Reading Old Frisian laws as literature

Abstract

Legal texts comprise the bulk of what has survived of the medieval written legacy in the Frisian language. Texts expounding juridical matters are not usually associated today with creative writing. It is instructive, therefore, to see how in past and present scholars have tried to come to terms with a literary appreciation for the medieval Frisian law codes. An investigation into surveys of Old Frisian literature brings to light that little has changed over the past two hundred years with respect to assessing the laws’ non-legal qualities. Hence, this paper first reviews the state-of-the-art. Next, it shows possibilities which allow an escape from what has long been a stagnant approachto the sources. Recognition of the absence of a division between law and religion opens insights into the persuasive strategies employed by the anonymous authors of laws. Furthermore, when key notions such as imagination and fictionality are brought into play, the laws can be shown to belong much more to the realm of literature than has hitherto been realized.