Frysk en Nederlânsk as skriuwtalen fan de kleasters yn Westerlauwersk Fryslân

Abstract

In this contribution to the external history of the Frisian language an attempt is made to sketch the use of the written language in the monasteries in West Friesland from 1400-1530. We in particular concerned ourselves with the language of records like charters and letters, which in the period investigated used to be no longer written in Latin but in the vernacular. A comparatively large number of monastic documents from the fifteenth century, when Frisian was the most important written language of West Friesland, turn out to have been written in Dutch. The major reason for this seems to have been the presence of many non-Frisians in the Frisian monasteries. 
These persons, moreover, often held the highest positions. After 1500 Frisian quickly disappeared altogether from the records of the Frisian monasteries. The investigation was hampered by the paucity of written sources.