The Lands of Overmaas were a collection of small medieval lordships in the vicinity of
Limburg, and located between the cities of
Liège,
Maastricht and
Aachen. They comprised the separate Lands of
Valkenburg,
's-Hertogenrade and
Dalhem and included the towns of
Gangelt and
Waldfeucht. Prior to the end of the 13th century, the lordships were attached to the
Duchy of Limburg. In 1283, the last independent ruler of Limburg,
Duchess Ermingarde, died, provoking the
War of the Limburg Succession. The conflict was concluded with the victory of
John I, Duke of Brabant at the
Battle of Worringen in 1288. The Duchy of Limburg and its dependent territories then became possessions of the Duke of Brabant. It is at the time of the acquisition by Brabant that the area became known as the "Lands of Overmaas". Although the Lands of Overmaas remained in
personal union with the
Duchy of Brabant (as did the Duchy of Limburg), they were rarely under the dukes' control as they were frequently offered as security to their creditors. At the end of the 14th century, the duke
pledged the Lands to and as security for large debts. In 1388 and 1389,
Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy bought out the debts and acquired the Lands. This opened the way for the
Valois dukes of Burgundy to acquire Brabant as well, adding both to the
Burgundian Netherlands. The Lands remained part of the Burgundian territories during the 15th century. Through marriage, the Burgundian Netherlands passed to the
House of Habsburg in 1482. When the vast
Habsburg possessions were divided between the Spanish and Austrian branches of the dynasty in the 16th century, the
Habsburg Netherlands devolved to the Spanish branch. In 1566, the northern
Protestant provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands rose in revolt and established the
Dutch Republic, with the Spanish Habsburgs retaining control of only the southern
Catholic provinces. The Lands of Overmaas formed part of the
Spanish Netherlands. They had remained Catholic after the
Reformation, and never underwent a major influx of
Calvinists in the way that nearby Maastrict had done. In 1632, during the
Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic, the area was conquered by the Dutch. In 1648, as part of the terms ending the war, the Lands were agreed to be partitioned but in such a way as to create, what
Benjamin J. Kaplan called, a "complex patchwork...with some districts forming isolated islands". The Dutch part of the Lands were administered by the central government as part of the so-called "
Generality Lands". As a result of the complexity of the partition, the area became subject to jurisdictional disputes and competing territorial claims. Settlement of a small Calvinist minority did take place in areas controlled by the Dutch Republic but the privileged position of the settlers attracted resentment from the Catholic majority. Unlike anywhere else in the Republic,
simultaneum, that is the sharing of churches by Calvinists and Catholics, was mandated. In 1795,
Revolutionary France annexed the southern Low Countries, and
feudal land rights were abolished. The Lands of Overmaas were, therefore, integrated into the new
département system, and split between the departments of
Ourthe and
Meuse-Inférieure (Neder-Maas). After the fall of
Napoleon in 1815, the area was then partitioned between the new
Kingdom of the Netherlands and
Rhenish Prussia. ==Language==