9] One of the major issues with the Upstalboom League was that it failed to secure enough military power to enforce its own agreements.^[13] In particular, the growing power of Groningen – which was not originally a part of the Upstalsboom League – gave it the ability to enforce its will on its environs where the Upstalsboom was powerless to take action against it.^[14]

Following the Siege of Groningen in 1338 by the Count of Gelre, Groningen was weakened enough that it was forced to join the league, though both remained relatively weak.^[14] Still, other than two major failures in 1270 against the Count of Stotel and in 1289 against Holland, the Frisian freedom period was marked by extremely successful repulsion of foreign powers attempting to invade Frisia; Frisian solidarity, though lacking significant central authority, was able to ward off its enemies with success.^[15] In 1338, the Upstalsboom League entered a military alliance with France against England and the Count of Gelre.^[16] In 1361, Groningen attempted and, at first failed, to play a more significant role in the league as it began to restructure its economic position in response to outside trade waning.^[17] It was able to maneuver successfully by offering its organized police force to rural areas which lacked them, giving it executive authority in several areas of Frisia, and ultimately the monetary policy of the 1323 agreements was reaffirmed in 1361.^[18]

The stone pyramid at the Upstalsboom, commemorating the Frisian freedom period, was erected in 1883.

Despite its failures, the Upstalsboom remains highly regarded in Frisian culture as a symbol of freedom: the German historian Ubbo Emmius referred to the Upstalsboom as the "altar of freedom" in his works and some tourists even travel to the site to take dirt home in small bottles.^[19] In 1883, a stone pyramid was erected at the site to memorialize the Frisian freedom period.^[6]

Statutes of Upstalsboom

Prolog of the Freeska Landriucht [fy; stq] (c. 1484—1487)^[b]

The Statutes of Upstalsboom were first ratified on 18 September 1323 in Central Frisia in an attempt to revive the Upstalsboom League – which had begun to lose its legal force – as claims pressed by the Count of Holland increasingly threatened the region.^[3]

Three versions of the Statutes have survived to the modern day, two in Old Frisian and one in Latin. One of the Old Frisian versions consists of twenty-four paragraphs translated while the other is thirty-six paragraphs. The Latin version, also comprising twenty-four paragraphs, is believed to be the original.^[3] The statutes are one of only a few existing law texts existing in both Latin and Old Frisian.^[21]

The shorter Old Frisian version is noteworthy for its exclusion of paragraphs twenty-two and twenty-three, which dealt with monetary matters; paragraph twenty-two was dedicated to determining which mendicant orders would be allowed to raise funds for alms in which sealands, while the following paragraph explains which currencies could be accepted in Frisian territory and provides a conversion table to estimate exchange rates.^[22][23] The conversion table defines the Westphalian penny, for example, as 3⁄4 of a new English penny or 4⁄5 of an old English penny.^[24] It appears that these two paragraphs were later additions to the Statutes.^[22] The following year, the league issued more privileges and sanctions with respect to minting.^[25]

The Statutes found in the Freeska Landriucht [fy; stq] ('Frisian Land Law') – a legal codex dated between 1484 and 1487, and the only printed Old Frisian law manuscript – are the twenty-four paragraph version.^[3] The statutes are as follows:

