The “Old Frisian” Tescklaow as Invented Tradition: Forging Friesland’s Rural Past in the Early Nineteenth Century

Summary

In 1823, the historian Jacobus Scheltema (1767–1835) published the text of the Frisian Tescklaow, with his learned commentary on it. This document, bearing the date of 1557 but with many elements apparently reaching back to the later Middle Ages, regulated the annual threshing of rapeseed (L. brassica napus). According to Jacobus's remarks, the law and other documents related to it had been newly discovered by his brother Paulus (1752–1835), and many scholars took Jacobus at his word. Indeed, Paulus's find soon attracted the enthusiastic support of many esteemed scholars, including Jacob Grimm, who appreciated the Tescklaow for its folksy character. Moreover, though some experts raised questions about the text from almost the moment it was published, acceptance of the Tescklaow did not fully end until seventy years after its publication, when it was conclusively demonstrated to be a forgery.

This essay outlines the nature and reception of this fake text written in quasi-Old Frisian and discusses the background against which it appeared. In its apparent antiquity, the Tescklaow appealed to the Romantic desire to support national identity with a medieval narrative, and as a legal text it attracted particular support among many scholars who focused on laws as vehicles for national identity. It also attracted attention because it was written in Frisian, a little-known language that was presumed to be extremely old, older than many other Germanic languages. To be sure, the document's supposedly Frisian character is underscored in its title's use of the spurious word “laow,” which, in its apparent echo of the word “law,” pulls on the commonplace perception that Frisian and English were closely related languages. Moreover, the Tescklaow's frequent references to medieval Frisian legal traditions helped allay many historians’ initial doubts about its authenticity.

Setting the Stage for the Tescklaow

The second half of the eighteenth century saw the rise of the agricultural revolution and industrialization in western Europe. In its wake followed accelerated urbanization, and it is hardly coincidental that in the same period a desire grew among the bourgeoisie to look back to times when life seemed simpler and more heroic. James Macpherson, for example, began to collect manuscripts with Gaelic songs on the Hebrides and the Scottish Highlands, which he published in 1760 as Fragments of Ancient Poetry, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and Translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language.