all this and more in mr beats video which is linked there so in this episode let's take a look at dutch and belgian history let's go all the way back to the romans because the roman empire extended over all of belgium and part of the southern netherlands establishing the boundary or limes along the rhine and other of the important rivers at the time they encountered both several germanic and celtic tribes living in this area and when the romans left several other germanic tribes from other regions pulled into the area following a period of depopulation together they mixed with the old inhabitants and formed new groups such as the friesians and the franks and eventually the northern coastline of the low countries was incorporated into the frankish empire not long after this they became subjected to viking raids from scandinavia and as i discussed in my video about the viking benefices in freesia the franks actually used people from denmark to safeguard this area of the low countries coast against further viking attacks but eventually the local people had had enough of being raided and ruled by the danes and they took things into their own hands in both areas in the second half of the NUMBER_TOKENth century this occurred in both the region of west frisia and in flanders in west regia it was under the auspice of count geralt whilst in flanders a little earlier it was under count baldwin both of whom would become founding figures for local dynasties and just as with alfred in england they understood that the key to stopping viking incursions was to build fortifications which we see appearing in both coastal flanders and in various parts of west fresia especially in zeylons in NUMBER_TOKEN the descendants of count gerolf fought and won at the battle of fladingan against the holy roman empire leading to yet more autonomy in the low countries eventually this county of west frisia would become known as the county of holland whilst some way down the coast the county of flanders was part a large part of what is today northern belgium in NUMBER_TOKEN the county of holland was ruled by the same man as the count of i know this being a region in the south of belgium and so we can see that the two are already growing together at this time in NUMBER_TOKEN these two regions as well as luxembourg zealand flanders would all be ruled together and this would be under the allspace of the house of burgundy with philip the good being the duke of burgundy for which we have of course the nice cross of burgundy which represented it during this time the low countries were incredibly influential and wealthy particularly trading cities like antwerp and bruce where wool and flemish cloth were highly praised this region became known as the burgundian netherlands although in NUMBER_TOKEN it would pass on to another royal family the habsburgs at which point it became known as the habsburg netherlands in NUMBER_TOKEN this region specifically would become known as the NUMBER_TOKEN provinces this was done during the reign of charles v an incredibly powerful emperor who was himself born close to the low countries and indeed they prospered under his reign by the time of his death in NUMBER_TOKEN they made
START_SELFPROMO_TOKEN all this and more in mr beats video which is linked there so END_SELFPROMO_TOKEN