The Duchy of Lorraine, originally Upper Lorraine, was a duchy now included in the larger present-day region of Lorraine in northeastern France. Its capital was Nancy.
Lotharingia was a medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. It comprised present-day Lorraine (France), Luxembourg, Saarland (Germany), Netherlands, most of Belgium, and Germany west of the Rhine. It was named after King Lothair II, who received this territory as his share of the Kingdom of Middle Francia which his father, Lothair I, had held.
The Duke of Brabant was the ruler of the Duchy of Brabant since 1183/1184. The title was created by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in favor of Henry I of the House of Reginar, son of Godfrey III of Leuven. The Duchy of Brabant was a feudal elevation of the existing title of landgrave of Brabant. This was an Imperial fief which was assigned to Count Henry III of Leuven shortly after the death of the preceding count of Brabant, Herman II of Lotharingia. Although the corresponding county was quite small its name was applied to the entire country under control of the dukes from the 13th century on. In 1190, after the death of Godfrey III, Henry I also became duke of Lotharingia. Formerly Lower Lotharingia, this title was now practically without territorial authority, but was borne by the later dukes of Brabant as an honorific title.
Lothair, sometimes called Lothair II, III or IV, was the penultimate Carolingian king of West Francia, reigning from 10 September 954 until his death in 986.
The Counts of Louvain were a branch of the Lotharingian House of Reginar which from the late 10th century ruled over the estates of Louvain (French) or Leuven (Dutch) in Lower Lorraine.
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.
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 Duchy of Limburg or Limbourg was an imperial estate of the Holy Roman Empire. Much of the area of the duchy is today located within Liège Province of Belgium, with a small portion in the municipality of Voeren, an exclave of the neighbouring Limburg Province. Its chief town was Limbourg-sur-Vesdre, in today's Liège Province.
Godfrey I, called the Bearded, the Courageous, or the Great, was the Landgrave of Brabant, Count of Brussels and Leuven (Louvain) from 1095 to his death and Duke of Lower Lorraine from 1106 to 1129. He was also Margrave of Antwerp from 1106 to his death.
The House of Luxembourg or Luxembourg dynasty was a royal family of the Holy Roman Empire in the Late Middle Ages, whose members between 1308 and 1437 ruled as kings of Germany and Holy Roman emperors as well as kings of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia. Their rule was twice interrupted by the rival House of Wittelsbach. The family takes its name from its ancestral county of Luxembourg which they continued to hold.
The Burgundian Circle was an Imperial Circle of the Holy Roman Empire created in 1512 and significantly enlarged in 1548. In addition to the Free County of Burgundy, the Burgundian Circle roughly covered the Low Countries, i.e., the areas now known as the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg and adjacent parts in the French administrative region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. For most of its history, its lands were coterminous with the holdings of the Spanish Habsburgs in the Empire.
The Duchy of Brabant, a state of the Holy Roman Empire, was established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant of 1085–1183, and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries. The Duchy comprised part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1482, until it was partitioned after the Dutch revolt of 1566–1648.
The County of Luxembourg was a State of the Holy Roman Empire. It arose from medieval Lucilinburhuc Castle in the present-day City of Luxembourg, purchased by Siegfried, Count of the Ardennes in 963. His descendants of the Ardennes–Luxembourg dynasty began to call themselves Counts of Luxembourg from the 11th century onwards. The House of Luxembourg, a cadet branch of the Dukes of Limburg, became one of the most important political forces of the 14th century, contending with the House of Habsburg for supremacy in the Holy Roman Empire.
The House of Ardenne–Verdun was a branch of the House of Ardenne, one of the first documented medieval European noble families, centered on Verdun. The family dominated in the Duchy of Lotharingia (Lorraine) in the 10th and 11th centuries. All members descended from Cunigunda of France, a granddaughter of the West Frankish king Louis the Stammerer. She married twice but all or most of her children were children of her first husband, Count Palatine Wigeric of Lotharingia. The other main branches of the House of Ardennes were the House of Ardenne–Luxembourg, and the House of Ardenne–Bar.
The Reginarids were a family of magnates in Lower Lotharingia during the Carolingian and Ottonian period. Their modern name is derived from the personal name which many members of the family bore, and which is seen as a Leitname of the family. At least two Dukes of Lotharingia in the 10th century belonged to this family. After a period of exile and rebellion, the two brothers who returned to power founded the first dynasties of the County of Hainault and County of Louvain. The latter were ancestors of the House of Brabant, Landgraves and later Dukes of Brabant, Lothier and Limburg. The Reginarid Brabant dynasty ended in 1355, leaving its duchies to the House of Luxembourg which in turn left them to the House of Valois-Burgundy in 1383. Junior branches of the male line include the medieval male line of the English House of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, and the German House of Hesse which ruled Hesse from 1264 until 1918, included King Frederick of Sweden and still exists today.
