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Updated: May 23, 2025
It would be an error to attribute the separatist leanings of the nobles in Flanders and Lotharingia to national feeling, at a time when this feeling scarcely existed in Western Europe.
The German monarch, Henry the Fowler, at that period called King of the East Franks, as Charles of the West Franks, acquired Lotharingia by the treaty of Bonn, Charles reserving the sovereignty over the kingdom during his lifetime. In 925, A.D., however, the Simpleton having been imprisoned and deposed by his own subjects, the Fowler was recognized King, of Lotharingia.
The meek, bald, fat, stammering, simple Charles, or Louis, who successively sat upon his throne princes, whose only historic individuality consists in these insipid appellations had not the sense to comprehend, far less to develop, the plans of their ancestor. Charles the Simple was the last Carlovingian who governed Lotharingia, in which were comprised most of the Netherlands and Friesland.
Charles was defeated at Andernach by Louis III , and the frontier between France and Germany was fixed on the Scheldt, Charles retaining Flanders, Louis obtaining Lotharingia . After the short reign of Charles the Fat, who restored for a few years the unity of the Empire, these two parts of Belgium remained thus separated for three centuries.
Lothar, who retained the imperial title, received the middle portion of the Frank territory, including Italy and a long, narrow strip of territory between the dominions of his brothers, and extending to the North Sea. This land took later the name of Lotharingia, or Lorraine. It always had the character of a border-land.
At the beginning of the twelfth century the old distinction between Lotharingia and Flanders had practically ceased to exist. The emperor's prestige, greatly diminished by the Struggle of the Investitures, was no longer strong enough to keep the Belgian princes east of the Scheldt within the bounds of their allegiance.
The meek, bald, fat, stammering, simple Charles, or Louis, who successively sat upon his throne princes, whose only historic individuality consists in these insipid appellations had not the sense to comprehend, far less to develop, the plans of their ancestor. Charles the Simple was the last Carlovingian who governed Lotharingia, in which were comprised most of the Netherlands and Friesland.
Even at the time when the alliance with France was most cordial, the door was never closed on possible negotiations with England. To call such a policy sheer duplicity would be to misunderstand the spirit of the period and the special position in which the Belgian princes, whether of Lotharingia or of Flanders, were placed.
Of this small sovereign and his successors, the most powerful foe for centuries was ever the Bishop of Utrecht, the origin of whose greatness has been already indicated. Of the other Netherland provinces, now or before become hereditary, the first in rank was Lotharingia, once the kingdom of Lothaire, now the dukedom of Lorraine.
Just as, at a later stage, Bruges and Ghent became the most accomplished types of the independent mediæval communes, the counts of Flanders and the princes of Lotharingia offered the most perfect examples of the restless feudal princes. The origin of feudalism is well known and is common to all European countries.
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