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The significance of the Lauwers

The Lauwers is now a friendly water, once navigable for large ships. but it was also the scene of many battles and wars. Between 1413 and 1422, the Great Frisian War reigned between the so-called Schieringers and the Vetkopers. The Schieringers ruled over the West Lauwers area; the Vetkopers ruled the area east of the Lauwers and Groninger Ommelanden. It took the Frisians - with interference from numerous powerful people from Holland, East Frisia and abroad, among others - nine years and much bloodshed to arrive at a form of peace. The peace treaty of 1 February 1422 was given the special name: - The Kiss of Groningen. Two important points in this 'Zoen': 1. the border between the two parties was drawn on the Lauwers; 2. the maintenance of 'Frisian freedom', which meant as much that 'foreign lords were to be kept out of Friesland'. The Lauwers also used to form the language boundary between two variants of the Frisian language. Westerlauwers Frisian is the Frisian still spoken in present-day Friesland. Its counterpart was Eastern Lowland Frisian, a language that is now almost completely extinct. Even in present times, the Lauwers still counts as the language boundary, as the Frisian that was spoken east of Lauwers has been exchanged for Lower Saxon dialects.