1.
Provinces of the Netherlands
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The most populous province is South Holland, with over 3.5 million inhabitants in 2009. With approximately 381,000 inhabitants, Zeeland has the smallest population, in terms of area, Friesland is the largest province with a total area of 5,749 km2. If water is excluded, Gelderland is the largest province in terms of area at 4,972 km2, Utrecht is the smallest at 1,449 km2. In total about 13,000 people were employed by the administrations in 2009. The provinces of the Netherlands are joined in the Association of Provinces of the Netherlands and this organisation promotes the common interests of the provinces in the national government of the Netherlands in The Hague and within the EU in Brussels. The government of each province consists of three parts, The States-Provincial is the provincial parliament elected every four years. The number of members varies between 39 and 55, depending on the number of inhabitants of the province, being a member is a part-time job. The main task of the States-Provincial is to scrutinise the work of the provincial government, the Provincial Executive is a college elected from among the members of the States-Provincial and charged with most executive tasks. Each province has three and seven deputies, each having their own portfolio. The task of the Provincial Executive is the management of the province. The Kings Commissioner is a person appointed by the Crown who presides over the States-Provincial as well as over the Provincial Executive. The Commissioner is appointed for a term of six years, after which reappointment for another term is possible, the members of the States-Provincial are elected every four years in direct elections. To a large extent, the political parties are enlisted in these elections in the national elections. The chosen provincial legislators elect the members of the national Senate within three months after the provincial elections, the elections for the water boards take place on the same date as the provincial elections. The last three elections were held in 2007,2011 and in 2015. The provinces of the Netherlands have 7 core tasks, Sustainable spatial development, also, provinces have income from a part of the Vehicle Excise Duty. Several provinces have made a profit in the past from privatising utility companies originally owned or partly owned by the provinces. An example is Essent, which was owned by six provinces
2.
Flag of South Holland
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The flag of South Holland was adopted on October 15,1985, replacing the flag used since June 22,1948. The first official flag of South Holland was introduced on 22 June 1948 and it was a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal fields, yellow on the top, red in the middle and yellow on the bottom. The current flag was proposed by the executive of South Holland 15 October. It was decided to change the flag into a field with a red rampant lion–the old flag of the Counts of Holland. The lion was supposed to symbolize the always victorious lion of Judah, the flag became official on 1 January 1986. The flag of South Holland has a ratio of 2,3 and it features a red lion rampant facing left on a yellow field. The lion covers three-fourths of the height, and is positioned on one-thirds of the flags width. The flag is based on the coat of arms of South Holland, the colours red and yellow are Hollands traditional colours and are also found of the flag of North Holland
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
5.
Holland
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Holland is a region and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. The name Holland is also used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th century, Holland proper was a political region within the Holy Roman Empire as a county ruled by the Counts of Holland. By the 17th century, Holland had risen to become a maritime and economic power, the name Holland first appeared in sources in 866 for the region around Haarlem, and by 1064 was being used as the name of the entire county. By this time, the inhabitants of Holland were referring to themselves as Hollanders, Holland is derived from the Middle Dutch term holtland. This spelling variation remained in use until around the 14th century, a popular folk etymology holds that Holland is derived from hol land and was inspired by the low-lying geography of Holland. The proper name of the area in both Dutch and English is Holland, Holland is a part of the Netherlands. Holland is informally used in English and other languages, including sometimes the Dutch language itself, the people of Holland are referred to as Hollanders in both Dutch and English. Today this refers specifically to people from the current provinces of North Holland, strictly speaking, the term Hollanders does not refer to people from the other provinces in the Netherlands, but colloquially Hollanders is sometimes used in this wider sense. In Dutch, the Dutch word Hollands is the form for Holland. In English, Dutch refers to the Netherlands as a whole, the word Hollandish is no longer in common use. Hollandic is the name give to the dialect spoken in Holland, and is occasionally also used by historians. Initially, Holland was a corner of the Holy Roman Empire. Gradually, its importance increased until it began to have a decisive. Until the start of the 12th century, the inhabitants of the area that became Holland were known as Frisians, the area was initially part of Frisia. At the end of the 9th century, West-Frisia became a county in the Holy Roman Empire. The first Count known about with certainty was Dirk I, who ruled from 896 to 931 and he was succeeded by a long line of counts in the House of Holland. When John I, count of Holland, died childless in 1299, by the time of William V the count of Holland was also the count of Hainaut and Zealand
6.
