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| Gerulf I | |
|---|---|
| Count in Frisia | |
| Reign | around 839 |
| Successor | Gerulf II |
| Died | past 865 |
| Issue |
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Gerulf, also Gerulf the Elder, (d. after 865) was the first count of Frisia by this name and an ancestor of the Counts of Holland. Initially dispossessed for opposing emperor Louis the Pious, Gerulf was given back his lands in 839.
Gerulf was the son of count Dirk. In the times of emperor Louis the Pious he was count of Friesland as Louis' vassal, and reeve of the Frisians between Vlie and the river Weser. Already in the beginning of his reign, Louis, in an act of grace, had returned to the Frisians what they had lost earlier in their uprisings against his father. This act made the emperor popular among the Frisians but weakened the count's position towards the population. Later, Louis' weak policy against the Normans caused further annoyance in Frisia. In 826, he ceded a part of Frisia that was to be protected by the count of Friesland to the Danish pretender Harald Klak. Harald got the land of Rüstringen at the left bank of the Weser to have a refuge from hostile attacks by his kin. However, this was considerably interfering with the power of the counts of Friesland. It is presumed that in that time, Gerulf joined the opposition against the emperor.
A document by the emperor that was created on 8 July 839 in Kreuznach proves that there was an uprising in Friesland against the emperor. During the kinstrife between Louis and his sons, count Gerulf presumably took an active part in the movement against Louis, at the very least he lost his fiefs and his own estates were confiscated. On 8 May 839 after the reconciliation between Louis and his son Lothair, Gerulf's private properties were returned to him. The Kreuznach document mentions possessions of Gerulf in and around Leeuwarden and between Vlie and Lonbach.
It is assumed that Gerulf was related to the founders of Corvey Abbey. Furthermore, he may have married a daughter of Wala of Corbie.
Gerulf I had the following children:
Friesland, historically and traditionally known as Frisia, named after the Frisians, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of Flevoland, northeast of North Holland, and south of the Wadden Sea. As of January 2020, the province had a population of 649,944 and a total area of 5,749 km2 (2,220 sq mi).
East Frisia or East Friesland is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia and to the west of Landkreis Friesland.
West Friesland is a contemporary region in the Northwest of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.
Dorestad was an early medieval emporium, located in the southeast of the province of Utrecht in the Netherlands, close to the modern-day town of Wijk bij Duurstede. It flourished during the 8th to early 9th centuries, as an important port on the northeastern shipping routes due to its proximity to the fork in the Rhine, with access to Germany via the Nederrijn, to the southern Netherlands, northern France, and England, and to the northern Netherlands, northern Germany, and Scandinavia.
The counts of Holland ruled over the County of Holland in the Low Countries between the 10th and the 16th century.
Redbad or Radbod was the king of Frisia from c. 680 until his death. He is often considered the last independent ruler of Frisia before Frankish domination. He defeated Charles Martel at Cologne. Eventually, Charles prevailed and compelled the Frisians to submit. Redbad died in 719, but for some years his successors struggled against the Frankish power.
The County of Holland was a state of the Holy Roman Empire and from 1433 part of the Burgundian Netherlands, from 1482 part of the Habsburg Netherlands and from 1581 onward the leading province of the Dutch Republic, of which it remained a part until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. The territory of the County of Holland corresponds roughly with the current provinces of North Holland and South Holland in the Netherlands.
Podestà, also potestate or podesta in English, was the name given to the holder of the highest civil office in the government of the cities of Central and Northern Italy during the Late Middle Ages. Sometimes, it meant the chief magistrate of a city state, the counterpart to similar positions in other cities that went by other names, e.g. rettori ("rectors").
West Frisia is a term that, when used in an international context, refers to the traditionally Frisian areas that are located west of the Dollart. Along with East Frisia and North Frisia, it is one of the most commonly used subdivisions of Frisia. In its narrowest sense, the term is synonymous with the province of Friesland. Within the Netherlands, however, it is mostly used to refer to the region of West Friesland, located west of Friesland.
