The County of Holland was a state of the Holy Roman Empire from its inception until 1433. From 1433 onward it was 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 County of Holland was the first Holy Roman county in the area to reach a substantial level of economic, cultural, military, and technological development, having had time to undergo this development before the area became classed as a county.
Etymology
The oldest sources refer to the not clearly defined county as Frisia, west of the Vlie (also known as West Frisia). Before 1101, sources talk about Frisian counts, but in this year Floris II, Count of Holland, is mentioned as Florentius comes de Hollant ('Floris, Count of Holland'). Another early usage of the word is a deed dated 1083 in which Dirk V used the term "Count of Holland" for himself.
Holland is probably from the Old Dutch: holt lant, lit. 'wood land'. The counts of Holland generally kept to this single title until 1291, when Floris V, Count of Holland decided to call himself "Count of Holland and Zeeland, Lord of Friesland". This title was also used after Holland was united with Hainault, Bavaria-Straubing, and the Duchy of Burgundy. The titles eventually lost their importance, and the last count, Philip II of Spain, only mentioned them halfway through his long list of titles.
History
Francia and Lotharingia
Around 800, under Charlemagne, the Frankish Empire covered much of Europe. In much of this empire, an important unit of regional administration (corresponding roughly to a shire or county in England) was the gau (Frankish) or pagus (Latin). A comes (count) ruled one or more gaue. Because of the low volume of trade, the negative trade balance with the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim states and the disappearance of currency, the economy was more or less reduced to barter. The king's vassals could be rewarded only with land (beneficium or, from the tenth century, feodum) and usufruct, and feudalism developed from that. The vassals, who were generally appointed by the king, strove for a system of inheritance. This informal rule became more widespread and in 877 was legalised in the Capitulary of Quierzy.
Upon the death of a king, the Frankish kingdom was frequently divided among his heirs. The system of partible inheritance often caused internal strife, which made centralized government problematic. The Viking raids further undermined centralized government. At the end of the reign of Emperor Louis the Pious, royal power had weakened by the flood of 838 and by infighting between the king's sons. After Louis died in 840, his son, Emperor Lothair I, who was king of Middle Francia, rewarded the Danish Viking brothers Rorik and Harald with Frisia in an attempt to resist Viking attacks.
When Lothair died in 855, the northern part of Middle Francia was awarded to his second son, Lothair II, and was called Lotharingia.
Rorik was granted the right to rule Kennemerland in 862.
The 880 Treaty of Ribemont added the Kingdom of Lotharingia (which included the Low Countries) to East Francia, which attempted to integrate it. However, there were no strong political connections like those between the four German stem duchies of east Francia: Franconia, the Saxony, the Bavaria and the Swabia. Lotharingia had considerable self-determination; this became clear when Louis the Child, East Francia's last Carolingian, died in 911. Although the stem duchies flocked to Duke Conrad I of Franconia, Lotharingia chose the Carolingian king of West Francia, Charles the Simple.
In Frisia, the situation was complex. Power was in the hands of Rorik's successor, Godfrid, who became embroiled in the politics of the Frankish empire and was allied with the children of Lothair II. Danish rule ended in 885 with the murder of Godfrid at Herispijk, and all Danes east of the coastal areas of West Frisia were killed or driven out in what must have been a complex, successful conspiracy. Henry of Franconia led a coalition of Babenberg Franks, Hamaland Saxons and Teisterbant Frisians (in cooperation with the bishop of Cologne and the Emperor), which outsmarted Godfrid and the Danes. The chief conspirator in the murder was Everard Saxo, count of Hamaland. One of those who profited most from the power vacuum was the Frisian Gerolf, comes Fresonum (count of Frisia), from Westergo in the present-day province of Friesland. Gerolf, Godfrid's former envoy to the emperor, demanded lands in the Moselle valley from the emperor to provoke a war.
After the elimination of a large portion of the Danish population, Gerulf controlled a large Frisian part of the later county of Holland. This fait accompli was recognised when Gerolf was given lands in full ownership on 4 August 889 by the East Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia, who needed strong warlords in the delta region to keep the Danes and other Vikings out. The lands in question included an area outside Gerulf's county, in Teisterbant, which included Tiel, Aalburg and Asch. It also involved a forest and field between the mouth of the Old Rhine (and presumably Bennebroek), Suithardeshaga, the border between the former Frankish counties of Rijnland and Kennemerland. A line of Gerulf's descendants became the Counts of Holland.
King Charles the Simple gave the church in Egmond and its possessions to Count Dirk I of Holland in 922 in gratitude for Dirk's support in the Battle of Soissons to suppress a rebellion of his West Frankish vassals. The West Frankish king was able to do this because the lands and churches he granted to Dirk were outside his jurisdiction; Egmond was just north of possessions which Dirk had received from Gerulf and was a good match. He then founded Egmond Abbey, Holland's oldest monastery. When Charles the Simple was deposed in 923, King Henry the Fowler of East Francia allied with Count Gilbert of Hainaut (son of Duke Reginar of Lorraine) and re-conquered Lotharingia. By 925, the Lotharingian nobles accepted his rule and Lotharingia (with the Frisian lands) became a fifth German stem duchy. Henry's power was limited by his vassal, Gilbert (Duke of Lotharingia), whose power was limited to his own counties.
