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57-527: The history of Muiden Castle begins with Count Floris V who built a stone castle at the mouth of the river in 1280, when he gained command over an area that used to be part of the See of Utrecht . The Vecht river was the trade route to Utrecht , one of the most important trade towns of that age. The castle was used to enforce a toll on the traders. It is a relatively small castle, measuring 32 by 35 metres with brick walls well over 1.5 metres thick. A large moat surrounded

114-470: A Frankish gau or pagus which included the Roman towns of Famars and Bavay . In the 9th century, if not earlier, it was also described as a county , which implies that it had a single count governing it. As with many counties of the region, there was apparently a 10th-century fragmentation of territories among different counts, which is difficult to reconstruct. In 1071 a single large territorial county

171-487: A Frisian ruler named Radbod, at some point in late 9th or early 10th century. The late 14th century Annales Hannoniae , which give legendary origins of the Counts of Hainaut, describes this Reginar I as a count of Mons – a title held by his descendants. [1] The first recorded count who was associated as a count with any part of Hainaut in a contemporary record was Count Sigehard . Leon Vanderkindere proposed that this Sigehard

228-560: A defense of Cambrai in 979, and appear in other records. They are believed to be the same as Count Godfrey "the captive" , and Arnulf of Valenciennes . In 998 the Reginar IV regained control over the County of Mons , in Hainaut, from Godfrey according to Alberic of Trois-Fontaines . Historian Michel de Waha believes this late report can not be trusted, and that we can only say they took control in

285-639: A hunting party and brought him to Muiderslot castle. The news of the capture spread quickly; afraid of the people, four days later the lords together with their captive left the castle to get to a safer place. They were stopped by an angry mob of local peasants. In panic Gerard of Velzen killed the count, and the lords fled. Gerard was eventually captured and killed in Leiden . The other conspirators fled to Brabant, Flanders and perhaps to Prussia , to which many colonists and crusaders from Holland migrated. The life and death of Floris V inspired songs, plays, and books in

342-494: A mostly peaceful reign, modernizing administration, policies beneficial to trade, generally acting in the interests of his peasants at the expense of nobility, and reclaiming land from the sea. His dramatic murder, said by some to have been arranged by King Edward I of England and Guy, Count of Flanders , made him a hero in Holland. Floris was the son of Count William II (1227–1256) and Elisabeth of Brunswick-Lüneburg . His father

399-576: Is buried. Her estates were incorporated into the Burgundian Netherlands . Philip was already Duke of Burgundy , Count of Flanders, Artois , Namur and Franche-Comte , and would later become Duke of Brabant , Limbourg , and Luxembourg . His family, the House of Valois-Burgundy , a branch of the French royal family, created a powerful state between France and Germany and Hainaut was part of it. Charles

456-441: Is probably the count of 953 mentioned above, with his seat in or near Valenciennes. According to Hlawitchka, Richizo is probably Richwin, a brother of Count Richer who died in 972. The Regnarid brothers apparently did not succeed in gaining Hainaut, or even Mons for some decades. The Gesta of the bishops of Cambrai records that two counts named Godefrid and Arnulf succeeded Richizo and Amelric, and these two counts were involved in

513-672: The Burgundian Netherlands , was inherited by the Habsburg dynasty in the 1470s. In 1659 and 1678 southern Hainaut was acquired by France. The northern part continued as part of the Habsburg Netherlands . Like much of that state, the northern part of Hainaut was absorbed into the First French Republic in 1797 after the end of the Ancien Régime ; it later became part of newly-formed Belgium in 1830. The river Haine, for which

570-561: The Holy Roman Empire as her dowry. The revived County of Hainaut, therefore, emerged from the refeudalisation of three immediate counties: The unification of the County of Hainaut as an Imperial fief was accomplished after Arnulf's defeat in 1071, when Richilde and her son Baldwin II tried to sell their fiefs to Emperor Henry IV . Henry IV ordered the Prince-Bishop of Liège to purchase

627-599: The Kingdom of Germany . Hainaut and its neighbourhood remained an important frontier area, or "march" , during the High Middle Ages . Though a part of the Holy Roman Empire , ruled from present-day Germany, it was culturally and linguistically French and ecclesiastically part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Reims . Like its neighbours such as the counties of Brabant and Flanders , it frequently became entangled in

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684-601: The Middle Ages , its Counts also gained control of part of the original pagus of Brabant to its north and the pagus of Oosterbant to the east, but they did not form part of the old pagus of Hainaut. In modern terms, the original core of Hainaut consisted of the central part of the Belgian province of Hainaut , and the eastern part of the French département of Nord (the arrondissements of Avesnes-sur-Helpe and Valenciennes ). Hainaut appears in 8th-century records as

