Kings and their demesnes · Kingdom of Denmark · as at first light, 1 January 1200

King's Frisians

West of the South Jutland geest lay the Uthlande, the 'outer lands': marsh islands and coastal marshes settled by Frisians, whose settlement spread widely from about 1100 (de.wikipedia).

They were grouped in hardes (the Danish herred): Sylt; Föhr in two hardes (Osterharde and Westerharde) with Amrum; the five hardes of the great island of Strand, then far larger than today's Pellworm and Nordstrand (Edomsharde, Pellwormharde, Beltringharde, Wiriksharde, Lundenbergharde); the mainland marsh hardes of Bökingharde and Wiedingharde; and the 'three lands' of Eiderstedt, Everschop and Utholm at the Eider mouth. Their people were the king's Frisians (Königsfriesen), subject to the Danish king directly, and kept apart in law from the 'syssel Frisians' of the geest hardes, who stood under the ordinary royal and ducal government. They judged by their own Frisian customary law (written down only in 1426), were later exempted from the Jutish Law of 1241, and regarded themselves as largely independent of Denmark.

Saxo, writing around 1200, gives the first written description of 'Frisia minor'. Each harde was its own community at its own thing; there is no evidence that the Uthlande acted as one body in 1200, so they are drawn here as the king's land rather than as a self-governing province.

Who he is

Name
King Canute VI (no royal officer over the Frisians is named for 1200)
Title
lord of the king's Frisians (Königsfriesen), who govern themselves in their hardes
Since
1182 (Canute's sole reign)
Born
about 1163
Family
see the realm record (dkz)
Confidence
medium

de.wikipedia Uthlande and Nordfriesland; lex.dk Kong Valdemars Jordebog

Overlord

the Danish king directly, not the duke of South Jutland

What it holds

  • Sylt
  • Föhr (Osterharde and Westerharde) and Amrum
  • Strand: Edomsharde (with Rungholt), Pellwormharde, Beltringharde, Wiriksharde and Lundenbergharde, with the small marsh islands (Halligen)
  • Bökingharde and Wiedingharde on the mainland marsh
  • Eiderstedt, Everschop and Utholm (the three lands at the Eider mouth)

How it was acquired

Frisian settlers took up the marshes and islands from about 1100 under the Danish kings, for whom Frisians fought in the wars of the 1100s (de.wikipedia).

Allies and rivals

The king's men in a land of free farmers. Neighbours: the duke's geest hardes to the east; Dithmarschen, a free farmers' land under Bremen's nominal lordship, across the Eider (Rhineland map). Later kings who pressed them for new taxes met armed resistance: Erik IV fled the land in 1250 and King Abel was killed trying to collect taxes in 1252 (de.wikipedia). None of this is in sight in 1200.

How things stand that morning

Quiet and the king's. No royal officer, assembly or quarrel is recorded for the winter of 1199-1200. The Frisians are not known to have taken part in the war on the Eider.

Wealth

Salt boiled from burnt salt peat, the most important product of the Uthlande (de.wikipedia, for the 1200s), cattle and grain on the diked marsh, and sea trade along the coast to Ribe, Frisia and the Elbe. What they owed the king is first known from the 1200s (the land book of about 1230 is the chief early source, de.wikipedia), not from 1200. No figures.

Military

No castles. The farmers kept their own arms and dikes; they served the Danish kings in war in the 1100s and 1200s (de.wikipedia) but no levy of theirs is recorded for 1199.

Threats

  • storm floods on an undiked or half-diked coast
  • any new royal tax, which the Frisians resisted in arms in the 1250s

Places of note

  • Rungholt: the chief trading place of the Edomsharde on Strand, lost in the flood of 1362 (approximate site in the Wadden Sea)

Where the sources disagree

  • The Rhineland map (Denmark) lists 'Eiderstedt and the North Frisian Uthlande inside the sheet (the king's)'; this record agrees and covers the whole of North Frisia, north and south of that sheet's edge.

Evidence: The Uthlande's status as the king's land and their own law are well attested from the 1200s (the land book of about 1231, the conflicts of 1250-52, the Frisian laws of 1426), but nothing names a harde, a spokesman or a royal officer for 1200. The coast drawn is the modern one.

On the map: Drawn on the modern coast. In 1200 Strand was one large island, much of today's Wadden Sea was marsh and Eiderstedt was three separate islands and peninsulas; the drawing shows where the king's Frisians lived, not the shape of the land.

Primary sources for Denmark

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

11 more in the sources library for Scandinavia.

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia (de): Uthlande
  2. Wikipedia (de): Nordfriesland (history section)
  3. Den Store Danske (lex.dk): Kong Valdemars Jordebog

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.