Imperial State
The rising status of the House of Holland was shown when in 938 Count Dirk II, probably the grandson of Count Dirk I, married at the age of 8 with Hildegard of Flanders, daughter of Count Arnulf I of Flanders.
The County of Holland and other nearby territories had a considerable amount of independence from Holy Roman Empire leadership in the 10th and 11th centuries. Until at least the second half of the 10th century, Holland's leadership valued secular principles, a contrast to the nearby Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht.
The count of Holland was in this period more of a military commander who had to resist Viking raids, and be subject to the authority of the Bishopric of Utrecht. In 985, King Otto III, at the request of his mother Theophanu, granted the ownership (proprium) of a number of lands to count Dirk II. These lands had already been given in loan (beneficium). This was the area between the rivers Loira or Lier and Hisla (a gouw called Masaland), villa Sunnimeri (on the Zeelandish island of Schouwen), the area between the rivers Medemelaka and Chinnelosara gemerchi (Kinheim) and the gouw Texla.
In 993, count Arnulf of Ghent was killed in a battle against Frisian land reclaimers who did not want to pay their due to the count. It is unknown where this battle took place but it was probably in the Rijnland or in the Maas estuary. Arnulf's son, count Dirk III of Holland was too young to rule, so his mother Lutgardis of Luxemburg acted as regent. In 1005 Dirk was old enough to rule in his own name, but he still made thankful use of the good connections that his mother had made. According to Thietmar of Merseburg, a reconciliation with the Frisians was arranged with help from his uncle-in-law, king Henry II, who travelled with an army and a fleet from Utrecht to the Maas-estuary (probably Vlaardingen) to force the inhabitants to recognize their count. This expedition appears to have been successful since after 1005 no revolts against the count in this southern part of the later county of Holland are known.
As a result of a promise he had made during the Frisian rebellion, Dirk III went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When he returned, the northern side of his county had become unsafe, so he travelled south and started granting rights to reclaim lands from nature around present-day Vlaardingen in order to cultivate these lands. He also built a castle at Silva Meriwido, the future Vlaardingen. From this castle, he forced merchants that travelled per ship from Tiel to England to pay toll. The Bishop of Utrecht, Adalbold and the merchants of Tiel complained against this piracy at the Reichstag of Nijmegen in 1018, the merchants of Tiel effectively pointing out that the emperor was losing tax revenue when he allowed the Tiel merchants to being plundered by Dirk III. It was decided to act against Dirk III. An army led by Godfrey II Duke of Lower Lorraine, consisting of a fleet with soldiers from the bishops of Utrecht, Cologne, Cambrai and Liège was however surprisingly ambushed in a swamp and nearly annihilated by Dirk III Frisian subjects in what was called the Battle of Vlaardingen, Dirk III himself playing a coordinating role, only to appear from his castle to officially take prisoner the duke of Lower Lorraine, when Godfrey was on the verge of being killed.
So as not to weaken the protection the county of Holland offered against the Viking raids, King Henry II decided to let the matter rest, though he did strengthen the position of the Bishop of Utrecht, the nominal feudal lord of the counts of Holland. Nonetheless, Dirk managed to expand his territory to the east at the cost of the Bishopric of Utrecht. After the death of Henry II in 1024, Dirk III supported the candidature of Conrad II in an attempt to reconcile with the imperial authorities, so as to keep the lands he had acquired or expand them even further.
Emperor Conrad II died during a stay in Utrecht in 1039 during the rule of bishop Bernold, after which his organs were interred in the Cathedral of Utrecht. His son and successor, Henry III, granted numerous favours to the bishopric of Utrecht. In this way, the Oversticht was assigned to the bishopric in 1040. Though the count of Holland had been reconciled with the emperor, Henry III still decided to punish the count. In 1046 the emperor forced Dirk IV to relinquish the lands he had conquered. However, the emperor was not able to maintain himself in the area and was forced to retreat, after which Dirk IV started to raid and plunder the bishoprics of Utrecht and Liège. Moreover, Dirk signed treaties with Godfrey the Bearded, duke of Lower Lorraine, as well as the counts of Flanders and Hainaut. The Emperor responded with a second punitive expedition in which Vlaardingen and the castle at Rijnsburg were taken from Dirk IV. The castle was completely destroyed. However, the emperor suffered heavy losses during his retreat, upon which Dirk's allies openly revolted against the emperor. In 1049 Dirk IV was lured into a trap and killed by assassins hired by the bishops of Metz, Liège and Utrecht. Dirk died young, unmarried and childless. He was succeeded by his brother Floris I.
Floris I managed to expand his territory with a small area within the Rijnland Gouw, an area called Holtland ("Woodland"), or Holland. It is most likely that this name soon became synonymous with Floris' whole territory. In 1061 a war broke out, in which it is not clear whether it was against Brabant, Utrecht or Liège. During this war, Floris was ambushed while relaxing too much and in too small a company when he was raiding in the former Teisterbant county, now Utrechtian territory. He was killed by either Utrechtian or Gueldrian troops. His son Dirk V was still a minor, so his mother Gertrude of Saxony became regent. Gertrude remarried in 1063 with Robert the Frisian, a younger brother of the count of Flanders, Baldwin VI and a grandson of a former French king, Robert II, who also acted as regent for Dirk V.