741-631: The house of Avesnes , who was an arch-enemy of the count of Flanders of the house of Dampierre . Floris married Beatrix of Dampierre, the daughter of Guy of Dampierre , count of Flanders, in 1269. In 1272 Floris unsuccessfully attacked the Frisians (culminating in the Battle of Heiloo ) in a first attempt to retrieve the body of his father. In 1274 he faced an uprising by nobles led by the powerful lords Gijsbrecht IV of Amstel , Zweder of Abcoude , Arnoud of Amstel , and Herman VI van Woerden , who held lands on

798-932: The throne of Scotland in the Great Cause (his great-grandmother Ada being the sister of King William I of Scotland ), he did not receive the expected support from Edward, but England did support his claims in a new, this time more successful, war on Flanders. Amid the Gascon War between England and France, Edward   I moved his trade in wool from Dordrecht in Holland to Mechelen in Brabant to aid Flanders in its own war against France . Floris then switched sides to France in 1296. Edward I subsequently prohibited all English trade with Holland and conspired with Guy of Flanders to have Floris kidnapped and taken to France. The humiliated lords Gijsbrecht IV of Amstel and Herman of Woerden, together with Gerard van Velsen , captured Floris during

855-804: The "God of the Peasants" became a symbolic hero in the struggle for independence from Spain in the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). Floris V was the son of Count William II of Holland and Elisabeth of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In c. 1271 Floris married Beatrice of Flanders, daughter of Guy de Dampierre , count of Flanders and Matilda, heiress of Bethune, Dendermonde, Richebourg and Warneton. Floris and Beatrice had several children including: Floris had several illegitimate children, including: County of Hainaut The County of Hainaut ( French : Comté de Hainaut ; Dutch : Graafschap Henegouwen ; Latin : comitatus hanoniensis ), sometimes spelled Hainault ,

912-476: The 10th century. The region is associated by many historians such as Leon Vanderkindere with the so-called Reginarid dynasty who were a powerful and rebellious Lotharingian family, known for their frequent use of the name Reginar. This is because later in the 10th century a branch of this family succeeded to take the county by force, after returning from exile. However, while the later family clearly claimed to have once had important rights throughout Lotharingia,

969-407: The 18th century, the castle was first used as a prison, then abandoned and became derelict. Further neglect caused it to be offered for sale in 1825, with the purpose of it being demolished. Only intervention by King William I prevented this. Another 70 years went by until enough money was gathered to restore the castle to its former glory. Muiden Castle is currently a national museum. The inside of

1026-616: The Bold of Burgundy, the son of Philip, was however killed at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, and the male line of the Burgundian dukes became extinct. In the same year, Charles' daughter Mary of Burgundy married Archduke Maximilian I of Habsburg , the son of Emperor Frederick III , and Hainaut passed to the Habsburg dynasty , who were emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and kings of Spain. King Louis XI of France had hoped to take advantage of

1083-592: The Dampierres. In 1282 Floris again attacked the troublesome Frisians in the north, defeating them at the battle of Vronen , and succeeded in retrieving the body of his father. After a campaign in 1287–1288 he finally defeated the Frisians. In the meantime he had received Zeeland-bewester-Schelde (the area that controls access to the Scheldt river) as a loan from the Holy Roman King Rudolf I of Germany in 1287, but

1140-656: The French revolution it formed the basis of the newly named French département of Nord . Today the area is still referred to as French Hainaut . The northern part of Hainaut, around Mons, remained part of the Spanish Netherlands, which became the Austrian Netherlands after the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht – moving possession from one branch of the Habsburgs to another. In 1797, during the French Revolution ,

1197-549: The Great , so he was deposed from all offices, exiled and banned in 958. The Vita of Gerard of Brogne also names him as a count of Hainaut. Ulrich Nonn considers it likely that he held Mons because it aligns with other evidence. A Count named Amelric who was "from" the pagus of Hainaut (Latin: ex pago Hainou ) is named in or after 953 in the Deeds of the bishops of Cambrai . This is generally taken to mean that Hainaut already included

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1254-593: The Netherlands. Best known is the play Gijsbrecht van Aemstel by 17th century playwright and poet Joost van den Vondel , which is about the sacking of Amsterdam in the days after the death of Floris V. The nickname "God of the Peasants" was introduced after Floris' death in the nobility and was originally intended to be an insult. He earned the name because he behaved "as if he were the Good Lord himself with his peasants". He apparently knighted 40 peasants as members of