Gerolf or Gerulf was the second count of this name who is attested in the area of Friesland. Gerolf's main area of power seems to have been in Kennemerland. Count Gerolf is often regarded as the founder of the County of Holland, although the actual name "Holland" is from a later time. His ancestry is unclear, but he may have been a son or, more likely, a grandson of the earlier Gerolf, who was a count in the area of Frisia at the time of the reign of Emperor Louis the Pious and who later joined a monastery. The earlier Gerolf died in 855. There is some limited and vague evidence that this earlier Gerolf was a son of a certain Theodoric, who in turn supposedly descended from the Frisian king Redbad. Count Gerolf is often identified as the father of Count Dirk I and seen as the founder of the first house of the Counts of Holland, which ruled the county until it was inherited by John II of Hainaut in 1299.
Liudolf of Brunswick was Margrave of Frisia, Count of Brunswick, Count in the Derlingau and the Gudingau.
Frisian freedom was the absence of feudalism and serfdom in Frisia, the area that was originally inhabited by the Frisians. Historical Frisia included the modern provinces of Friesland and Groningen, and the area of West Friesland, in the Netherlands, and East Friesland in Germany. During the period of Frisian freedom the area did not have a sovereign lord who owned and administered the land. The freedom of the Frisians developed in the context of ongoing disputes over the rights of local nobility.
Arnulf, also known as Arnoud or Arnold, succeeded his father in 988 as Count of Frisia, which by around AD 1100 would come to be referred to as the county of Holland. He was born in 951 in Ghent and because of this he is also known as Arnulf of Ghent. Arnulf was the son of Dirk II, Count of Holland and Hildegard of Flanders. He was named after his maternal grandfather.
The County of East-Frisia was a county in the region of East Frisia in the northwest of the present-day German state of Lower Saxony.
The Frisian–Frankish wars were a series of conflicts between the Frankish Empire and the Frisian kingdom in the 7th and 8th centuries.
The Frisian Kingdom, also known as Magna Frisia, is a modern name for the post-Roman Frisian realm in Western Europe in the period when it was at its largest (650–734). This dominion was ruled by kings and emerged in the mid-7th century and probably ended with the Battle of the Boarn in 734 when the Frisians were defeated by the Frankish Empire. It lay mainly in what is now the Netherlands and – according to some 19th century authors – extended from the Zwin near Bruges in Belgium to the Weser in Germany. The center of power was the city of Utrecht.
The Lordship of Frisia or Lordship of Friesland was a feudal dominion in the Netherlands. It was formed in 1498 by King Maximilian I and reformed in 1524 when Emperor Charles V conquered Frisia.
Gerhart was a Frisian count from the 9th century. Friesland in that time was part of the Carolingian Empire and part of Middle Francia following the Treaty of Verdun. Gerhart was subject to King Louis the Pious and ruled the shire-county Westergoa. Hugo Jaekel used the Traditiones et Antiquitates Fuldenses, the Annales Fuldenses and other historical documents from the Abbeys of Fulda, Werden, and Corvey to hypothesize that Gerhart and the line of Counts of Friesland were descended from Redbad, King of the Frisians. Jaekel places Gerhart as son of Gerulf I of Frisia and father of Wigging. Gerhart likely held the title of Count of Friesland when his father was removed in 834 until 855 when Gerhart died. Shortly after Gerhart's death, his eldest son, Folkger, did not accept the title. Instead he donated some of his estates and entered Werden Abbey, leaving the remainder of his estates and the title of Count to Gerhart's second son, Wigging. Gerhart was likely married to the daughter of a Count in Hamaland, as evidenced by the similarity of his second son's name Wigging, to Wigmann who was a contemporary count in Hamaland, and because the family was recorded giving gifts in Hamaland to various abbeys.
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