The Hague
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The Hague is a city on the western coast of the Netherlands, and the capital city of the province of South Holland. With a population of 520,704 inhabitants and more than one million including the suburbs, it is the third-largest city of the Netherlands. The Rotterdam The Hague Metropolitan Area, with a population of approximately 2.7 million, is the 12th-largest in the European Union and the most populous in the country. Located in the west of the Netherlands, The Hague is in the centre of the Haaglanden conurbation and lies at the southwest corner of the larger Randstad conurbation. The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government, parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Council of State, but the city is not the capital of the Netherlands, which constitutionally is Amsterdam. King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands plans to live at Huis ten Bosch and works at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, the Hague is also home to the world headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell and numerous other major Dutch companies. The Hague originated around 1230, when Count Floris IV of Holland purchased land alongside a pond, in 1248, his son and successor William II, King of the Romans, decided to extend the residence to a palace, which would later be called the Binnenhof. He died in 1256 before this palace was completed but parts of it were finished by his son Floris V, of which the Ridderzaal and it is still used for political events, such as the annual speech from the throne by the Dutch monarch. From the 13th century onwards, the counts of Holland used The Hague as their administrative centre, the village that originated around the Binnenhof was first mentioned as Haga in a charter dating from 1242. In the 15th century, the smarter des Graven hage came into use, literally The Counts Wood, with connotations like The Counts Hedge, s-Gravenhage was officially used for the city from the 17th century onwards. Today, this name is used in some official documents like birth. The city itself uses Den Haag in all its communication and their seat was located in The Hague. At the beginning of the Eighty Years War, the absence of city walls proved disastrous, in 1575, the States of Holland even considered demolishing the city but this proposal was abandoned, after mediation by William of Orange. From 1588, The Hague also became the seat of the government of the Dutch Republic, in order for the administration to maintain control over city matters, The Hague never received official city status, although it did have many of the privileges normally granted only to cities. In modern administrative law, city rights have no place anymore, only in 1806, when the Kingdom of Holland was a puppet state of the First French Empire, was the settlement granted city rights by Louis Bonaparte. After the Napoleonic Wars, modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands were combined in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands to form a buffer against France, as a compromise, Brussels and Amsterdam alternated as capital every two years, with the government remaining in The Hague. After the separation of Belgium in 1830, Amsterdam remained the capital of the Netherlands, when the government started to play a more prominent role in Dutch society after 1850, The Hague quickly expanded. The growing city annexed the rural municipality of Loosduinen partly in 1903, the city sustained heavy damage during World War II
7.
