page_title: Golden Age of Flanders
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Golden Age of Flanders / History
caption_attribution_description: Allegory on the Abdication of Emperor Charles V in Brussels. In the middle Charles V is seated on his thrown flanked by his successors Ferdinand I and Philip II. In front of Philip the personifications of the territories of the Empire with their banners are kneeling down. In the foreground the personifications of the continents, America, Africa, Europe and Asia, are offering gifts. Left Neptune is riding his seahorse-drawn Triumphal chariot, accompanied by mermen, mermaids, tritons, etc. On the chariot a globe and the two columns with a banderole inscribed with Plus Ultra.
context_page_description: The Golden Age of Flanders, or Flemish Golden Age, is a term that has been used to describe the flourishing of cultural and economic actitivies of the Low Countries around the 16th century. The term Flanders in the 1500s referred to the entire Habsburg Netherlands within the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire and inclusive of modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Its political capital was Brussels, while the financial-economic centre was Antwerp. Other major artistic and cultural centres of the period included Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen and Leuven. It is also grouped with the Dutch Golden Age, a more common term used primarily in reference to the Dutch Republic in the 1600s, within a "Flemish and Dutch golden age" covering the period from the late 15th to the 17th century.
context_section_description: On 24 February 1500, Charles of Ghent was born to Philip the Handsome (son of  Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian I of Austria) and Joanna the Mad (daughter of Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand II of Aragon). Charles eventually inherited the four crowns of Burgundy (1506), Castile (1516), Aragon (1516), and Austria (1519).
  The inheritances of Burgundy and Austria made him respectively Lord of the Netherlands and Archduke of Austria, giving to one person an unprecedented amount of direct possessions within the Holy Roman Empire. The inheritances of Castile and Aragon formed a Spanish empire that stretched from the Castilian West Indies to the Aragonese Two Sicilies. The election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 crowned Charles' dynastic fortunes, giving him sovereignty in Germany and North Italy as a formal successor of Charlemagne. Charles was also heir of the imperial idea of the House of Austria: A.E.I.O.U ("Austria Est Imperare Orbi Universo", it is Austria's destiny to rule the world). In an age of high renaissance and global explorations, when reformed churches and national monarchies were emerging, Charles embraced the medieval dream of building a universal monarchy in the Old World of Christendom.
  Given that Charles was a Fleming and that Burgundian chivalric culture formed the basis of his beliefs, Brussels would ascend from capital of the Habsburg Netherlands to main seat of his itinerant court. Having added Spanish Mexico, German Venezuela, Spanish Peru, the Duchy of Milan, and the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia to his composite monarchy, he styled himself as the ruler of an empire on which the sun never sets.
  Charles V also expanded the Netherlands' territory. He first added Tournai and the Tournaisis, under French influence until 1521.
  In 1524, Friesland was conquered and renamed Lordship of Frisia. During the Guelders Wars Charles annexed the Lordship of Utrecht and Lordship of Overijssel, the Lordship of Groningen and County of Drenthe.
  In 1543, Charles V finally obtained the Duchy of Guelders and the County of Zutphen. With the  Pragmatic Sanction of 1549, all Low Countries' territories were merged into the Seventeen Provinces.
  However, the abdications of Brussels formalized by Charles V between 1554 and 1556 divided the House of Habsburg and its possessions between a Spanish branch led by Philip II of Spain and a German-Austrian branch led by Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. Charles abdicated in favor of his son Philip the Two Sicilies and the Duchy of Milan in July 1554, the Habsburg Netherlands in October 1555, and the kingdoms of Spain and the Americas in January 1556. Philip was secretly made Duke of Milan already in 1540. He will also inherit Portugal in 1580. In August 1556, Charles abdicated the throne of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand, elected as his designated successor in 1531. The Imperial succession also marked the legal transfer of the Austrian hereditary lands of the Empire to Ferdinand, who ruled them in the name of the Emperor since 1521.
  At his last public speech in front of the States General, Charles famously said "my life has been one long journey". His son Philip will return in Spain in 1559 and never visit the Low Countries again, ruling these territories as King of Spain rather than Duke of Burgundy. Flanders and Belgium were part of the Spanish Netherlands from 1556, and entered a period of decline in favor of the Dutch Republic which was soon to break off from the Spanish empire. Symbolic of this is the Sack of Antwerp by Spanish forces in 1576, which forced many merchants to flee to Amsterdam and Holland. The Dutch Golden Age lasted for most of the 17th century.
caption: Allegory on Emperor Charles V's abdication in Brussels by Frans Francken the Younger. Charles divided his empire between Philip II of Spain and Emperor Ferdinand I. Philip II of Spain received the Low Countries and made them a province of the Spanish Empire.
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