Rulers of Frisia

Of the first historically verifiable rulers of Frisia, whether they are called dukes or kings, the last royal dynasty below is established by the chronicles of Merovingian kings of the Franks, with whom they were contemporaries. In these contemporary chronicles, they were styled dux, a Latin term for leader which is the origin of the title duke and its cognates in other languages (duc, duce, doge, duque, etc.). They were independent until the death of Radbod at the earliest.

Finn, son of Folcwald, is a semi-legendary figure. He was killed by Hengest, who later migrated to Britain and founded the Kingdom of Kent. For rulers prior to Finn the later Frisians developed a rich store of legend and myth, and these too are listed here in chronological order.

After coming under Frankish rule, Frisia was governed by Frankish counts and by potestates elected by the Frisians.

In 775 the Franks under Charlemagne took control of what remained of Frisian territory and incorporated it into their kingdom. Counts appointed by the Frankish rulers were:

Most of the early potestaats are completely legendary.

With the victory of the Schieringers against the Vetkopers, the office passed to the dukes of Saxony:

In 1515, George of Saxony sold Friesland to Charles of Habsburg, the future Emperor. The Habsburgs appointed the following governors:

In 1581, Friesland and six other provinces revolted and formed the Dutch Republic. The office of stadholder became hereditary in the House of Oranje:

A description of a course at the University of Amsterdam states ""One of the characteristics of Frisian historiography and literature from the Middle-Ages up to the nineteenth and twentieth century is the existence of a comprehensive corpus of fantastic, apocryphal and mystified historic works, which deal with the origins and identity of the Frisians. Well known examples are medieval myths of origin like the Gesta Frisiorum or the Tractatus Alvini, sixteenth-century humanistic scholarly books by e.g. Suffridus Petrus, Ocko van Scarl en Martinus Hamconius and nineteenth-century forgeries like the Tescklaow and the infamous Oera Linda Book."

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