Rotterdam
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Rotterdam is a city in the Netherlands, located in South Holland, within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt river delta at the North Sea. Its history goes back to 1270 when a dam was constructed in the Rotte river by people settled around it for safety, in 1340 Rotterdam was granted city rights by the Count of Holland and slowly grew into a major logistic and economic centre. Nowadays it is home to Europes largest port and has a population of 633,471, ranking second in the Netherlands, just behind Amsterdam. The Greater Rijnmond area is home to approximately 1.4 million people, Rotterdam is part of the yet larger Randstad conurbation with a total population of 7,100,000. The city of Rotterdam is known for the Erasmus University, riverside setting, lively cultural life, the near-complete destruction of Rotterdams city centre during World War II has resulted in a varied architectural landscape including sky-scrapers, which are an uncommon sight in other Dutch cities. Rotterdam is home to some world-famous architecture from renowned architects like Rem Koolhaas, Piet Blom, Ben van Berkel and others. Recently Rotterdam was listed eighth in The Rough Guide Top 10 Cities to Visit, the port of Rotterdam is the largest cargo port in Europe and the 10th largest in the world. Rotterdams logistic success is based on its location on the North Sea. The rivers Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt give waterway access into the heart of Western Europe, the extensive distribution system including rail, roads, and waterways have earned Rotterdam the nickname Gateway to Europe, and, conversely, Gateway to the World in Europe. The settlement at the end of the fen stream Rotte dates from at least 900 CE. A dam on the Rotte or Rotterdam was built in the 1260s and was located at the present-day Hoogstraat, on 7 July 1340, Count Willem IV of Holland granted city rights to Rotterdam, which then had approximately 2,000 inhabitants. The port of Rotterdam grew slowly but steadily into a port of importance, becoming the seat of one of the six chambers of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the greatest spurt of growth, both in port activity and population, followed the completion of the Nieuwe Waterweg in 1872. The city and harbor started to expand on the bank of the river. The Witte Huis or White House skyscraper, inspired by American office buildings and built in 1898 in the French Château-style, is evidence of Rotterdams rapid growth, when completed, it was the tallest office building in Europe, with a height of 45 m. During World War I the city was the worlds largest spy centre because of Dutch neutrality, many spies who were arrested and executed in Britain were led by German secret agents operating from Rotterdam. MI6 had its main European office on de Boompjes, from there the British coordinated espionage in Germany and occupied Belgium. In WWI an average of 25,000 Belgian refugees lived in the city, as well as hundreds of German deserters, during World War II, the German army invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. Adolf Hitler had hoped to conquer the country in just one day, the Dutch army was finally forced to capitulate on 15 May 1940, following Hitlers bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May and threatening to bomb other Dutch cities
8.
King's Commissioner
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The King’s Commissioner is the head of a province in the Netherlands, and is chairman of both the Provincial Council and the Provincial Executive, but has a right to vote only in the latter. When the reigning monarch is a female, the office is Queens Commissioner, there are two levels of local government in the Netherlands, the provinces and the municipalities. The twelve provinces form the tier of administration between central government and the municipalities, the three tiers are organised in largely the same way, with a directly elected parliament, which in turn chooses the executive branch, headed by an appointed chairman. At the national and municipal levels, these are the king, the King’s Commissioner is not elected by the residents of the province, but appointed by the Dutch Crown, for a term of six years, which may be extended by a second term. The King’s Commissioner can be dismissed only by the Dutch Crown, when a vacancy arises, the provincial council gives the Minister of the Interior a profile of the kind of candidate it would like to see in the job. Although all King’s Commissioners are prominent members of one or another of the national political parties. The Kings Commissioners play a role within the administration and are the official representatives of central government in the provinces. They coordinate disaster management and prevention and pay regular visits to the municipalities in their region. The Kings Commissioners play an important part in the appointment of municipal mayors, when a vacancy arises, the Kings Commissioner first asks the municipal council for its views as to a successor, then writes to the Minister of the Interior, recommending a candidate. Since the Kings Commissioners are both the chairs and full members of the executives, they may include some of the executives tasks in their portfolio. They also oversee the official apparatus and any provincial utilities and represent the province in its dealings with business, in the Dutch province of Limburg, the King’s Commissioner is usually called Gouverneur, as in Belgium. Similarly, the Provinciehuis at Maastricht is called Gouvernement and this local custom arose from the particular status of the province in the nineteenth century. The official name of the office is currently the same as in the other provinces
9.
