CHAPTER V.
THE FRISIANS: THEIR TRIBES AND ALLIES.
THE ancient Frisians are but poorly represented by their descendants on the coast of the North Sea at the present time. The greater part of Holland was at one time occupied by them, as the northern part still is. Their coast has undergone greater changes within the range of history than any other in Europe. An old map of the twelfth century shows that Texel and Vlieland, and the other islands now forming a crescent along the coast, were joined to the mainland. The river Ysel at that time passed into the sea through the narrow channel between Texel and the promontory of North Holland. The Vlie similarly had its outlet through a channel north of the present Vlieland. In the middle of the old northern province of Holland the Lake of Flevo was situated. This was an inland water of the same kind as the Frisian broads at the present time. As the result of a great flood in the autumn of 1170 the lowlands along the rivers began to disappear, and in the course of the next two centuries nearly a million acres of land had become submerged. By the middle of the fifteenth century there was left the Zuyder Zee of the present time, with the islands, to mark the great encroachment of the sea on the old Frisian country. Before the time when their history began the Frisians extended westward to the old Rhine, whose outlet is at Katwijk, and much
66
