Seventeen Provinces

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The Seventeen Provinces were a personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 16th century, roughly covering the current Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France (Artois, Nord) and a small part of Germany.

Flag of the Seventeen Provinces, XVIth century

[edit] The 17 Provinces

Fig. 1: Map of the unification of the Seventeen Provinces (1477)

The numbers on the map (Fig. 1) corresponds to the following provinces:

1. the county of Artois
2. the county of Flanders (with the cities of Lille, Douai and Orchies)
3. the lordship of Mechelen
4. the county of Namur
5. the county of Hainaut
6. the county of Zeeland
7. the county of Holland
8. the duchy of Brabant (with Antwerp)
9. the duchy of Limburg
10. the duchy of Luxemburg
11. the lordship of Utrecht
12. the lordship of Friesland
13. the duchy of Guelders (after 1543)
14. the lordship of Groningen
15. the county of Drenthe (with Lingen)
16. the lordship of Overijssel
17. the county of Zutphen

The area in blue (between Lille and Mons) corresponds to the city of Tournai, also considered as one of the 17 Provinces. The Bishopric of Liège, the green area, was not a member-province.

It was not always the same "seventeen" Provinces represented at the Estates-General of the Netherlands. Sometimes one delegation was included in another. Normally Zutphen was a part of Guelders, and Limburg was dependent on Brabant. On the other hand the French-speaking cities of Flanders were sometimes recognised as a separate Province.

In addition, there were a number of fiefdoms in this region that were not part of the Seventeen Provinces; the largest one was the Bishopric of Liège. In the north, there were also a few smaller entities like the island of Ameland that would retain their own lords until the French revolution.

[edit] History

The Seventeen Provinces originated from the Burgundian Netherlands, that were inherited by Maximilian I of Habsburg in 1482. His grandson and successor Charles V united all 17 provinces under his rule, the last one being Guelders, in 1543. Most of these provinces were fiefs under the Holy Roman Empire, of which Charles himself became Emperor. Two, Flanders and Artois, were French fiefs, but were ceded to the Empire in the Treaty of Cambrai in 1529. The Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 determined that the Provinces should remain united in the future.

A map of European Spanish Empire after the Battle of Mühlberg (1547) as depicted in the Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1912); Habsburg lands are shaded green

History of the Low Countries
Bishopric of Liège 985–1790	Burgundian Netherlands			Duchy of Luxembourg integrated 1441
	1384/1473–1482
	Habsburg Netherlands 1482–1556
	Spanish Netherlands	United Netherlands 1581–1795		1581–1713
	Austrian Netherlands			1713–1790
United States of Belgium				1790
Bishopric of Liège 1790–1795	Austrian Netherlands			1790–1794
French Republic		Batavian Republic 1795–1806		1795–1804
French Empire		Kingdom of Holland 1806–1810		1804–1815
United Kingdom of the Netherlands 1815–1830				Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Kingdom of Belgium since 1830		Kingdom of the Netherlands since 1830		(in personal union with the Netherlands until 1890)
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After Charles V's abdication in 1556, his realms became divided between his son, Philip II, and his brother, Ferdinand I. The Netherlands went to his son, the king of Spain.

Conflicts between Philip II and his Dutch subjects led to the Eighty Years' War, which started in 1568. The seven northern provinces gained their independence as a republic called the United Provinces: Groningen, Friesland, Overijssel, Guelders (except its Upper Quarter), Utrecht, Holland and Zeeland.

The southern Provinces, Flanders, Brabant, Namur, Hainaut, Luxembourg a.o., were restored to Spanish rule thanks to the military and political talent of the Duke of Parma, especially at the siege of Antwerp (1584-1585). Hence, these Provinces became known as the Spanish Netherlands or Southern Netherlands. The northern United Provinces kept parts of Limburg, Brabant and Flanders during the Eighty Years' War (see Generality Lands), which was ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Artois, and parts of Flanders and Hainaut were ceded to France in the course of the 17th and 18th century.

[edit] Economy

By the mid-16th century, the city of Antwerp (in Brabant) had become the economic, political and cultural center of the Netherlands after its capital had shifted from nearby Mechelen to Brussels, and Bruges (in Flanders) already having lost its prominent position as economic powerhouse of northern Europe; although Holland was gradually gaining importance in the 15th and 16th centuries.

However after the independence of the seven northern provinces and the resulting closure of the Scheldt river to navigation, a large number of people from the southern provinces emigrated north to the new republic. The center of prosperity moved from cities in the south such as Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels to cities in the north, mostly Holland, including Amsterdam, the Hague, and Rotterdam.

[edit] Netherlands

To distinguish between the older, larger Netherlands from the current country, Dutch speakers usually drop the plural for the latter. They speak of Nederland for the current country and de Nederlanden for the domains of Charles V. In other languages, this has not been adopted, though the larger area is sometimes known as the Low Countries in English.

The fact that the same term Netherlands has such different historical meanings can sometimes lead to difficulties in expressing oneself correctly. For example, composers from the 16th century are often said to belong to the Nederlandse School. Although they themselves would not have objected to that term, today it may wrongly create the impression that they were from the north. In fact, they were almost exclusively from the south.

[edit] See also

• Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands
• Benelux

[edit] External links

• Map of the Seventeen Provinces (1555)
• contemporary map Leo Belgicus