The County of Hainaut ( ; ; ; ), sometimes spelled Hainault, was a territorial lordship within the medieval Holy Roman Empire that straddled the present-day border of Belgium and France. Its most important towns included Mons (), now in Belgium, and Valenciennes, now in France.
In present-day terms, the original core of Hainaut consisted of the central part of the Belgian province of Hainaut, and the eastern part of the French département of Nord (the arrondissements of Avesnes-sur-Helpe and Valenciennes). It was named after the river Haine, and stretched from there southeast to include the Avesnois region, and southwest to the Selle (Scheldt tributary). In the Middle Ages, its Counts also gained control of part of the original pagus of Brabant to its north and the pagus of Oosterbant to the east, although they did not form part of the old pagus of Hainaut.
Hainaut appears in 8th-century records as a Frankish gau or pagus which included the Roman towns of Famars and Bavay. In the 9th century, and perhaps earlier, it was also described as a county, which implies that it had a single count governing it. As with many counties of the region, there was apparently a 10th-century fragmentation of territories among different counts, which is difficult to reconstruct. In 1071 a single large territorial county was given its more-or-less final form that lasted for the rest of the Middle Ages.
For much of its existence the County of Hainaut was a French-speaking frontier territory of the Holy Roman Empire, bordering upon the Kingdom of France. Previously, from 843 the County formed part of the Frankish "middle kingdom" of Lotharingia. However, after about 925 Lotharingia was definitively attached by King Henry the Fowler to his eastern Frankish realm that would become the Kingdom of Germany. Hainaut and its neighbourhood remained an important frontier area, or "march", during the High Middle Ages. Although a part of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled from present-day Germany, it was culturally and linguistically French and ecclesiastically part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Reims. Like its neighbours such as the counties of Brabant and Flanders, it frequently became entangled in the politics of France.
The counts of Hainaut were often rulers of other counties, including Flanders and Holland. Notable examples of such personal unions include the following: Hainaut and Flanders: 1067–71 and again 1191–1246 Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland: 1299–1356 Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland as part of Bavaria-Straubing: 1356–1432
In 1432, Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland joined Flanders, Artois, Namur, Brabant, Limbourg, and later Luxembourg, within the large agglomeration of territories in the Low Countries belonging to the French House of Valois-Burgundy. This new state, the Burgundian Netherlands, was inherited by the Habsburg dynasty in the 1470s.
In 1659 and 1678 southern Hainaut was acquired by France. The northern part continued as part of the Habsburg Netherlands. Like much of that state, the northern part of Hainaut was absorbed into the First French Republic in 1797 after the end of the Ancien Régime; it later became part of newly-formed Belgium in 1830.
Geographical definition
The river Haine, for which the original pagus (country or territory) is named, flows from east to west. It originates in the once forested area between Binche and modern Charleroi, near the Sambre. It empties into the Scheldt. From the earliest records, Hainaut also extended south of the Haine to the upper Sambre, the Helpe Majeure, Helpe Mineure and the Avesnois region in the Arrondissement of Avesnes-sur-Helpe.
Hainaut's pagus also extended southwest along the Scheldt as far as the Selle river, where the most significant Roman city of the area was Famars (Roman Fanum Martis, literally 'shrine of Mars'), which had been a religious and administrative centre. In the early Middle Ages, records sometimes refer to places within the pagus of Hainaut as being within the pagus Fanomartenis, indicating that either Hainaut had an alternative name, or that Fanum Martis was base to a sub-pagus. According to the 10th-century monk Folcuin, Hainaut was simply a new name for the old Roman name, which had been connected to pre-Christian superstition.
The geographical definition of Hainaut as found in the oldest medieval records, was relatively stable, as shown by Faider-Feytman, Deru, and other historians of the region. According to archaeological evidence, geographical Hainaut, including Avesnes, formed the oldest region of development in the civitas of the Belgic Nervii. They had their early capital in Bavay in Hainaut (Roman Bagacum), which became a major Roman crossroads. To the south of the Avesnois, beyond the forest and hills of Thiérache was the pagus and bishopric of Laon, the modern department of Aisne, which was one part of the old civitas of the Roman era Remi. To the southwest, the pagus of Cambrai lay beyond the Senne river, and became the capital of the civitas of the Nervii, and later the seat of the medieval bishop who had jurisdiction over Hainaut and Brabant. According to Xavier Deru, this region only developed during the Roman era, with Cambrai itself positioned on the point where a major Roman road crossed the Scheldt. This region corresponds closely to the modern French Arrondissement of Cambrai, and both it and the bishopric are sometimes referred to as the "Cambrésis". Directly to the west across the Scheldt from Valenciennes, lay the pagus called the Osterbant (fr, de, nl), which was originally part of the civitas of the Atrebates in Roman times, which has its traditional capital in Arras. The medieval bishopric of Arras contained only two archdeaconries: Arras itself, and Osterbant. While Osterbant was a region that was competed over by the powerful counties of Flanders and Hainaut in the Middle Ages, the rest of the Atrebates' old country became the basis of the medieval county of Artois, which was normally under Flemish control. In modern France, Osterbant is similar in definition to the Arrondissement of Douai. To the north, also within the original civitas of the Nervii, lay what would become the oldest form of the pagus of Brabant, stretching between the Scheldt and Dyle and including modern Aalst and Brussels. Medieval and modern Hainaut stretch into the south of the old pagus of Brabant. As shown by Deru, archaeological evidence such as coin finds confirm the cultural connections between Brabant and Hainaut in Roman times. To the east of the River Haine lay the Silva Carbonaria ("charcoal forest") which once defined a major boundary. Beyond it, the regions which today contain Charleroi, Namur and Leuven were all within the Roman Civitas Tungrorum and medieval Bishopric of Liège.
