Fimelthing

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The Fimelthing , Fimelding or after Ding was a periodic trial or Thing in medieval Friesland that the ordinary district court and the four annual count's Botding followed. Bodthing (required court) and Fimelthing (secondary court) are mentioned in the West Frisian Schulzenrecht of the 12th century. In Fimelthing things that were not negotiated in botding were dealt with afterwards. Those who had participated in both did not have to follow the king's banishment within a year. The Fimelthing was so widely known only in West Friesland, the evidence for botdinge comes from all over Northwest Germany and the Netherlands. Legal historians have compared with the (later) Westphalian Vessel Court, which was also considered to be in addition to the normal legal process.

Schulzenrecht

The corresponding passages are:

From the judiciary (...)
This is the right that the count should judge on the (second) Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, on these three days, just as one did in the required court, about the people about whom one could not judge there; these three days are then called fimelthing. (...)
From Fimelthing ( Fan fimelthinghe )
It is right that the people who have taken part in the required courts and the fimelthing do not have to follow the king's banishment within a year.

Word history

The etymology of the word fimelthing is uncertain. It is often associated with the Dutch verbum femelen "heuchlen", also probably fiemelen "hesitating", which is only attested in the 16th century. This word is derived from the Middle Latin fēmella " little woman", which has been attested in French since the 12th century. An influence from the Middle High German verb Fimmel (hanf ) "female hemp" is expected. The Altgermanist Jan de Vries thinks to femelen contrast to the Low German fammeln , Danish famle "keys", located in the Old Norse fimbulfambi has preserved "fool pot". According to Walter Steller in his authoritative edition of the Schulzenrechts (1926), “Fimelthing could mean the court in which unfinished business is still being worked on”.

Fimmilena

According to a research tradition, which was mainly advocated by Georges Dumézil and Rudolf Simek , botding and fimelthing are related to the two goddesses Beda and Fimmilena , who are mentioned on an English votive stone from the 3rd century, donated by mercenaries of the Civitas Tuihanti . The names of the gods are supposed to indicate a Germanic system of fixed legal assemblies ( Thincsus ), with special sessions ( Beda ) and informal sessions ( Fimmilena ), which could be found in the later Frisian legal forms. The time lag between the Roman era and the late medieval sources is considerable.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Botding . In: Prussian Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 2 , issue 3 (edited by Eberhard von Künßberg ). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar, Sp. 425 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de - publication date 1932 or 1933).
  2. ↑ Fimmelding . In: Prussian Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 3 , issue 4 (edited by Eberhard von Künßberg ). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar, Sp. 537 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de - publication date between 1935 and 1938).
  3. ^ Montanus de Haan Hettema, Jurisprudentia Frisica . Leeuwarden 1834. p. 136, here after Jakob Grimm.
  4. ↑ See also Gerhard Köbler: Old Frisian Dictionary. 4th edition 2014, online under the letter F
  5. ↑ femelen (schijnheilig doen) . Etymologiebank.nl (Dutch)
  6. ^ Steller: Schulzenrecht , p. 50.