1311-459: The Order of St. James without permission of the church, provoking the anger of the church and of the 12 existing noble members of that knightly order. This story has no historical basis, just like another story that claims that Gerard of Velzen participated in the conspiracy because Floris supposedly raped his wife. What is certain is that Floris was remembered as a saint by the peasants of Holland and that

1368-637: The Roman province of Belgica II , it came under the administration of Childeric I , who had been the military ruler of the Frankish army who previously fought under Romans in Gaul , north of the Loire . The Merovingian dynasty , and later the Carolingians, kept many of the Roman districts, and established counts to administer pagi . As explained by Nonn, there are very few, if any, clear records of counts of all Hainaut in

1425-464: The Scheldt as far as the Selle river, where the most significant Roman city of the area was Famars (Roman Fanum Martis , literally 'shrine of Mars'), which had been a religious and administrative centre. In the early Middle Ages, records sometimes refer to places within the pagus of Hainaut as being within the pagus Fanomartenis , indicating that either Hainaut had an alternative name, or that Fanum Martis

1482-456: The area (Het Gooiland). For 39 years he spent his summers in the castle and invited friends, scholars, poets and painters such as Vondel , Huygens , Bredero and Maria Tesselschade Visscher , over for visits. This group became known as the Muiderkring . He also extended the garden and the plum orchard, while at the same time an outer earthworks defense system was put into place. At the end of

1539-461: The border with the adjacent bishopric of Utrecht (the area of Amsterdam , Abcoude , IJsselstein , and Woerden ) at the expense of the bishop. Gijsbrecht and Herman were supported by the craftsmen of Utrecht , the peasants of Kennemerland ( Alkmaar , Haarlem , and surroundings), Waterland (north of Amsterdam ) and Amstelland (Amsterdam and surroundings) and the West Frisians . He assisted

1596-590: The castle was conquered by Willem van Mechelen , the Archbishop of Utrecht , and by the year 1300 the castle was demolished. A hundred years later (ca. 1370–1386) the castle was rebuilt on the same spot based on the same plan, by Albert I, Duke of Bavaria , who at that time was also the Count of Holland and Zeeland . The next owner of the castle shows up in the 16th century, when P.C. Hooft (1581-1647), an author, poet and historian took over sheriff and bailiff duties for

1653-454: The castle, its rooms and kitchens, was restored to look like they did in the 17th century and several of the rooms now house a collection of arms and armour. Floris V Floris V (24 June 1254 – 27 June 1296) reigned as Count of Holland and Zeeland from 1256 until 1296. His life was documented in detail in the Rijmkroniek by Melis Stoke , his chronicler. He is credited with

1710-502: The castle. In 1296, Gerard van Velsen conspired together with Herman van Woerden , Gijsbrecht IV of Amstel , and several others to kidnap Floris V. The count was eventually imprisoned in Muiden Castle. After Floris V attempted to escape, Gerard personally killed the count on the 27th of June 1296 by stabbing him 20 times. The alleged cause of the conflict between the nobles was the rape of Gerard van Velsen's wife by Floris. In 1297,

1767-624: The death of his cousin, Charles and sent an army to invade the Netherlands. However, the French were defeated at the Battle of Guinegate in 1479, and Hainaut was consolidated in the Habsburg Netherlands by the Treaty of Arras in 1482. Hainaut became part of the Burgundian Circle in the Holy Roman empire in 1512. It was ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1555 to 1714. In 1579 Hainaut

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1824-528: The early medieval records mentioning Hainaut, starting in the 9th century, describe it as a pagus , a land or country, rather than a county. 8th- and 9th-century attestations, as listed by Ulrich Nonn, however, never name any specific counts who ruled it: Many such early medieval pagi in Europe have histories going back to the Roman Empire . As the Roman empire lost centralized control of this region, which lay in

1881-507: The exact nature of most of these is unclear, and their possession of a county in Hainaut before Reginar III can not be proven. The only medieval record which claims that Reginar I had direct lordship over Hainaut was the much later Dudo of Saint-Quentin , who is considered to be unreliable for this period. He names Reginar as "Duke" (Latin dux ) of both Hesbaye and Hainaut, and discusses his march against Rollo in Walcheren , together with

1938-736: The fiefs and then return them as a unified county to the countess Richilde and, through the chain of feudal authority, to the Dukes of Lower Lorraine . Although Baldwin II did not inherit the County of Flanders, he and his descendants, Baldwin III , Baldwin IV , and Baldwin V , were in the male line of the Counts of Flanders, and the two lines joined again. Baldwin V married the heiress of Flanders, Margaret in 1169, becoming "Baldwin VIII" of Flanders, and during his lifetime Flanders, Hainaut and Namur were united under one lord. In

