The Frisian exception. Why are there hardly any traces of written Frisian from the eighth and ninth centuries?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Frisians did not develop anything like the written works produced by their neighbours in the ninth century. They knew forms of pragmatic literacy, as is clear from surviving coins and runic inscriptions. Narrative sources written by Anglo-Saxons and Franks show that their kings were able to deal with correspondence in a manner appropriate to their position, although for anything resembling poetry and traditions about the past they resorted to orality. The best Frisian poetry survives in legal texts. But the inhabitants of the area called Frisia never developed into a unified ‘people’, neither politically nor indeed linguistically. They lacked a need to develop a written literature of their own.