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The copy of Sibrandus Siccama's edition of Frisian law Lex Frisionum sive antiquae Frisiorum leges (1617) in the Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Library contains a handwritten dedication from the author to a fellow lawyer, Edzard van Ens. It appears that Siccama (1570-1622) distributed several such presentation copies within his professional network.

In 1617, Sibrandus Siccama’s Lex Frisionum sive antiquae Frisiorum leges was published by the Franeker printer Jan Lamrinck. It is an annotated edition of Frisian customary law as recorded, presumably locally, at the end of the eighth century by Frankish clerks of Charlemagne. By recording the leges barbarorum – unwritten customary laws of Germanic peoples based on customs – the Frankish ruler aimed to improve government of his immense empire. The Latin text is extremely important for our knowledge of the early medieval Low Countries. After all, during this period, the Frisians inhabited the entire coastal strip between the Scheldt and the Weser, and we have few other sources on law and governance from that early period – and none that are as comprehensive.

Siccama’s publication was not the first edition of the Lex Frisionum. In fact, he was forced to rely entirely on the first edition for his work: Johannes Herold’s Originum ac Germanicarum antiquitatum libri, leges videlicet (...) Frisionum (Basel 1557). Since then, the original manuscript, which Herold had been able to use, had disappeared. Everything we know or can reconstruct today about this extremely important document for the history of the Low Countries is therefore based on Herold’s edition.

Sibrandus Siccama

Who was this author, Sibrandus Tetardus Siccama? Born in 1570 as the son of the town clerk of Bolsward, a legal career was written in the stars for him. From 1590 onwards, he was educated in both civil and canon law at the ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� of Franeker. This university had recently been founded, in 1585, which made it the second university in the Netherlands, ten years after Leiden. Two years after obtaining his doctorate, Siccama briefly stayed in Hasselt in Overijssel in 1598, only to return to Friesland in 1601 as a member of the Provincial Executive. His father died a year later, and Sibrandus took over his position as town secretary of Bolsward. Siccama produced several works before his relatively early death in 1622, but none became as well known as his 1617 publication and treatise on the Lex Frisionum. In it, he displays a great deal of knowledge of medieval Frisian law, and he also added a Latin version of the Frisian legal text Willekeuren van de Upstalsboom (1323). The comments in his book also show that he most likely owned an unknown copy of the Old Frisian incunable Freeska Landriucht (another copy, in the Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Library collection: ), as well as a manuscript containing Old Frisian law, which has since been lost.

Dedication to “friend and colleague” Edzard van Ens

The Utrecht copy of Siccama’s Lex Frisionum is bound in parchment, together with Suffridus Petri’s Apologia (Franeker, Ægidius Radæus, 1603. It shows few signs of use, apart from some modern pencil markings. All the more striking is the inscription in ink on the title page, written by Siccama himself:

Clarissimo et Doctissimo Doctori Edzardo ab Ens, Præturæ Franequerensis secretario, Curiae advocato, amico et confratri, Auctor dono dedit 

(“The author presented this as a gift to the highly distinguished and highly learned doctor Edzard van Ens, secretary of the district of Franeker, lawyer of the Curia, friend and colleague.”). 

The inscription makes it clear that Siccama was on friendly terms with this Edzard. The modest CV shows that it must be the Edzard van Ens who enrolled as a law student in Padua in 1597. This was undoubtedly a late stage in his studies, because – according to the impressive database of Frisian students at universities up to 1650 compiled by Samme Zijlstra for his dissertation Het geleerde Friesland (1996) – this Edzard was already a barrister at the Court of Friesland a year later. The name Edzard van Ens appears again in Zijlstra’s database, linked to an enrolment in law in Leiden in 1594. Leiden was a well-known second university in the peregrinatio of late sixteenth-century Frisian students. Perhaps this alter-Edzard stayed in Franeker for a while before moving on to Leiden? Could he perhaps have moved on successively to Padua? In that case, could it be the same Edzard van Ens as “ours”? Unfortunately, I cannot prove it. In any case, Edzard obtained his doctorate on an unknown date and became secretary of Franekeradeel in 1612. He died in the same year as Siccama, 1622.

Multiple presentation copies

Siccama’s note is not particularly remarkable in itself, as numerous gift inscriptions of this kind are known from the early modern period. But by chance, I found a similar note in  (in the collection of the ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Library VU Amsterdam), in the same hand, in the same place on the title page, in the same style, and again ending with the words Auctor dono dedit, but now addressed to a Meynardo ab Æzma, “to testify to friendship and respect” (amicitiae et observantiae testandae). This person is identifiable as the Dokkum notable Meinard van Aitzema (1567-1640). This Meinard is the same as Meinhardus Scheltonis (ex agro Emdonis, i.e. from East Frisia) who can be found under this name in the Franeker registers as no. 17 (1586) and thus belongs to the very first cohort of the young Frisian academy. After a stay abroad, Meinard worked as secretary for the Admiralty in Dokkum from 1603 until his death in 1640.

This second inscription prompted me to conduct a modest search for more copies with such an inscription by Siccama on the title page. Despite online research and several emails to Western European libraries, which allowed me to assess approximately 20 copies, I have so far found only one additional example, The website does not mention where the book is located, but it turned out to be B 1775 at the Leeuwarden Historical Centre (a nice extra is that it has the same 18th-century green-brown morocco, gold-stamped binding as the aforementioned Utrecht copy of the Frisian incunable with the Freeska Landriucht).

This third copy of Siccama’s book was given to Johannes Saeckma (1572-1636). Saeckma also was a lawyer and had also been partly educated at the Franeker academy (enrolment in 1588). In 1595, he was a lawyer in Leeuwarden, in 1597 secretary of the Dokkum admiralty, and in 1600 attorney general. From 1603 onwards, he was a counsellor at the Court of Friesland, presiding from 1631 onwards. From 1626, he was also curator of the Franeker university for the Oostergo region. Saeckma was thus a prominent lawyer and administrator in early seventeenth-century Friesland. Siccama refers to Saeckma in the inscription as “Hercules of the Muses” (Herculi Musarum) and his “patron” (patrono suo) – the latter words were also used by Catholics in dedications to patron saints, suggesting that Siccama held Saeckma in very high regard (

Fellow lawyers and fellow students

What do these three men have in common with Siccama? Like Sibrandus, Edzard van Ens, Meinard van Aitzema and Johannes Saeckma were lawyers by training and profession. At the time of the publication of Siccama’s book in 1617, they all held important administrative and legal positions in Friesland. At least three of the four – Sibrandus, Johannes and Meinard – were also students at the young Franeker academy. In several places on his aforementioned important website, Martin Engels also makes it clear that Siccama and Saeckma were and remained good friends; whether Siccama had such long-standing friendly contacts with the other two, I cannot prove, but it certainly does not seem impossible. In any case, all the inscriptions make it clear that Sibrandus Siccama maintained his professional network well, and also used science for this purpose. And that is something that has fortunately remained unchanged since then!

This blog was written as part of a collaboration between heritage institutions with Old Frisian objects in their collections: ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Library, Utrecht; Tresoar, Leeuwarden; KB National Library, The Hague; ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� Library, Groningen; Bodleian Libraries, Oxford; British Library, London; Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover; Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, Oldenburg; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Author

Anne Tjerk Popkema, Tresoar/Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (anne.popkema@tresoar.nl)