Jaap Smit
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Jaap Smit is a Dutch preacher, manager and since 1 January 2014 the Kings Commissioner of South Holland. He was previously union leader of the Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond. Smit was born in t Harde in 1957 and he went to the Dr. W. A. Visser t Hooft lyceum in Leiden between 1970 and 1976. He studied theology at Leiden University between 1976 and 1983 with side courses in masscommunication and public relations, in 1979 he already returned to his former lyceum to teach courses in religion and life stance, he continued until 1984. In that year he became a preacher at the Dutch Reformed Church in Ellecom and he then became a mental caretaker in the Dutch army at Seedorf in Germany, also for four years. In 1992 he again became a preacher at the Dutch Reformed Church, in 1994 he started managing, first as a senior manager at KPMG Consulting until 2001, later at IBO Permanent between 2000 and 2005. Between 2001 and 2003 he was also a consultant at Andersson Elffers Felix, from August 2003 until 2010 he was a director at Slachtofferhulp Nederland, a society for victim support. Afterwards he became trade union leader of Christelijk Nationaal Vakverbond, a federation of Christian trade unions and he was in function between June 2010 and 1 January 2014, when he became Kings Commissioner of South Holland. He succeeded Jan Franssen, who served two terms of seven years, at the start of his term he said he would focus on making the province level of government more visible and on ensuring that trust of the population would be returned
10.
Christian Democratic Appeal
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The Christian Democratic Appeal is a Christian-democratic political party in the Netherlands. Sybrand van Haersma Buma has been the party leader since 18 May 2012, the party suffered severe losses in the 2010 general election, losing half of its seats and falling to fourth place in the House of Representatives. Subsequently, the CDA again lost a number of seats in the 2012 general election. Since 1880 the sizeable Catholic and Protestant parties had worked together in the so-called Coalitie and they shared a common interest in public funding of religious schools. In 1888 they formed the first Christian-democratic government, led by the Anti-Revolutionary Æneas Baron Mackay, the cooperation was not without problems and in 1894 the more anti-papist and aristocratic conservatives left the Protestant Anti Revolutionary Party, to found the Christian Historical Union. The main issues dividing Protestants and Catholics was the position of the Dutch Representation at the Holy See, the General League evolved into the Roman Catholic State Party by 1926, and the Catholic Peoples Party in 1945. From 1918 to 1967, the three Christian Democratic parties had a majority in both houses of the States General, and at least two of them were included in every cabinet, the KVP and its antecedents had been in government without interruption since 1918. In the sixties, the Dutch society became more secularized and the pillars faded, in 1963 general election the three parties held 51% of the vote, whilst in 1972 general election they held only 32%. This decline forced the three parties to work closer together, in 1967 the Group of Eighteen was formed, it was a think-tank of six prominent politicians per party that planned the future cooperation of the three parties. In 1968 the three leaders of the parties (Norbert Schmelzer, Barend Biesheuvel and Jur Mellema made a public appearance. This caused progressive forces within the three parties, especially the ARP and KVP, to regret their political affiliation, in 1968 they founded the Political Party of Radicals, a left-wing party that sought cooperation with the Labour Party. Locally and provincially however the three parties had long cooperated well, in areas they formed one Christian-democratic parliamentary party. In the 1971 general election, the three presented a common political program, which lay the foundation for the first Biesheuvel cabinet. After the disastrous elections of 1972 the cooperation was given new momentum, in 1973 this federation was officially formed, with Steenkamp as chairperson. The cooperation was frustrated by the formation of the Den Uyl cabinet, established by the leader of the social-democratic PvdA, Den Uyl refused to allow members of the CHU in the cabinet that he would lead. This led to a situation where the CHU, ARP and KVP sat as a faction in both houses of parliament, but only the KVP and ARP supplied ministers and junior ministers. The cabinet Den Uyl was riddled with political and personal conflicts, another issue that split the three parties was the place that the Bible would take in the new party. In 1976, the three announced that they would field a single list at the 1977 general election under the name Christian Democratic Appeal
11.