Etymology The etymology of Hainaut is thought to be Germanic. The first part is the river name (the modern Haine, probably based on Germanic) and the second component was originally based upon Germanic *awja, which appears in several old Frankish gau names, such as Masau, the oldest name of the pagus on the Meuse river north of Maastricht. The related concept "gau", used in the modern Dutch and German names of Hainaut, Henegouwen and Hennegau, was also used but never became popular in medieval documents concerning this particular area.
Earliest records The first surviving records indicating that Hainaut was a county are the records of the Carolingian dynasty being divided into parts in 831, 843 and 870. Most of the early medieval records mentioning Hainaut, starting in the 9th century, describe it as a pagus, a land or country, rather than a county. 8th- and 9th-century attestations, as listed by Ulrich Nonn, however, never name any specific counts who ruled it: 750. A document of Pepin the Short refers to a place in pago Hainoavio. 779. A document of Charlemagne refers to a place in pago Haginao. 831. Louis the Pious announced that the division of the empire would be such that his son Louis the German's domain of Bavaria would include places west of the Meuse including Ainau. The record is not explicit about it being a county or pagus. 843. The Treaty of Verdun, as recorded in the Annales Bertiniani mentions hainaum among the regions between the Scheldt and Rhine to become part of the middle kingdom of Lothair I, and implies it is a county. 844. A document of Lothair I refers to places in pago Hainoense [...] pago Hainnioense 847. A document of Charles the Bald names places in pago Hagnuensi. 852. A document of Lothair I names places in pago Haynau. 855. A document of Lothair II names places in pago Hainau. 870. A document of Charles the Bald names places in pago Hainao. 870. The Treaty of Meerssen mentions the comitatus Hainoum, a county, and granted it to the western kingdom. 872. A document of Charles the Bald names places in pago Hainau.
Many such early medieval pagi in Europe have histories going back to the Roman Empire. As the Roman empire lost centralized control of this region, which lay in the Roman province of Belgica II, it came under the administration of Childeric I, who had been the military ruler of the Frankish army who previously fought under Romans in Gaul, north of the Loire. The Merovingian dynasty, and later the Carolingians, kept many of the Roman districts, and established counts to administer pagi.
10th century As explained by Nonn, there are very few, if any, clear records of counts of all Hainaut in the 10th century. The region is associated by many historians such as Leon Vanderkindere with the so-called Reginarid dynasty who were a powerful and rebellious Lotharingian family, known for their frequent use of the name Reginar. This is because later in the 10th century a branch of this family succeeded to take the county by force, after returning from exile. However, while the later family clearly claimed to have once had important rights throughout Lotharingia, the exact nature of most of these is unclear, and their possession of a county in Hainaut before Reginar III can not be proven.
The only medieval record which claims that Reginar I held an office involving all of Hainaut was the much later Dudo of Saint-Quentin, who is considered to be unreliable for this period. He names Reginar as "Duke" (Latin dux) of both Hesbaye and Hainaut, and discusses his march against Rollo in Walcheren, together with a Frisian ruler named Radbod, at some point in late 9th or early 10th century. The late 14th century Annales Hannoniae, which give legendary origins of the Counts of Hainaut, describes this Reginar I as a count of Mons – a title held by his descendants.
The first recorded count who was associated as a count with any part of Hainaut in a contemporary record was Count Sigehard. Leon Vanderkindere proposed that this Sigehard was given the county while Reginar I was out of favour. In fact no such connections can be proven. He was more clearly described as a count in the pagus Liugas, east of Liège. 902. The county of Sigarhard included Wandre and Esneux in the pagus of Liège (in pago Leuchia in comitatu Sigarhardi). 908. He was recorded once as a count who was present agreements made about both Lobbes Abbey (Laubacensum abbatiam), which was described as part of the county and pagus of Hainaut (in pago ac in comitatu Hainuensi sitem), and Theux, which was described as being in the pagus and county of Liugas (in pago ac in comitatu Liwensi positum). 915. Theux is described as being both in the pagus of Liugas and the county of Sigehard (in pago Leuviensi atque in comitatus Sichardi sitam). 916 and 919, Sigehard appears in two documents of West Francia king Charles the Simple dated at Herstal near Liège. 920. Sigehard was also recorded as a "venerable" count in a document concerning Crespin Abbey, concerning a grant.. According to Nonn, the record shows that he had held the land involved.