Holland is a geographical region and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th century, Holland proper was a unified political region within the Holy Roman Empire as a county ruled by the counts of Holland. By the 17th century, the province of Holland had risen to become a maritime and economic power, dominating the other provinces of the newly independent Dutch Republic.
The counts of Holland ruled over the County of Holland in the Low Countries between the 10th and the 16th century.
The County of Holland was a state of the Holy Roman Empire and from 1433 part of the Burgundian Netherlands, from 1482 part of the Habsburg Netherlands and from 1581 onward the leading province of the Dutch Republic until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. The territory of the County of Holland corresponds roughly with the current provinces of North Holland and South Holland in the Netherlands.
The House of Egmond or Egmont is named after the Dutch town of Egmond, province of North Holland, and played an important role in the Netherlands during the Middle Ages and the Early modern period. The main lines Egmond-Geldern, Egmond-Gavere and Egmond-Buren-Leerdam had high noble, princely rank.
Dirk VI was Count of Holland between 1121 and 1157, at first, during his minority, under the regency of his mother Petronilla. He was the son of Count Floris II. After his death he was succeeded by his eldest son Floris III. He married Sofie of Salm, Countess of Rheineck and Bentheim. She was heiress of Bentheim, which she ruled together with her husband and which was inherited by the couple's second son Otto after his parents' death.
Adalbert of Egmond was a Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon missionary. He was one of Willibrord's companions in preaching the gospel in Holland and Frisia.
Dirk III was the count with jurisdiction over what would become the county of Holland, often referred to in this period as "West Frisia", from 993 to 27 May 1039. Until 1005, this was under regency of his mother. It is thought that Dirk III went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land around 1030, hence his nickname of Hierosolymita.
Dirk I was count of West Frisia, later known as the County of Holland. He is thought to have been in office from c. 896 to c. 928 or 939.
Gerolf or Gerulf was the second count of this name who is attested in the area of Friesland. Gerolf's main area of power seems to have been in Kennemerland. Count Gerolf is often regarded as the founder of the County of Holland, although the actual name "Holland" is from a later time. His ancestry is unclear, but he may have been a son or, more likely, a grandson of the earlier Gerolf, who was a count in the area of Frisia at the time of the reign of Emperor Louis the Pious and who later joined a monastery. The earlier Gerolf died in 855. There is some limited and vague evidence that this earlier Gerolf was a son of a certain Theodoric, who in turn supposedly descended from the Frisian king Redbad. Count Gerolf is often identified as the father of Count Dirk I and seen as the founder of the first house of the Counts of Holland, which ruled the county until it was inherited by John II of Hainaut in 1299.
Dirk II or Theoderic II was a count in West Frisia, and ancestor of the counts of Holland. He was the son and heir of Dirk I and his wife Geva.
Arnulf, also known as Arnoud or Arnold, succeeded his father in 988 as Count of Frisia, which by around AD 1100 would come to be referred to as the county of Holland. He was born in 951 in Ghent and because of this he is also known as Arnulf of Ghent. Arnulf was the son of Dirk II, Count of Holland and Hildegard of Flanders. He was named after his maternal grandfather.
Johannes a Leydis or Jan Gerbrandszoon van Leiden was a Dutch chronicler from the 15th century. A Leydis died in 1504.
Richardis of Bavaria was a German noblewoman. She was a daughter of Count Palatine Otto I of Bavaria, who later became the first Wittelsbach Duke of Bavaria, and his wife Agnes of Loon.
Pieter Lodewijk Muller was a Dutch historian. He published numerous works of history and also contributed nearly two hundred entries to the German Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie .
Rudolf or Rodolphe was a Lower Lotharingian noble born into a family with connections to Utrecht. He is thought by some modern interpreters to have later had lordships in the Hesbaye region, which is now in Belgium, in a part that mostly came to be incorporated into the later County of Loon. He was a son of Nevelung, Count of Betuwe, and a daughter of Reginar II, Count of Hainaut, whose name is not known. He had two uncles, one paternal and one maternal, who were both named Rudolf, and various proposals have been made about how the three Rudolfs correspond to various references to "Count Rudolf" in the 10th century "low countries." Although his paternal uncle Rudolf is sometimes considered to have become a cleric, Jongbloed (2006) argued that he must have been a count, and that he certainly had a wife and offspring. There is no contemporary record of young Rudolf, the nephew, as a count, nor indeed as an adult.
Otto is a purported Count of Loon and father of Count Giselbert, who would have been adult roughly around the years 980–1000. He appears in only one much later document that is considered unreliable, so his existence is doubted. The list of the counts of Loon is normally started with Giselbert.
The Loon War was a war of succession over the County of Holland from 1203 until 1206, brought on by the death of count Dirk VII. The war was waged between Dirk's brother William of Frisia, and Dirk's daughter Ada who had quickly married count Louis II of Loon.
Carel Hendrik Theodoor Bussemaker was a Dutch historian who held chairs in history at the University of Groningen and the University of Leiden.
Wolfert II van Borselen was lord of Veere and Zandenburg.
