Seventeen Provinces

Seventeen provinces is the name, which was common for the northern and western areas of the Dukes of Burgundy from the 14th to the 16th century.

This is to be

This collection has no fixed character. Seventeen was the number of provinces that were represented in the States General in Brussels. Dependencies between the provinces were not included. So Zütphen belonged to funds and Limburg Brabant, on the other hand sent the Margraviate of Antwerp, Tournai and Lille own delegations.

In the late Middle Ages three emperors ( and another king) came of the kingdom of the house of Luxembourg, as the first born in Valenciennes Henry VII († 1313 ). Charles IV, who was from 1355 to 1378 Roman- German Emperor, however, came to Prague to the world, where also a focus of his reign was.

The Seventeen Provinces were only partially attributable to the Holy Roman Empire, the County of Flanders was, for example, in feudal loyalty to the French king. This changed the Treaty of Augsburg ( Burgundian Treaty) of 1548.

Later history to the present day

In 1815 was created the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in the area of the historic 17 provinces (after the Napoleonic period ). In this form, that remained true only up to the " Belgian Revolution " exist, but it also included seventeen provinces.

The area treated here coincides therefore quite accurately with the modern three Benelux countries and is only slightly larger, in the West especially around present-day French Nord, where at that time also Flemish was spoken, and parts of the department of Pas -de- Calais ( Artois ).

See also French Flanders and French - West Flemish.

Coat of arms

This selection is lined up alphabetically according to the names of the countries. The first coat of arms was until 1430 for the duchy of Burgundy in use and shows in the Vierungsfeldern two coats of arms for the southern, 'French' countries of Philip II " the Bold ", in the heart shield the arms of his wife Margaret of Flanders.