Seventeen provinces

Seventeen Provinces is the name that became common for the northern and western territories of the Dukes of Burgundy from the 14th to the 16th centuries .

Map of the Seventeen Provinces (1477)

It refers to

The county of Artois
The county of Flanders with the burgraves of Lille , Douai and Orchies , the lordship of Tournai and its surroundings
The rule of Mechelen
The county of Namur
The county of Hainaut
The county of Zeeland
The county of Holland
The Duchy of Brabant with the Margraviate of Antwerp , the County of Leuven , the County of Brussels , and the Bailiwicks of Nivelles and Gembloux
The Duchy of Limburg with Dalhem , Valkenburg and Herzogenrath
The Duchy of Luxembourg
The principality, later the rule of Utrecht
The rule of West Friesland
The Duchy of Guelders
The rule of Groningen with the Ommelanden
Drenthe , Lingen , Wedde and Westerwolde
The Overijssel reign
The County of Zutphen

This list is not of a fixed nature. Seventeen was the number of provinces represented by the States General in Brussels . Dependencies between the provinces were not taken into account. Zutphen belonged to Geldern and Limburg to Brabant, on the other hand, the margravate Antwerp, Tournai and Lille sent their own delegations.

In the late Middle Ages, three emperors (and one other king) of the empire came from the House of Luxembourg , the first being Henry VII, born in Valenciennes († 1313) . Charles IV , who was Roman-German Emperor from 1355 to 1378 , was born in Prague, which was also a focus of his rule.

The seventeen provinces were only partially assigned to the Roman-German Empire; the county of Flanders , for example, was in fiefdom to the French king. This was changed by the Treaty of Augsburg ( Burgundian Treaty ) of 1548.

Later history to the present

In 1815 (after the Napoleonic period) the Kingdom of the United Netherlands was created in the area of the historic 17 provinces . It only existed in this form until the Belgian Revolution , but it also comprised seventeen provinces.

The area dealt with here therefore coincides quite exactly with the three modern Benelux countries and is only slightly larger, in the west especially around what is now the French department of North , where Flemish was also spoken at that time, and around parts of the department Pas-de- Calais (Artois).

coat of arms

This selection is sorted alphabetically according to the names of the countries. The first crest was until 1430 for the Duchy of Burgundy in use and shows in the Vierungsfeldern two coats of arms of the south, "French" countries of Philip II. "The Bold" , in the heart shield the arms of Flanders his wife Margaret .