COUNTY OF HAINAUT

:''This article deals with the historical county of Hainaut, for other meanings see Hainaut.''
The 'County of Hainaut' (, ) was a historical region in the Low Countries. It consisted of what is now the Belgian province of Hainaut and the southern part of the French département Nord. In Roman times, Hainaut was situated in the Roman provinces of Belgica and Germania Inferior and inhabited by Celtic tribes, until Germanic peoples replaced them and made an end to Roman Imperial rule. Its most important cities were Mons (Bergen), Cambrai (Kamerijk) and Charleroi. Today the historic county of Hainaut is territorially divided between Belgium and France.

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History

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History

The county of Hainaut, located in the west of the Holy Roman Empire, near to the borders with the Kingdom of France, emerged from the refeudalisation of three counties in 1071:

★ the county of Mons

★ the southern part of the landgraviate of Brabant

★ the Ottonian margraviate of Valenciennes
The unification of the county of Hainaut as imperial fief was accomplished in 1071, when Richilde, Countess of Mons and Hainaut tried to sell her fiefs to Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor after she was defeated in the Battle of Kassel. Henry IV ordered the Bishop of Liège to buy the fiefs and to give them back as a unified county in feud to the countess Richilde, by feudal intermediance however of the Duke of Lower Lotharingia. The counts of Hainaut had several historical connections with the counts of Flanders and Holland, to whom they had strong family ties.
Throughout its history, the county of Hainaut formed a personal union with other states, e.g.:

★ Hainaut and Flanders: 1067–71 and 1191–1246

★ Hainaut and Holland: 1299–1436

★ Hainaut and Bavaria-Straubing: 1356–1429
With the early death of Jacqueline, countess of Hainaut and Holland (presumably of tuberculosis) in Teilingen Castle, near The Hague (where she is buried) on October 8 1436, her estates were acquired by Philip III of Valois, Duke of Burgundy. After the marriage of Mary I of Valois, Duchess of Burgundy to Emperor Maximilian I von Habsburg, the lands became a part of the Habsburg Southern Netherlands, whose history they followed up to and including annexation during the French Revolutionary Wars.

See also

★ Counts of Hainaut

★ Counts of Hainaut family tree

★ Counts of Holland family tree