Instances of Interactions and Conflicts in the North Sea in Medieval Times, with an Emphasis on Frisia

Abstract

In the Early Middle Ages, the North Sea region – particularly the Frisian territory – served as the arena for deep and frequent contacts among the Germanic tribes settled on the coastal regions. This contribution aims to analyse samples of sources ranging from literary texts to runic inscriptions, which demonstrate that the nature of such interactions was neither distinctly peaceful nor warlike, but was rather marked by a degree of ambiguity and complexity.