Brabant
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Brabant is a former duchy in the Low Countries, and a former province of Belgium.
Duchy of Brabant
The territory of the Duchy of Brabant corresponded approximately to that of the present Dutch province North Brabant and three provinces and one region of Belgium: Antwerp, Walloon Brabant, Flemish Brabant and Brussels-Capital Region. The Duchy of Brabant came into existence in 1190. The title "Duke of Brabant" was created when the counts of Leuven acquired the Duchy of Lower Lorraine after the death of Godfrey of Bouillon. Its chief cities were Leuven, Brussels and above all Antwerp.
After the Battle of Worringen in 1288, the dukes of Brabant gained control of the Duchy of Limburg. In 1430, the Duchies of Brabant and Limburg were taken over by Philip the Good of Burgundy. In 1477 they fell to the Habsburgs as the dowry of Mary of Burgundy. The subsequent history of Brabant is part of the history of the Seventeen Provinces.
The Eighty Years' War (1568 - 1648) brought independence from the Habsburgs for the northern provinces. After the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the United Provinces' de jure independence was confirmed, and the northern part of Brabant, which was already under Dutch military control, was ceded to the United Provinces as Staats-Brabant, a federally governed territory (the present North Brabant). The southern part remained in Habsburg hands as a part of the Southern Netherlands. It was transferred to the Austrian branch of that family in 1714. At the French occupation of the Southern Netherlands in 1795 the duchy of Brabant was dissolved. It was divided between the départements of Deux-Nèthes (present province of Antwerp) and Dyle (the later province of Brabant).
Province of Brabant
After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (consisting of modern day Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) was created at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The former département Dyle became the new province of Brabant. With the Belgian independence of 1830, Brabant became part of Belgium. The capital of Brabant was Brussels.
In 1989 Brussels-Capital Region was created, but the region was still part of the province of Brabant. In 1995 the province of Brabant was split into the Dutch speaking Flemish Brabant, the French speaking Walloon Brabant and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region.
The international border between the Netherlands and Belgium in Brabant is of interest because it is not a continuous line. There are several enclaves and exclaves in the municipalities Baarle-Hertog (Belgium) and Baarle-Nassau (Netherlands).
See also
- North Brabant, a province of the Netherlands.
- Flemish Brabant, a province of Belgium, Flemish Region.
- Walloon Brabant, a province of Belgium, Wallonia.
- Brabantic, a dialect of the Dutch language.
- Duke of Brabantcs:Brabant