HAINAUT

. County in the Low Countries, bordering on Flanders. Medieval Hainaut was an agricultural area, centering on the Scheldt, Sambre, and Dendre rivers. Its only large towns were Valenciennes and Mons. Although its population was Romance, Hainaut was entirely in the empire, and its bonds with France, which bordered it on the south, were thus diplomatic rather than dynastic.

Hainaut’s first known count was Reginar “au long col,” who founded a dynasty that lasted until after 1040. In 1170, Count Baudouin V of Hainaut married Marguerite, sister of the childless Philippe d’Alsace, count of Flanders. Their son ruled Hainaut and Flanders, beginning a dynastic union that persisted until the death of Countess Marguerite in 1278, when Hainaut passed to her grandson, Jean d’Avesnes. Jean’s mother had been the sister of Count William II of Holland; at the death of Florence V of Holland in 1299, a dynastic union of Holland and Hainaut began that lasted until Hainaut was incorporated into the Burgundian state in the 15th century.

After the extinction of the Avesnes line in 1345, Hainaut was ruled by the Bavarian descendants of Marguerite, sister of Count William II and wife of the emperor Louis IV. In 1417, Count William IV was succeeded by his daughter Jacqueline, wife of Jean IV, the Burgundian duke of Brabant; but when she left her husband to marry Duke Humphrey of Gloucester in 1422, the Burgundians invaded Hainaut. With Holland and Zeeland, it was annexed formally to the domain of Philip the Good in 1433.

David M. Nicholas

[See also: AVESNES; BAUDOUIN; FLANDERS (genealogical table)] de Hemptinne, Th. “Vlaanderen en Henegouwen onder de erfgenamen van de Boudewijns, 10701244” and Vandermaesen, M. “Vlaanderen en Henegouwen onder het Huis van Dampierre, 1244-1384.” In Algemene Geschiedenis derNederlanden. 2nd ser. Haarlem: Fibula-Van Dishoeck, 1982, Vol. 2, pp. 372-440.

Delcambre, Etienne. Les relations entre la France et le Hainaut (1280-1297). Mons: Union des Imprimeries, 1929.

Falmagne, Jacques. Baudouin V, comte de Hainaut. Montreal: Presses de l’Universite de Montreal, 1965.

Genicot, Leopold. Etudes sur les principautes lotharingiennes. Louvain: Bureau du Recueil, Bibliotheque de l’Universite, 1975.

Hasquin, Herve. La Wallonie: le pays et les hommes: histoire, economies, societes. Brussels: La Renaissance du Livre, 1975.

Vanderkindere, Leon. La formation territoriale des principautes belges au moyen age. 2 vols. Brussels: Lamertin, 1902.