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[Low Countries] [in het Nederlands] [Next]
The name Netherlands or Low Countries near the Sea in itself hints to its location: near the Northsea, where the Rijn (Rhine), Maas (Meuse), Schelde (Scheldt) and IJzer (Yser) have their mouth. Generally speaking, the name denotes the area formed by the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Northwest of France. The Spanish and later on Austrian Netherlands denote that Southern part of the Low Countries, which came under the ruling of the king of Spain, and later went over to Austria, in the 17th and 18th century.
Five different languages are spoken in the Low Countries: Dutch in almost the whole of the Netherlands, in Flanders and in French-Flanders; French in Wallonia, Luxembourg and French-Flanders; Frisian in Fryslân (Frisia); German in the German-speaking Community in Belgium and Luxembourg; and Lëtzeburgue in Luxembourg.
The Southern parts of the Low Countries were conquered by Cæsar around the middle of the first century BC. During the Migration of the Peoples, the Empire of the Francs was founded. After its division by the treaty of erdun in 843, the Low Countries mainly became part of Lorraine, except for Flanders, which was a part of the Western Francian Empire. In 880, Lorraine was merged together with the Eastern Francian Empire, and later on divided into Upper and Lower Lorraine, which contained our regions. Several fiefs developed from the 9th until the 12th century: Brabant and Holland amongst other. At the end and during the 15th century, most of them, including Flanders, went over to the Bourgondian House, and through the marriage of Mary of Bourgondy to Maximilian, to the Habsburgers at the very end of that century.
Emperor Charles V completed the unification of the Low Countries by gaining Frysia and other Northern regions, and in 1548, he made of The Seventeen Provinces the Bourgondian Kreis. By his abdication from the crown in 1555, the Low Countries came under the ruling of Philip II. Under his governor Alva, the Eighty Year War, lasting from 1568 until 1648, was started. William I of Orange was one of its commanders. In 1579, the Northern Provinces concluded the Union of Utrecht. The reconquest by Farnese and Maurits drew a military boundary between the Southern and the Northern Low Countries. Albrecht and Isabella (1598-1621) made an independant state of the Southern Provinces; but after the death of Albrecht, they again went over to Spain. Meanwhile, the Northern Low Countries founded the East Indian Company in 1602, which had colonies in the East, and in 1621 the West indian Company, which got colonies in the West. During their Golden Century, the 17th century, the Republic of the United Netherlands became the first marine and trading power, in particular under the ruling of Frederic Henry. They reached high tops in the fields of science and arts, and in 1648, after the Thirty Year War, was even recognized by Spain. The four English Wars (Tromp, De Ruyter) between 1652 and 1784 were carried out with varying success. In 1713, the Southern Netherlands went over to the Austrian Habsburgers. The ruling of Mary Theresia (1740-1780) marked a period of peace and quiet, but a revolt against her successor Joseph II was carried out in 1789 by the United Belgian States, which was suppressed in 1790.
During the first Coalition War, the french occupied the Southern Netherlands, with in 1795 a unification with France and the War of the Peasants against it. They went into the United Netherlands, which was, first as the Batavian Republic, reshaped to the Kingdom of Holland in 1806 under Napoleon's brother Louis Napoleon, and finally became part of France in 1810. In the Sixth Coalition War, the Hollanders could free themselves from the French yoke, and, after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the Congress of Vienna united the South and the North in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, having William I as king. In 1830, after the Belgian Revolution, the Belgian Kingdom was founded in the South.
Last modification: 1996-08-31
f.a.vanlaenen@ieee.org