Glory of Mechelen

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Coat of arms around 1581
Map of the area from 1559–1608

The Herrschaft Mechelen (also Herrschaft Mechelen ; Dutch Heerlijkheid Mechelen ) from the city of Mechelen and its surrounding area was a territory on the territory of today's Belgium . It was ruled in personal union by the Dukes of Burgundy since the late Middle Ages and formed one of the seventeen provinces of the Burgundian Netherlands . After the transition into Habsburg possession, it was part of the Spanish and later Austrian Netherlands until it was taken over by France in 1795.

history

In Malinas (Mechelen) there was an abbey around 870. Charles the Simple gave the place with the surrounding manors to the Hochstift Liège in 915 . The Berthout family exercised the bailiwick and actual rule . They sold the rulership rights to Flanders around 1331 . The area temporarily belonged to the Duchy of Brabant before it fell back to Flanders and in 1369 to Burgundy. It formed one of the seventeen Dutch provinces of Burgundy. After the death of Charles the Bold , the area fell to the Habsburgs . Emperor Friedrich III. elevated the area to a county in 1490 , but the sovereigns continued to use the title of Lord of Mechelen.

The actual rule was exercised by the magistrate of the city of Mechelen, who had to ensure that the taxes due to him were paid to the sovereign. The area was part of the Burgundian Empire . It was part of the Spanish and then the Austrian Netherlands.

The area consisted of the city of Mechelen, the five larger and six smaller villages ruled by the city and two villages that were directly subordinate to the sovereign. The rule was almost completely surrounded by Brabant territory. The city of Mechelen became a center of power under Charles the Bold. She had the same function at the time of the Habsburg governor Margaret of Austria . There, the highest court in the Habsburg Netherlands was the Great Council of Mechelen . In 1559 a diocese was founded in Mechelen . The city had around 20,000 inhabitants in the 18th century.

During the Brabant Revolution in 1790, a provincial revolutionary committee was formed and the Glory was among the founders of the United Belgian States . In 1795 the area was united with France on the basis of the "Law on the Unification of Belgium and the Liège Country with the Republic" , which was confirmed under international law by the Treaties of Campo Formio (1797) and Lunéville (1801) . It belonged to the Deux-Nèthes department . After Napoleon's military defeat, it came to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 and to Belgium in 1830 .

literature