Artois is a region of northern France. Its territory covers an area of about 4,000 km2 and it has a population of about one million. Its principal cities include Arras, Saint-Omer, Lens, and Béthune. It is the eponym for the term Artesian.
Nord is a département in Hauts-de-France region, France bordering Belgium. It was created from the western halves of the historical counties of Flanders and Hainaut, and the Bishopric of Cambrai. The modern coat of arms was inherited from the County of Flanders.
Nord-Pas-de-Calais ; Picard: Nord-Pas-Calés); is a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Hauts-de-France. It consisted of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. Nord-Pas-de-Calais borders the English Channel (west), the North Sea (northwest), Belgium and Picardy (south). Until the 17th century, the history of the North was largely in common with the history of Belgium, that of a land that "for almost a thousand years served as a battlefield for all of Europe." The majority of the region was once part of the historical Southern Netherlands, but gradually became part of France between 1477 and 1678, particularly during the reign of king Louis XIV. The historical French provinces that preceded Nord-Pas-de-Calais are Artois, French Flanders, French Hainaut and (partially) Picardy. These provincial designations are still frequently used by the inhabitants. The former administrative region was created in 1956 under the name "Nord" and maintained that name until 1972 when "Pas-de-Calais" was added. This remained unchanged until its dissolution in 2016.
The Seventeen Provinces were the Imperial states of the Habsburg Netherlands in the 16th century. They roughly covered the Low Countries, i.e., what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and most of the French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais (Artois). Also within this area were semi-independent fiefdoms, mainly ecclesiastical ones, such as Liège, Cambrai and Stavelot-Malmedy.
Cambrai, formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the Escaut river.
Hainaut, historically also known as Heynault in English, is the westernmost province of Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium.
Baldwin VI, also known as Baldwin the Good, was the count of Hainaut from 1051 to 1070 and count of Flanders from 1067 to 1070.
The County of Hainaut, sometimes spelled Hainault, was a territorial lordship within the medieval Holy Roman Empire that straddled the present-day border of Belgium and France. Its most important towns included Mons, now in Belgium, and Valenciennes, now in France.
Arnulf III was Count of Flanders from 1070 until his death at the Battle of Cassel in 1071.
The County of Artois was a historic province of the Kingdom of France, held by the Dukes of Burgundy from 1384 until 1477/82, and a state of the Holy Roman Empire from 1493 until 1659.
French Flanders is a part of the historical County of Flanders, where Flemish—a Low Franconian dialect cluster of Dutch—was traditionally spoken. The region lies in the modern-day northern French region of Hauts-de-France, and roughly corresponds to the arrondissements of Lille, Douai and Dunkirk on the northern border with Belgium. Together, with French Hainaut and Cambrésis, it makes up the French Department of Nord.
The Abbey of Arrouaise in northern France was the centre of a form of the canonical life known as the Arrouaisian Order, which was popular among the founders of canonries during the decade of the 1130s. The community began to develop when Heldemar joined the hermit Ruggerius in 1090 and approved by the local bishop in 1097. The priory was raised to the status of an abbey in 1121, electing as its first abbot, Gervaise. He impressed people who had the wealth and secular power, sufficient to found an abbey, which they did.
The Duchy of Lower Lotharingia, also called Northern Lotharingia, Lower Lorraine or Northern Lorraine, was a stem duchy established in 959, of the medieval Kingdom of Germany, which encompassed almost all of modern Belgium, Luxemburg, the northern part of the German Rhineland province and the eastern parts of France's Nord-Pas de Calais region, it also included almost all of modern Netherlands.
Gislebertof Mons was a clergyman in the administration of the County of Hainaut and a chronicler whose Chronicon Hanoniense is an essential eyewitness source for events affecting his patron Baldwin V, Count of Hainaut.
The Archdiocese of Cambrai is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France, comprising the arrondissements of Avesnes-sur-Helpe, Cambrai, Douai, and Valenciennes within the département of Nord, in the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The current archbishop is Vincent Dollmann, appointed in August 2018. Since 2008 the archdiocese has been a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Lille.
Sibylla of Anjou was a countess consort of Flanders as the wife of Thierry, Count of Flanders. She served as the regent of Flanders during the absence of her spouse from 1147 to 1149.
Richilde, Countess of Mons and Hainaut, was a ruling countess of Hainaut from c. 1050 until 1076, in co-regency with her husband Baldwin VI of Flanders and then her son Baldwin II of Hainaut. She was also countess of Flanders by marriage to Baldwin VI between from 1067 to 1070. She ruled Flanders as regent during the minority of her son Arnulf III in 1070–1071.
Reginar V, was the eldest son of Reginar IV, Count of Mons and Hedwig of France. His maternal grandparents were Hugh Capet of France and Adelaide of Aquitaine.
Count Lambert "the Bearded" was the first person to be described as a count of Leuven in a surviving contemporary record, being described this way relatively late in life, in 1003. He is also the patrilineal ancestor of all the future counts of Leuven and dukes of Brabant until his descendant John III, Duke of Brabant, who died in 1355.
The County of Flanders 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.
