Like most other German tribes, Frisian origin rests in the 5th century with leaders who named themselves kings. The earlier kings must be considered as some kind of warleaders, whose side was chosen by local powers and only during the time they were at war. The power they had was defined by the way they could bind people to them; the limits were quite flexible.
Like the Anglo-Saxons world, the Frisian territory was original separated into a great number of small political areas each with his own king. The names of these kings are mostly unknown. Later on at the end of the 6th century and at the beginning of the 7th century a federation of Frisian tribes arose united under a central power.
Famous quotes containing the words king of and/or king:
“For who shall defile the temples of the ancient gods, a cruel and violent death shall be his fate, and never shall his soul find rest unto eternity. Such is the curse of Amon-Ra, king of all the gods.”
—Griffin Jay, Maxwell Shane (1905–1983)
“Gargantua, at the age of four hundred four score and forty- four years begat his son Pantagruel, from his wife, named Badebec, daughter of the King of the Amaurotes in Utopia, who died in child-birth: because he was marvelously huge and so heavy that he could not come to light without suffocating his mother.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)