uncil-place chieftains
were chosen, who, on swearing to maintain the laws and oppose
the common enemy, were invested with a limited and temporary
authority.

It does not appear that Friesland possessed any large towns, with
the exception of Staveren. In this respect the Frisons resembled
those ancient Germans who had a horror of shutting themselves up
within walls. They lived in a way completely patriarchal; dwelling
in isolated cabins, and with habits of the utmost frugality. We
read in one of their old histories that a whole convent of
Benedictines was terrified at the voracity of a German sculptor
who was repairing their chapel. They implored him to look elsewhere
for his food; for that he and his sons consumed enough to exhaust
the whole stock of the monastery.

In no part of Europe was the good sense of the people so effectively
opposed to the unreasonable practices of Catholicism in those days.
The Frisons successfully resisted the payment of tithes; and as a
punishment (if the monks are to be believed) the sea inflicted
upon them repeated inundations. They forced their priests to
marry, saying that the man who had no wife necessarily sought
for the wife of another. They acknowledged no ecclesiastical
decree, if secular judges, double the number of the priests, did
not bear a part in it. Thus the spirit of liberty burst forth
in all their proceedings, and they were justified in calling
themselves _Vri-Vriesen_, Free-Frisons.

No nation is more interested than England in the examination of
all that concerns this remote corner of Europe, so resolute in
its opposition to both civil and religious tyranny; for it was
there that those Saxon institutions and principles were first
developed without constraint, while the time of their establishment
in England was still distant. Restrained by our narrow limits,
we can merely indicate this curious state of things; nor may
we enter on many mysteries of social government which the most
learned find a difficulty in solving. What were the rights of
the nobles in their connection with these freemen? What ties of
reciprocal interest bound the different cantons to each other?
What were the privileges of the towns?--These are the minute
but important points of detail which are overshadowed by the
grand and imposing figure of the national independence. But in
fact the emperors themselves, in these distant times, had little
knowledge of this province, and spoke of it vaguely, an