Dutch language
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It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is said to be roughly in between them, Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic and incorporates more Romance loans than German but far fewer than English. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the official name for Dutch is Nederlands, and its dialects have their own names, e. g. Hollands, West-Vlaams. The use of the word Vlaams to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in Flanders and used there, however, is common in the Netherlands, the Dutch language has been known under a variety of names. It derived from the Old Germanic word theudisk, one of the first names used for the non-Romance languages of Western Europe. It literarily means the language of the people, that is. The term was used as opposed to Latin, the language of writing. In the first text in which it is found, dating from 784, later, theudisca appeared also in the Oaths of Strasbourg to refer to the Germanic portion of the oath. This led inevitably to confusion since similar terms referred to different languages, owing to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusively to the Dutch. A notable exception is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, Jersey Dutch, on the other hand, as spoken until the 1950s in New Jersey, is a Dutch-based creole. In Dutch itself, Diets went out of common use - although Platdiets is still used for the transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian Low Dietsch dialects in northeast Belgium, Nederlands, the official Dutch word for Dutch, did not become firmly established until the 19th century. This designation had been in use as far back as the end of the 15th century, one of them was it reflected a distinction with Hoogduits, High Dutch, meaning the language spoken in Germany. The Hoog was later dropped, and thus, Duits narrowed down in meaning to refer to the German language. g, in English, too, Netherlandic is regarded as a more accurate term for the Dutch language, but is hardly ever used. Old Dutch branched off more or less around the same time Old English, Old High German, Old Frisian and Old Saxon did. During that period, it forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, on the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in nowadays France and Germany. The division in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in the pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age, the Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups, East, West, and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian, Low German and High German
12.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
13.
North Holland
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North Holland is a province in the northwest of the Netherlands. It is situated on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, in 2015, it had a population of 2,762,163 and a total area of 2,670 km2. From the 9th to the 16th century, the area was a part of the County of Holland. During this period West Friesland was incorporated, in the 17th and 18th century, the area was part of the province of Holland. At that time, the distinction between the Noorderkwartier and the Zuiderkwartier became common, in 1840, the province of Holland was split into the two provinces of North Holland and South Holland. In 1855, the Haarlemmermeer was drained and turned into land, the capital and seat of the provincial government is Haarlem, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands capital city, is the provinces largest city. The Kings Commissioner of North Holland is Johan Remkes, there are 51 municipalities and three water boards in the province. For most of its history, the province of North Holland was an integral part of Holland. From the 9th century to the 16th century, Holland was a county ruled by the counts of Holland, during this period an area known as West Friesland was conquered and integrated into Holland. For centuries afterwards Holland would be officially called Holland and West Friesland, the people of West Friesland had a strong sense of identity as a region within Holland. From the 16th century to 1795, Holland was the wealthiest and most important province in the United Provinces in the Dutch Republic, as the richest and most powerful province, Holland dominated the union. During this period a distinction was made between the North Quarter and the South Quarter, areas that roughly correspond to the two modern provinces. The province of North Holland as it is today has its origins in the period of French rule from 1795 to 1813 and this was a time of bewildering changes to the Dutch system of provinces. In 1795 the old order was swept away and the Batavian Republic was established, in the Constitution enacted on 23 April 1798, the old borders were radically changed. The republic was reorganised into eight departments with roughly equal populations, Holland was split up into five departments named Texel, Amstel, Delf, Schelde en Maas, and Rijn. The first three of these lay within the borders of the old Holland, the two were made up of parts of different provinces. In 1801 the old borders were restored when the department of Holland was created and this reorganisation had been short-lived, but it gave birth to the concept of breaking up Holland and making it a less powerful province. This time the two departments were called Amstelland and Maasland and this also did not last long
14.
