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,