 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (July 2020) |
County of Flanders | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 862–1797 | |||||||||||||||||
.svg) County of Flanders, 1350, in relation to the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire. The county was located where the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire met the North Sea. | |||||||||||||||||
| Status | French and Imperial fiefdom | ||||||||||||||||
| Capital | Bruges, later Ghent and Lille | ||||||||||||||||
| Common languages | |||||||||||||||||
| Religion |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Government | Feudal monarchy | ||||||||||||||||
| Count of Flanders[a] | |||||||||||||||||
• 862–879 | Baldwin I | ||||||||||||||||
• 1792–1797 | Francis II | ||||||||||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages/ | ||||||||||||||||
• Fief granted to Count Baldwin I | 862 | ||||||||||||||||
• Annexed by France | 1797 | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| Today part of | |||||||||||||||||
.svg)
.svg){kind=small}
The County of Flanders[b] was one of the most powerful political entities in the medieval Low Countries, located on the North Sea coast of what is now Belgium. Unlike its neighbours, such as the counties of Brabant and Hainaut, it was within the territory of the Kingdom of France. The counts of Flanders held the most northerly part of the kingdom, and were among the original twelve peers of France. For centuries, the economic activity of the Flemish cities, such as Ghent, Bruges and Ypres, made Flanders one of the most affluent regions in Europe, and also gave them strong international connections to trading partners.
Up to 1477, the core area under French suzerainty was west of the Scheldt and historians call this "Royal Flanders" (Dutch: Kroon-Vlaanderen, French: Flandre royale). Aside from this, the counts, from the 11th century onward, held land east of the river as a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, and this is referred to as "Imperial Flanders" (Rijks-Vlaanderen or Flandre impériale). From 1384, the county was politically united to the Duchy of Burgundy, and it formed the starting point for more acquisitions in the area, and the eventual creation of the Burgundian Netherlands. The expansion of Flemish ("Burgundian") power deep into the Holy Roman Empire further complicated the relationship between Flanders and France, but reinforced the connections with Brabant, Hainaut, Holland and other parts of the Low Countries. The link to the empire was strengthened even more when the Burgundian Netherlands came into the hands of the imperial Habsburg dynasty in 1477. Most of Flanders became part of the empire after the Peace of Madrid in 1526 and the Peace of the Ladies in 1529, although it came to be ruled under the Habsburg crown of Spain. The territories of the old county are now the only part of the late medieval French kingdom outside of modern-day France, Catalonia having been renounced in 1258.
By 1795 the entire Austrian Netherlands, the successor of the Spanish Netherlands, was acquired by France under the French First Republic, and this was recognized by treaty in 1797. After the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, these territories, including most of the old county of Flanders, passed to the newly established United Kingdom of the Netherlands, which was split up between 1830 and 1839 into the modern countries of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Although the French Republic had avoided using the names of the great medieval counties for their administrative départements, the Dutch and Belgian regimes brought back such names, and as a consequence the two westernmost provinces of the Flanders region of modern Belgium are now called West Flanders and East Flanders.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).