Francia and Lotharingia Around 800, under
Charlemagne, the
Frankish Empire covered much of Europe. In much of this empire, an important unit of regional administration (corresponding roughly to a
shire or
county in England) was the
gau (
Frankish) or
pagus (Latin). A
comes (
count) ruled one or more
gaue. Because of the low volume of trade, the negative trade balance with the
Byzantine Empire and the Muslim states and the disappearance of currency, the economy was more or less reduced to
barter. The king's
vassals could be rewarded only with land (
beneficium or, from the tenth century,
feodum) and
usufruct, and
feudalism developed from that. The vassals, who were generally appointed by the king, strove for a system of inheritance. This informal rule became more widespread and in 877 was legalised in the
Capitulary of Quierzy. Upon the death of a king, the Frankish kingdom was frequently divided among his heirs. The system of
partible inheritance often caused internal strife, which made centralized government problematic. The
Viking raids further undermined centralized government. At the end of the reign of Emperor
Louis the Pious, royal power had weakened by the
flood of 838 and by infighting between the king's sons. After Louis died in 840, his son, Emperor
Lothair I, who was king of
Middle Francia, rewarded the Danish Viking brothers
Rorik The Cod faction generally consisted of the more progressive cities of
Holland. The Hook faction consisted of a large part of the conservative noblemen. Some of the main figures in this multi-generational conflict were
William IV,
Margaret,
William V,
William VI, Count of Holland and Hainaut,
John and Philip the Good. Perhaps the most well known, however, is
Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut. By the end of the Hook and Cod Wars,
Philip the Good,
Duke of Burgundy, had taken control of Holland. Leading noblemen in Holland had invited the duke to conquer Holland, even though he had no historical claim to it. Some historians say that the ruling class in Holland wanted Holland to integrate with the
Flemish economic system and adopt Flemish legal institutions. Under the Burgundians, Holland's trade developed rapidly, especially in the areas of shipping and transport. The new rulers defended Dutch trading interests. The fleets of Holland defeated the fleets of the
Hanseatic League several times. Amsterdam grew and in the 15th century became the primary trading port in Europe for grain from the Baltic region. Amsterdam distributed grain to the major cities of Belgium, Northern France and England. This trade was vital to the people of Holland, because Holland could no longer produce enough grain to feed itself. Land drainage had caused the peat of the former wetlands to reduce to a level that was too low for drainage to be maintained.
Charles (1500–58) became the owner in 1506, but in 1515 he left to become king of Spain and later became the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles turned over control to regents (his close relatives), and in practice rule was exercised by mostly French speaking Burgundians he controlled. Holland retained its own governments and court, controlled by the local nobility, and its own traditions and rights ("liberties") dating back centuries. Likewise the numerous cities had their own legal rights and local governments, usually controlled by the merchants, On top of this, however, the Burgundians had imposed an overall government, the Estates General of the Netherlands, with its own officials and courts.
Revolt and the Dutch Republic '' in 1574, by
Otto van Veen. During the 16th century, the
Protestant Reformation rapidly gained ground in northern Europe, especially in its Lutheran and Calvinist forms. Protestants in Holland, after initial repression, were tolerated by local authorities. By the 1560s, the Protestant community had become a significant influence in the county, although it clearly formed a minority then. In a society dependent on trade, freedom and tolerance were considered essential. Nevertheless, the Catholic rulers Charles V and his successor
Philip II felt it was their duty to defeat Protestantism, which was considered a heresy by the Catholic Church and a threat to the stability of the whole hierarchical political system. The Catholic Spanish responded with harsh persecution and introduced the
Spanish Inquisition. Calvinists rebelled. First, there was the
iconoclasm in 1566, which was the systematic destruction of statues of saints and other Catholic devotional depictions in churches. After 1566
William the Silent, more or less by accident became the leader of a revolt that by severe mismanagement by
Philip II and his governor the
Duke of Alva turned into the
Eighty Years' War. As a consequence, Holland and the other six allied provinces became an independent nation called the
Republic of the Seven United Provinces. Over William of Orange Blum says, "His patience, tolerance, determination, concern for his people, and belief in government by consent held the Dutch together and kept alive their spirit of revolt." The main breakthrough came when Holland, along with Zeeland, was conquered in 1572 and following years by the
Watergeuzen, a somehow effective maritime force of mainly Calvinists who turned pirate and pirates who turned Calvinist. , 1656. The States General of the Netherlands signed the
Act of Abjuration, deposing Philip as Count of Holland and forming a confederation between the seven liberated provinces. From then on, the executive and legislative power would again rest with the
States of Holland and West Friesland, which were led by a political figure who held the office of
Grand Pensionary. The county, now a sovereign state within this larger confederation, became the cultural, political and economic centre of the
Dutch Republic, in the 17th century, the
Dutch Golden Age, the wealthiest nation in the world. The largest cities in the republic were situated in the province of Holland, such as
Amsterdam,
Rotterdam,
Leiden,
Alkmaar,
Delft,
Dordrecht,
Haarlem, and the nation's capital,
The Hague. From the great ports of Holland, Hollandic merchants sailed to and from destinations all over
Europe, and merchants from all over Europe gathered to trade in the warehouses of Amsterdam and other trading cities of Holland. Many Europeans thought of the United Provinces first as "Holland" rather than as the "Republic of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands". A strong impression of "Holland" was planted in the minds of other Europeans, which then was projected back onto the Republic as a whole. Within the provinces themselves, a gradual slow process of cultural expansion took place, leading to a "Hollandification" of the other provinces and a more uniform culture for the whole of the Republic. In the early decades of the uprising, a great number of refugees from Flanders and Brabant settled in the big cities of Holland. They had a
Frankish influence on the new dialect of urban Holland (that earlier had more Frisian influences) that in later centuries became the
standard language of the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking Belgium. Nominally, the County of Holland formally came to an end in 1795, when the
Batavian Revolution ended the republic and reformed it as the
Batavian Republic. The territory of the former county was divided between the departments of the
Amstel,
Delf,
Texel, and
Schelde en Maas. After 1813, Holland was restored as a province of the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Holland was divided into the present provinces
North Holland and
South Holland in 1840. ==Geography==