Utrecht (province)
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Utrecht is a province of the Netherlands. With an area of approximately 1,400 square kilometres, it is the smallest of the twelve provinces, apart from its eponymous capital, major cities in the province are Amersfoort, Houten, Nieuwegein, Veenendaal, IJsselstein and Zeist. In the International Organization for Standardization world region code system Utrecht makes up one region with code ISO 3166-2, the Bishopric of Utrecht was established in 695 when Saint Willibrord was consecrated bishop of the Frisians at Rome by Pope Sergius I. With the consent of the Frankish ruler, Pippin of Herstal, after Willibrords death the diocese suffered greatly from the incursions of the Vikings. Better times appeared during the reign of the Saxon emperors, who summoned the Bishops of Utrecht to attend the imperial councils. In 1024 the bishops were made Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1122, with the Concordat of Worms, the Emperors right of investiture was annulled, and the cathedral chapter received the right to elect the bishop. It was, however, soon obligated to share this right with the four other chapters in the city. The Counts of Holland and Guelders, between whose territories the lands of the Bishops of Utrecht lay, also sought to acquire influence over the filling of the episcopal see and this often led to disputes and consequently the Holy See frequently interfered in the election. After the middle of the 14th century the popes repeatedly appointed the bishop directly without regard to the five chapters, during the Hook and Cod Wars, Utrecht was fought over by forces of the Duke of Burgundy leading to the First Utrecht Civil War and Second Utrecht Civil War. The chapters transferred their right of electing the bishop to Charles V and his government, however, the Habsburg rule did not last long, as Utrecht joined in the Dutch Revolt against Charles successor Philip II in 1579, becoming a part of the Dutch Republic. In World War II, Utrecht was held by German forces until the capitulation of the Germans in the Netherlands on May 5,1945. It was occupied by Canadian Allied forces on May 7,1945, the towns of Oudewater, Woerden and Vianen were transferred from the province of South Holland to Utrecht in 1970,1989 and 2002 respectively. In February 2011, Utrecht, together with the provinces of North Holland and Flevoland and this has been positively received by the Dutch cabinet, for the desire to create one Randstad province has already been mentioned in the coalition agreement. The province of South Holland, part of the Randstad urban area, visioned to be part of the Randstad province, with or without South Holland, if created, the new province would be the largest in the Netherlands in both area and population. In the east of Utrecht lies the Utrecht Hill Ridge, a chain of left as lateral moraine by tongues of glacial ice after the Saline glaciation that preceded the last ice age. Because of the scarcity of nutrients in the sandy soil. The south of the province is a river landscape, the west consists mostly of meadows. In the north are big lakes formed by the digging of peat bogs formed after the last ice age
15.
Gelderland
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Gelderland is a province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. With a land area of nearly 5,000 km2, it is the largest province of the Netherlands and shares borders with six other provinces, however, both Nijmegen and Apeldoorn are larger cities, Nijmegen being the largest with nearly 170,000 inhabitants. Other major regional centres in Gelderland are Ede, Doetinchem, Zutphen, Tiel, Wageningen, Zevenaar, Gelderland had a population of just over two million in 2015. According to the Wichard saga, the city was named by the Lords of Pont who fought and they named the town they founded after the death rattle of the dragon, Gelre. Historically, the dates from states of the Holy Roman Empire. The County of Guelders arose out of the Frankish pagus Hamaland in the 11th century around castles near Roermond, the counts of Gelre acquired the Betuwe and Veluwe regions and, through marriage, the County of Zutphen. Thus the counts of Guelders laid the foundation for a power that, through control of the Rhine, Waal, Meuse. Further enlarged by the acquisition of the city of Nijmegen in the 13th century. After 1379, the duchy was ruled from Jülich and by the counts of Egmond, the duchy resisted Burgundian domination, but William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg was forced to cede it to Charles V in 1543, after which it formed part of the Burgundian-Habsburg hereditary lands. The duchy revolted with the rest of the Netherlands against Philip II of Spain, after the deposition of Philip II, its sovereignty was vested in the States of Gelderland, and the princes of Orange were stadtholders. In 1672, the province was occupied by Louis XIV and, in 1713. Part of the Batavian Republic, of Louis Bonaparte’s Kingdom of Holland, during the Second World War, it saw heavy fighting between Allied Paratroopers, British XXX Corps and the German II SS Panzer Corps, at the Battle of Arnhem
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North Brabant
