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Duchy of Brabant
Duchy of Brabant Hertogdom Brabant Duché de Brabant | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1183–1795 | |||||||||
 Flag
 Coat of arms
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.svg) Duchy of Brabant in 1477. | |||||||||
| Common languages | Middle Dutch | ||||||||
| Government | Duchy | ||||||||
| Duke of Brabant | |||||||||
| Henry I of Brabant | |||||||||
| Francis I of Austria | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages and Modern Age | ||||||||
• Creation of the county by Frederick Barbarossa | 1183 | ||||||||
• French conquest | 1795 | ||||||||
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The Duchy of Brabant was a former duchy located between the Netherlands and Belgium. The duchy extended over the present-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant, Antwerp and the Brussels-Capital Region, and the Dutch province of North Brabant. In Roman times, Brabant was divided between the Roman provinces of Gallia Belgica and Germania Inferior and was inhabited by Celtic tribes until Germanic peoples replaced them and put an end to the Roman Empire.
The main cities of the duchy were Brussels, Antwerp, Leuven, Breda and 's-Hertogenbosch. The name of the region comes from the Carolingian duchy of pagus Bracbatensis, located between the rivers Scheldt and Dyle, and which comes from the words Bracha (New) and Bant (Region).
History
The duchy's predecessor was the County of Brabant (landgraviate), which was created as a fief within the Lotharingia established by the Treaty of Verdun (843), and more specifically, of the duchy of Lower Lotharingia after the partition of the kingdom in 959. Therefore, the duchy formed part of Middle Francia and its origin lay in the Holy Roman Empire. The imperial fief was granted to Count Henry III of Leuven around the year 1085 or 1086, specifically after the death of the previous margrave of Brabant, the Count Palatine Herman II of Lotharingia.
Formally, the duchy was created as a hereditary title by Frederick I Barbarossa in 1183–1184 in favor of Henry I of Brabant, son of Godfrey III of Leuven, Duke of Lower Lotharingia. Although the territorial extent of the duchy was small, lying between the rivers Dender and Senne, west of Brussels, the name of the duchy was used to refer to all the possessions of the dukes from the 13th century onward.
In 1190, Henry I of Brabant also became Duke of Lower Lotharingia after the death of Godfrey III, a title that carried practically no territorial authority. According to protocol, all his successors were from then on called dukes of Brabant and of Lower Lotharingia, later known as dukes of Lothier.
After the Battle of Worringen, which took place in 1288, John I of Brabant incorporated the Duchy of Limburg into the family. In 1354, Duke John III of Brabant instituted the office of the Blijde Inkomst. In 1430, the duchies of Lotharingia, Brabant and Limburg were inherited by Philip III of Burgundy. In 1477 the titles passed to the House of Habsburg through Mary of Burgundy. The subsequent history of the duchy is part of the history of the Netherlands or the "Seventeen Provinces".
The northern provinces of the duchy achieved independence from the Spanish Habsburgs in the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the independence of the United Provinces was confirmed, and the northern part of Brabant came under Dutch control, becoming one of the Generality Lands under the name of Staats-Brabant, which is today the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands.
The southern part remained in the hands of the Habsburgs as part of the Spanish Netherlands. These passed to the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs in 1714. The duchy was dissolved in 1795 during the French occupation of the Southern Netherlands.
The Brabant Revolution
In 1789, Brabant and the neighboring provinces rebelled against the political and religious reforms of Joseph II, Emperor and Duke of Brabant, who had committed himself to modernizing and democratizing the institutions. At the level of Brabant and the Netherlands in particular, the aim was to reform the justice system, allow Protestants and Jews to practice a profession in the guilds, establish the separation of powers and regulate the days off of the corporations which, in his opinion, led to too many lost days. Furthermore, to attack the privileges of the clergy and the abbeys, which owned two thirds of the territory of Brabant, and to regulate religious festivals. They also undertook to close certain abbeys and convents that fulfilled no social role and were considered unproductive, but which lived generously off the tithe given by the people.
Irritated by what they considered attacks on their ancient charters, the Brabanters rose up on June 18, 1789, and under the command of General Jean-André van der Mersch defeated the imperial troops on October 27. The Austrian Netherlands then proclaimed independence. But the revolutionaries, absorbed by the differences between the progressives, represented by the lawyer Vonck, and the conservatives, represented by the lawyer Henri van der Noot, were unable to organize the country and the army before the return of the troops and the force of imperial power.
French period (1795)
France, at war with all the European sovereigns, finally prevailed in 1795. And the south of the Netherlands, including Brabant, was officially ceded by Emperor Francis II, the last elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, to France by the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797. The southern part of the Duchy of Brabant was divided in 1795 between two departments, that of Dyle in the south (capital Brussels) and that of Deux-Nèthes in the north (main city Antwerp).
Its territory was reorganized into the departments of Deux-Nèthes (the present-day province of Antwerp) and Dyle (the later Province of Brabant).
See also
External links
- Le duché de Brabant et la seigneurie de Malines (in French)
- The restoration of the duchy in the Belgian monarchy (in English, French and Dutch)