1995-531: The jurisdictions of more than one count. Apart from the one associated with Mons, Amulric perhaps held a county based in Valenciennes. The second or third count of Hainaut to be named in a contemporary record was however called Godefrid, starting in 958, the year of Reginar III's exile. He is generally considered to be Godfrey I, Duke of Lower Lorraine who died in 964 in Italy. After the death of Godfrey in Italy, he

2052-513: The local nobility sided with the count of Flanders who invaded in 1290. Floris arranged a meeting with count Guy of Flanders, but he was taken prisoner in Biervliet and was forced to abandon his claims and then set free. Floris immediately wanted to resume war, but King Edward I of England, who had an interest in access to the great rivers for wool and other English goods, convinced Floris to stop hostilities with Flanders. When in 1292 Floris claimed

2109-757: The next generation, Namur was given to a different son than Flanders and Hainaut, which remained together under Baldwin VI/IX , who became the first emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople . Baldwin's brother, Philip I of Namur was regent in Hainaut but also had to fight Luxembourg for control of Namur. Baldwin himself was killed in Bulgaria, leaving two heiresses, Joan who ruled but died childless in 1244, and Margaret who ruled from 1244 and married twice. The lines of her two husbands divided Flanders and Hainaut between them: From 1299, Hainaut's count Jean II, d'Avesnes ,

2166-526: The northern part of the county was ceded to France by Emperor Francis II , who was also count of Hainaut. It became the French département of Jemappe . After the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the northern part, once again called Hainaut, went to the new Kingdom of the Netherlands , and then in 1830 to the Kingdom of Belgium which was created from the southern part of that kingdom. It forms

2223-543: The oldest name of the pagus on the Meuse river north of Maastricht. The related word " gau ", used in the modern Dutch and German names of Hainaut, Hennegouwen and Hennegau , was also used but never became popular in medieval documents concerning this particular area. The first surviving records indicating that Hainaut was a county are the records of the Carolingian dynasty being divided into parts in 831, 843 and 870. Most of

2280-558: The oldest region of development in the civitas of the Belgic Nervii . They had their early capital in Bavay in Hainaut (Roman Bagacum ), which became a major Roman crossroads. The etymology of Hainaut is thought to be Germanic . The first part is the river name (the modern Haine, probably based on Germanic) and the second component was originally based upon Germanic *awja , which appears in several old Frankish gau names, such as Masau ,

2337-764: The original pagus (country or territory) is named, flows from east to west. It originates in the once forested area between Binche and modern Charleroi , near the Sambre. It empties into the Scheldt . From the earliest records, Hainaut also extended south of the Haine to the upper Sambre , the Helpe Majeure , Helpe Mineure and the Avesnois region in the Arrondissement of Avesnes-sur-Helpe . Hainaut's pagus also extended southwest along

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2394-411: The period 985–1015, and probably after 1007. Reginar IV died 1013, and was succeeded by his son Reginar V. Reginar IV's brother Lambert, who made himself Count of Louvain, died in battle in Hainaut in 1015. The County of Valenciennes disappears from records after the death of Arnulf of Valenciennes in about 1011, with this part of Hainaut possibly being taken over by the County of Flanders. Reginar V ,

2451-548: The politics of France. The counts of Hainaut were often rulers of other counties, including Flanders and Holland . Examples of such personal unions include the following: In 1432, Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland joined Flanders, Artois , Namur , Brabant, Limbourg , and later Luxembourg , within the large agglomeration of territories in the Low Countries belonging to the French House of Valois-Burgundy . This new state,

2508-713: The so-called Hook and Cod wars which were partly driven by factions in Holland. After the death of Duke William II of Bavaria-Straubing in 1417, Hainaut was inherited by his daughter Jacqueline , who had a powerful opponent in her cousin, Philip the Good. Already in 1428, effective control of Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland was acquired by Philip the Good . In 1432 Jacqueline had to cede the inheritance rights of Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland to Duke Philip. The last independent countess died early on 8 October 1436 (presumably of tuberculosis ) in Teylingen Castle , near The Hague , where she

2565-611: The son of Jean I, was also Count of Holland and Zeeland , through his mother. He was also an unsuccessful claimant to become Count of Flanders. After his grandson William died in 1347, these same lordships went to his sister, and were held by members of the Wittelsbach dynasty who also possessed the Dukedom of Bavaria-Straubing . This branch of the Wittelsbach family held Hainaut until 1436. The Wittelsbachs struggled against each other in