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Noord Brabant, also unofficially called Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to the west, the northern border follows the Meuse river westward to its mouth in the Hollands Diep strait, part of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. The Duchy of Brabant was a state of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183 or 1190. Until the 17th century, the area that now makes up the province of North Brabant was mostly part of the Duchy of Brabant, of which the southern part is now in Belgium. In the 14th and 15th century, the experienced a golden age, especially the cities of Brussel, Mechelen, Leuven, Antwerpen, Breda, Bergen op Zoom. After the Union of Utrecht was signed in 1579, Brabant became a battlefield between the Protestant Dutch Republic and Catholic Spain, which occupied the southern Netherlands, attempts to introduce Protestantism into the region were largely unsuccessful, North Brabant remained strongly Roman Catholic. For over a century, North Brabant served mainly as a buffer zone. In 1796, when confederate Dutch Republic became the unitary Batavian Republic and this status ended with the reorganisation by the French, and the area was divided over several departments. This boundary between the Netherlands and Belgium is special in that it does not form a contiguous line, a few of these irregularities were corrected, Huijbergen became totally Dutch, but some remain, notably Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau. The period from 1900 until the late 1960s is called Het Rijke Roomse Leven, in those days every village in North Brabant had a convent from which the nuns operated. Politically, the province was dominated by Catholic parties, the Roomsch-Katholieke Staatspartij and its successor, the Katholieke Volkspartij. The influence of Het Rijke Roomse Leven remains in the form of education where some schools are still Roman Catholic, a cultural divide is still found between the Catholic south and the Protestant north, but with a total of 1. In the province of North Brabant Catholics are no longer a majority of the population as of 2010, only 1–2% of the total population of Catholic area attend mass, and these churchgoers consist mostly of people over 65 years old. With a population density of 501/km², North-Brabant is above average urbanized, the urbanization is at the center of the province at largest, where the kite is located, the rest of the province has a more rural character. The province has preserved some of its scenic nature well, also, south of Eindhoven named De Kempen is a beautiful area with farmlands and forests. In Heeze, also south of Eindhoven, are the areas the Groote Heide. The Strabrechtse Heide holds also the largest fen of the Netherlands, like most of the Netherlands, North Brabant is mostly flat but nearly every part of North Brabant is above sea level, therefore, there are not as many canals as in the lower parts of The Netherlands. Although most of the lives in urban areas, the province is scattered with villages around which most of the land is cultivated
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Zeeland
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Zeeland is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and peninsulas and its area is about 2,930 square kilometres, of which almost 1,140 square kilometres is water, and it has a population of about 380,000. Large parts of Zeeland are below sea level, the last great flooding of the area was in 1953. Tourism is an important economic activity, in the summer, its beaches make it a popular destination for tourists, especially German tourists. In some areas, the population can be two to four times higher during the summer season. The coat of arms of Zeeland shows a lion half-emerged from water, the country of New Zealand is named after Zeeland - not Zealand in Denmark, as sometimes claimed. Nehalennia is a goddess of the ancient religion known around the province of Zeeland and her worship dates back at least to the 2nd century BC, and flourished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. She was possibly a goddess, either Celtic or pre-Germanic – sources differ on the culture that first worshipped her. During the Roman Era, her main function appeared to be the protection of travelers, most of what is known about her comes from the remains of over 160 carved stone offerings which have been dredged up from the Eastern Scheldt since 1970. Two more Nehalennia offering stones have also found in Cologne. Zeeland was an area between the counts of Holland and Flanders until 1299, when the last count of Holland died. Followed by the counts of Bavaria, Burgundy and Habsburg, after 1585 Zeeland followed, as one of the 7 independent provinces, the fate of the Northern part of The Netherlands. In 1432 it became part of the Low Countries possessions of Philip the Good of Burgundy, through marriage, the Seventeen Provinces became the property of the Habsburgs in 1477. In the Eighty Years War, Zeeland was on the side of the Union of Utrecht, the area now called Zeeuws-Vlaanderen was not part of Zeeland, but a part of the county of Flanders that was conquered by the United Provinces, hence called Staats-Vlaanderen. After the French occupation and the formation of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815, during World War II, Zeeland was occupied by Nazi Germany between June 1940 and November 1944. In 1944, Zeeland was devastated by the Battle of the Scheldt, the catastrophic North Sea flood of 1953, which killed over 1800 people in Zeeland, led to the construction of the protective Delta Works. The province of Zeeland is a river delta situated at the mouth of several major rivers, namely Scheldt, Rhine. Most of the province lies below sea level and was reclaimed from the sea by inhabitants over time, what used to be a muddy landscape, flooding at high tide and reappearing at low tide, became a series of small man-made hills that stayed dry at all times
18.
