Founding of Landgraviate of Brabant (1085)

The Landgraviate of Brabant (Modern Dutch: Landgraafschap Brabant, Modern French: Landgraviat de Brabant) was a small imperial fiefdom west of Brussels, consisting of the area between the Dender and Zenne rivers in the Low Countries, then part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Before 1085 the land had belonged to Hermann II, Count Palatine of Lotharingia. Upon his death, Emperor Henry IV assigned it to Henry III, Count of Louvain and Brussels, granting him the Landgraviate of Brabant. This is the earliest known use of the term landgrave.

In 1183 the landgraviate of Brabant and the counties of Louvain and Brussels were formally merged and elevated together into the Duchy of Brabant, by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; Henry I became the first duke of Brabant.

The area made up part of South Brabant from 1815 to 1830 as part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and part of the Belgian Province of Brabant from 1830 to 1996. It is currently in the western part of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Landgraviate of Brabant”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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