History
The first probable ancestor known with any confidence is Gilbert, Count of the Maasgau (mentioned in 841) who served King Lothair I, but defected to Lothair's half-brother Charles the Bald during the civil war of 840–843. In 846 Gilbert abducted an unnamed daughter of Lothair and married her in an attempt to force Lothair to reinstate him. Reginar, Duke of Lorraine (c. 850–916) is believed to be Gilbert's son. Following the death of Charles the Fat, the Reginarids began a long fight with the Conradines for supremacy in Lotharingia. [2] When they triumphed, in 910, it was in electing Charles the Simple as king. It was the combined forces of Bruno I of Lorraine and the Carolingians of West Francia that finally broke the Reginarids' hold on power. [3] In 958, Reginar III had his lands confiscated and redistributed to Gerard, Count of Metz, of the Matfridings, enemies of his family since the reign of Zwentibold. [4]
The Reginarids supported Lothair of France against Otto II, but they made a deal with the latter in 978. [5]
The Reginarids were no longer a unified family by the end of the tenth century. [6] Their descendants in Mons and Louvain continued their spirit of opposition to the king. [7] The house also produced a queen-consort of England in the form of Adeliza of Leuven, who married Henry I of England.
Henry I, named "The Courageous", was a member of the House of Reginar and first duke of Brabant from 1183/84 until his death.
Lotharingia was a short-lived medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. As a more durable later duchy of the Ottonian Empire, it comprised present-day Lorraine (France), Luxembourg, Saarland (Germany), Netherlands, and the eastern half of Belgium, along with parts of today's North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) and Nord (France). It was named after King Lothair II, who received this territory after his father Lothair I's kingdom of Middle Francia was divided among his three sons in 855.
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.
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 what is now the border of Belgium and France. Its most important towns included Mons, now in Belgium, and Valenciennes, now in France.
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.
Lothier refers to the territory within the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia, governed by the dukes of Brabant and their successors after 1190 until the end of the Ancien Régime in 1796.
Godfrey III was count of Louvain, landgrave of Brabant, margrave of Antwerp, and duke of Lower Lorraine from 1142 to his death.
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 the modern Netherlands, central and eastern Belgium, Luxemburg, the northern part of the German Rhineland province and the eastern parts of France's Nord-Pas de Calais region.
The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries, part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1482, until it was partitioned after the Dutch revolt.
Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse was the first child of Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and his second wife, Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. He was a nephew of Empress Alexandra and Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.
Henry III of Louvain, was Count of Louvain (Leuven) and Landgrave of Brabant, son of Henry II, Count of Louvain and Brussels, and Adela of Orthen, a daughter of Count Everard of Orthen.
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.
Reginar Longneck or Reginar I, Latin: Rainerus or Ragenerus Longicollus, was a leading nobleman in the kingdom of Lotharingia, variously described in contemporary sources with the titles of count, margrave, missus dominicus and duke. He stands at the head of a Lotharingian dynasty known to modern scholarship as the Reginarids, because of their frequent use of the name "Reginar".
The Duchess of Brabant refers to a woman married to the Duke of Brabant or a Duchess of Brabant suo jure. But this was only as of 1840 when it was revived as an honorific title for the Crown Prince of the newly created Kingdom of Belgium. There have been only three royal duchesses.
Henry II was the Count of Louvain (Leuven) from 1054 through 1071 (?). Henry II was the son of Lambert II, Count of Louvain and Oda of Verdun. His maternal uncles included Pope Stephen IX and Duke Godfrey the Bearded of Lorraine.
The Margraviate of Antwerp consisted since the eleventh century of the area around the cities of Antwerp and Breda.
Gertrude of Flanders, was a Countess of Louvain and Landgravine of Brabant by marriage to Henry III, Count of Leuven, and a Duchess of Lorraine by marriage to Theodoric II, Duke of Lorraine. At the time the duchy was the upper Lorraine, since 959 separated from the duchy of Lower Lorraine.
Holy Roman Empire 
Kingdom of France 
Kingdom of England 
Duchy of Brabant 