2622-481: The son of Reginar IV, married the granddaughter of his father's old rival, Godefrid the "captive". The bishop, Gerard of Florennes, accepted this diplomatic marriage despite the couple being within the degrees of relationship where this would normally not be allowed. When the last Reginarid Count of Hainaut, Herman, the son of Reginar V, died without issue in 1051, his widow Richilde married Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders , who

2679-477: The weak bishop, John I of Nassau , by making a treaty with the craftsmen. The bishop would become dependent on Holland's support, and eventually added the lands of the rebellious lords to Holland in 1279. He gave concessions to the peasants of Kennemerland. Kennemerland was a duneland, where the farmers had far fewer rights than the farmers in the polders. Floris got rid of the Avesnes influence and switched allegiance to

2736-555: Was a member of the Union of Arras which submitted to the rule of Habsburg Spain , while the northern Union of Utrecht rebelled and formed the Dutch Republic in 1581. The 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees and the 1679 Treaties of Nijmegen cut Hainaut in two. The southern area, around the towns of Valenciennes , Le Quesnoy and Avesnes , was ceded to France under King Louis XIV . During

2793-606: 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 ( Dutch : Bergen ), now in Belgium, and Valenciennes , now in France. The core of the county, named after the river Haine , stretched southeast to include the Avesnois region and southwest to the Selle (Scheldt tributary) . In

2850-410: Was a vassal of the French crown. On the death of his father in 1067, Baldwin VI became the ruler of both Hainaut and Flanders. He was succeeded by his son Arnulf III , who was killed at the Battle of Cassel in 1071 in an inheritance dispute with his uncle, Robert I the Frisian . The victorious Robert acquired Flanders, but his sister-in-law Richilde retained the adjacent Lower Lorraine territories in

2907-446: Was base to a sub- pagus . According to the 10th-century monk Folcuin , Hainaut was simply a new name for the old Roman name, which had been connected to pre-Christian superstition . The geographical definition of Hainaut as found in the oldest medieval records, was relatively stable, as shown by Faider-Feytman, Deru, and other historians of the region. According to archaeological evidence, geographical Hainaut, including Avesnes, formed

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2964-406: Was given its more-or-less final form that lasted for the rest of the Middle Ages . For much of its existence the County of Hainaut was a frontier territory, bordering upon the Kingdom of France . From 843 the County formed part of the "middle kingdom" of Lotharingia . After about 925 Lotharingia was definitively attached by King Henry the Fowler to his eastern Frankish realm that would become

3021-446: Was given the county while Reginar I was out of favour. In fact no such connections can be proven. He was more clearly described as a count in the pagus Liugas , east of Liège . From 925, Lotharingia, including Hainaut, was continuously part of the eastern kingdom, "Germany". In 939, the Reginars led a rebellion against Germany which was defeated. Gilbert, Duke of Lorraine , the son of Reginar I who had been leader of this rebellion,

3078-422: Was killed. Reginar II (died before 943), the younger son of Reginar I, was named as a Count of Hainaut in the late 11th-century life story ( Vita ) of Gerard of Brogne (died 959), but this work is considered unreliable, and we can not be certain of this position. His son Count Reginar III Longneck , may also have been a count in Hainaut. What is more certain is that he unsuccessfully rebelled against Duke Bruno

3135-449: Was replaced in Hainaut by a Count Richer , who was perhaps the same Count Richer who held a county in the pagus of Liège. In 972 he died. In 973 two noble brothers, Werner and Reynold, were killed near Mons fighting the two sons of Reginar III, Reginar IV and Lambert , who had returned to claim their father's property. Also in 973, Counts named Amelric and Richizo appeared in a royal grant in favour of Crispin Abbey in Hainaut. Amelric

3192-465: Was slain in 1256 by Frisians when Floris was just two years old. Custody over Floris fell first to his uncle ( Floris de Voogd from 1256 to 1258), then to his aunt ( Adelaide of Holland from 1258 to 1263). The fight over custody of Holland culminated in the battle of Reimerswaal on 22 January 1263, where Count Otto II of Guelders defeated Aleidis and was chosen regent by the nobles who opposed Aleidis. Otto II served as Floris V's guardian until he

3249-415: Was twelve years old (1266) and considered capable of administering Holland himself. Floris's mother, Elisabeth, continued to reside in Holland after her husband's death in 1256. She died on 27 May 1266 and is buried in Middelburg abbey church. She died in the same year that Count Floris V was declared old enough to rule without guardianship, on 10 July 1266. Floris was supported by the count of Hainaut of

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