Seventeen Provinces - Composition

Composition

The map corresponds to the following provinces:

  1. the County of Artois
  2. the County of Flanders, including the burgraviates of Lille, Douai, Orchies, the Lordship of Tournai and the Tournaisis
  3. the Lordship of Mechelen
  4. the County of Namur
  5. the County of Hainaut
  6. the County of Zeeland
  7. the County of Holland
  8. the Duchy of Brabant, including the Margraviate of Antwerp, the counties of Leuven and of Brussels, and the advocacy of the Abbey of Nivelles and of Gembloux
  9. the Duchy of Limburg, including the counties of Dalhem and Valkenburg and the Lordship of Herzogenrath
  10. the Duchy of Luxembourg
  11. the Prince-Bishopric, later Lordship of Utrecht
  12. the Lordship of Frisia
  13. the Duchy of Guelders
  14. the Lordship of Groningen (including the Ommelanden)
  15. the Lordship of Drenthe, Lingen, Wedde, and Westerwolde
  16. the Lordship of Overijssel
  17. the County of Zutphen

It was not always the same Seventeen Provinces represented at the Estates-General of the Netherlands. Sometimes one delegation was included in another.

In later years the county of Zutphen became a part of the Duchy of Guelders, and the Duchy of Limburg was dependent on the Duchy of Brabant. The Lordship of Drenthe is sometimes considered as part of the Lordship of Overijssel. On the other hand the French-speaking cities of Flanders were sometimes recognised as a separate province.
Therefore, in some lists Zutphen and Drenthe are replaced by

  • burgraviates of Lille, Douai, Orchies (also called Lilloise Flanders)
  • Tournai and the Tournaisis

There were a number of fiefdoms in the Low Countries that were not part of the Seventeen Provinces, mainly because they did not belong to the Burgundian Circle but to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle. The largest of these was the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the green area on the map, including the County of Horne. The ethnically and culturally Netherlandish duchies of Cleves and Julich did not join either. In the north, there were also a few smaller entities like the island of Ameland that would retain their own lords until the French Revolution.

Historians came up with different variations of the list, but always with 17 members. This number could have been chosen because of its Christian connotation.

Read more about this topic:  Seventeen Provinces

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