Church Foundation and Parish Formation in Frisia in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries:A Planned Development?

This paper reviews the efforts of the Church to re-establish and expand its power in the Frisian parts of the northern Netherlands after the disruption caused by the Vikings. The emphasis lies on the Ottonian and Salian period, for which only a few written sources have been preserved. The chosen approach is to combine text study with archaeology by the help of spatial analysis in GIS. The base data consist of dating results concerning the oldest wooden churches, information from early charters, a series of datable saints’ dedications, and spatial information on parish boundaries and the location of the landed property per church. These data are researched for three cases on the foundation of baptismal churches, after which a broader assessment follows for the Frisian coastal area between Vlie and Ems. The map projection of the data shows that around 1000 a series of equally spaced baptismal churches functioned as autonomous centers of clearly demarcated parishes, which together covered the whole territory. These churches consisted of newly founded houses and restored pre-Viking mission centres. It is argued that the formation of this system was guided by a top-down policy of the bishops of Utrecht and Munster. There are strong indications that the foundation of the new baptismal churches was mainly the result of fundraising under relatively small local sponsors on the gentry level. The process as such suggests that, at least for Utrecht, this creation of a real parish system in the second half of the tenth century was as much important for the development of the power position of the bishop as the restoration of the cathedral and its dependant collegiate churches