Statute	Provision
First clause	Provides a defense pact between all seven of the Frisian sealands	[26]
	Provides for every sealand to stand together against any attempts to "damage or to bring shame" to any individual sealand
Second clause	Prohibits theft, robbery, hiding a thief or robber, and committing violence in the commission thereof	[26]
	Prescribes a fine of twenty marks
Third clause	Prohibits arson and prescribes a fine of seven times the property's value and a fine of twenty marks for its commission	[26]
	Prohibits rape and prescribes it to be punished in the same manner as hiding a thief or stolen property
	Hiding an arsonist is punished in the same manner as hiding a thief or stolen property
Fourth clause	Prohibits betraying and killing a sealand's lord and prescribes the punishment to be the same as for an arsonist	[26]
	Prescribes a twenty-mark fine for hiding a monk or nun who has been summoned by their prelate and for obstructing justice
Fifth clause	Prohibits violence against priests	[26]
	Prescribes a twenty-mark fine for its commission
Sixth clause	Prohibits killing a judge either on his way to Upstalsboom, at the Upstalsboom, or on his way back from the Upstalsboom	[26]
	Prohibits killing any other attendant to the Upstalsboom
	Prescribes a four hundred–mark fine for killing a judge and a one hundred sixty–mark fine for killing any other attendant
Seventh clause	Prohibits killing the citizen of one sealand in another sealand	[27]
	Prescribes an eighty-mark fine
Eighth clause	Prohibits rebellion	[27]
	Invokes a separate defense pact where any request to any other sealand that is answered for rebellion will be paid for with one hundred marks
Ninth clause	Prohibits possession of a weapon	[27]
	Prescribes a five-mark fine for its commission
Tenth clause	Prescribes a ten-mark fine for any unlawful decree or sentence passed by a judge	[27]
Eleventh clause	Prohibits disturbing the peace	[27]
	Prescribes "a just reconciliation" to be deemed by the judge or be charged with perjury
Twelfth clause	Prohibits killing, maiming, paralyzing, or otherwise injuring a layperson	[27]
	Prescribes a seven-weregild fine for killing and a sevenfold fine in accordance with disturbing the peace
	Prescribes a sevenfold fine for all other injuries and a sevenfold fine in accordance with disturbing the peace
Thirteenth clause	Prohibits killing, maiming, paralyzing, or otherwise injuring a priest, dean, or subdean	[27]
	Prescribes a ten-weregild fine for killing and a tenfold fine in accordance with disturbing the peace
	Prescribes a sevenfold fine for all other injuries and a sevenfold fine in accordance with disturbing the peace
Fourteenth clause	Prohibits bride kidnapping	[27]
	Prescribes a one hundred–mark fine and must compensate any violence sustained in the capture in accordance with the previous statutes
Fifteenth clause	Provides primacy for paternal descendants in land disputes unless the maternal line is closer in lineage to the person in question	[27]
Sixteenth clause	Provides rights for inheritance, stating that a dying person must have a proper confessor to whom he must give approval	[28]
	Prescribes a twenty-mark fine for infringement of this right
Seventeenth clause	Provides a process for overturning laws proclaimed by a gretman[c]	[30]
	Invalidates any law where the invalidation has been approved by four "wise priests" and one prelate "because of public necessity and usefulness"
Eighteenth clause	Prohibits violating a truce, sworn oath, or kiss of reconciliation	[30]
	Prescribes outlawing for a year and one day and sending the offender to the pope "or his authorized representative" to do penance in Rome
	Prescribes the revocation of property for an offender with stone houses being destroyed and wooden houses being taken into royal domain
Nineteenth clause	Provides that blinding by gouging, and cutting off of the hands, feet, nose, tongue, or lips are to be compensated as if they had been a homicide	[30]
Twentieth clause	Prohibits behavior against public interest, the treaty, or the union of Frisian states, including by conspiring, fighting, hindering, or making contrary pacts against it	[30]
	Prescribes a twenty-mark fine for the first offense and another twenty-mark fine for any offenses thereafter if done with a group
Twenty-first clause	Describes the "begging of monks"	[30]
Twenty-second clause	Describes currency	[30]
Twenty-third clause	Provides the right, in a dispute between two parties of different sealands, to have the case heard in three days, irrespective of severity	[30]
	Provides the out-of town sealander the right for the local gretman to pay the expenses of the out-of-town sealander until the case is resolved if the case is not heard in three days
	If the case concerns an amount less than eight marks, six neighbors, seven relatives, and one opstalling[d] must provide evidence or testimony.
	If the case concerns more than eight marks, two opstallingen must be present.
	Any opstalling providing testimony must be in the jurisdiction of the sealand in which the case is being heard.
Twenty-fourth clause	Provides that each Easter, a judge from each sealand will return to Upstalsboom, swear an oath of office, and affirm each statute in order to remain in office	[31]

Several authors have referred to the terms of the statutes as extreme for the region and period; it has been suggested that this is a consequence of an increasing lawlessness among the Frisians during this period.^[32] In 1361, the statutes were reaffirmed and a clause adding a forty-mark payment to the heirs of a homicide victim by whoever hid a murder from justice in another sealand; this was twice the typical weregild.^[33] This later decrease from the previously excessive weregild price is unexplained.^[34]

See also

• Brokmerbrief – 13th-century East Frisian law code
• Frisian Kingdom – c. 600–734 realm in northwestern Europe
• Pier Gerlofs Donia – Frisian warrior, pirate, and rebel (1480–1520)