Hardinxveld-Giessendam
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Hardinxveld-Giessendam is a municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. It is located about 10 km east of Dordrecht, on the river Beneden-Merwede, the municipality had a population of 17,751 in 2014 and covers an area of 19.35 km2 of which 2.43 km2 is water. The municipality of Hardinxveld-Giessendam consists of the two population centres Giessendam/Neder-Hardinxveld and Boven-Hardinxveld, until they were merged in 1957, Giessendam and Hardinxveld were two municipalities, consisting of only a few streets and dykes and only a few thousand inhabitants. The towns economy is for a large dependent on ship building. Dutch topographic map of the municipality of Hardinxveld-Giessendam, June 2015 The village Hardinxveld is one of the oldest settlements of the Alblasserwaard and it is known that in 1105 a priest was present here, and therefore a church as well. Since 1282, Hardinxveld became a grand fiefdom and this dam was the boundary between Hardinxveld and Giessendam for a long time. The municipality was formed in 1957 by the merger of the former municipalities Hardinxveld, the rest of Giessendams territory went to the new municipality of Giessenburg which in turn was merged with Giessenlanden in 1986. Since the 1960s, the municipality has grown significantly through the development of new such as De Peulen, de Wielwijk, de Westwijk. In recent years, the municipality had serious problems, resulting in direct oversight by the Province for a period of time. Considerable savings had to be made, necessitating significant increases to the relative low taxation in the town, before the construction of the Betuweroute Highspeed Railway, thorough soil research was performed in 1997. During that research in Hardinxveld-Giessendam, some items were found, including a 7500-year-old skeleton of a woman. It is the oldest skeleton found in the Netherlands up to this time, since December 2003, the reconstructed corpse has been added to the collection of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden. In April 1998, a canoe was found. The Hardinxveld-Giessendam railway station, on the Elst–Dordrecht railway, is situated in the municipality, official website J. Kuyper, Gemeente Atlas van Nederland, 1865-1870, Giessendam. Map of the municipality, around 1868
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Vlaardingen
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Vlaardingen is a city in South Holland in the Netherlands. It is located on the bank of the Nieuwe Maas river at the confluence with the Oude Maas. The municipality administers an area of 26.69 km2, of which 23.64 km2 is land, the city is divided into a northern and a southern part by the A20 motorway. On the east the city is separated from Schiedam by the A4 motorway, other places nearby are Maassluis to the west, Schipluiden and Delft to the north, Schiedam and Rotterdam to the east and Spijkenisse in the south-west, on the other side of the Nieuwe Maas. The A20 connects Rotterdam to Hoek van Holland, the Beneluxtunnel connects the A20 to the A15. The centre of the town is on the west side of the old harbour, the area around Vlaardingen was already settled by about 2900 to 2600 BC. In 1990, a skeleton dated at about 1300 BC was dug up in the periphery of Vlaardingen, some human nuclear DNA was identified, in 726 or 727 the area is again mentioned as In Pagio Marsum, where a little church was established, around which Vlaardingen formed. The church is mentioned on a list of churches Willibrord, the Apostle to the Frisians, in 1018 Vlaardingen was a stronghold of Dirk III, who levied an illegal toll on ships on the Meuse river. An army sent by German Emperor Henry II in order to stop this practice was defeated by Dirk III in the Battle of Vlaardingen, in 1047, his successor Dirk IV repelled another such attack. The flood disaster of December 21,1163, ended the growth of Vlaardingen, the Counts of Holland moved away and its development stagnated. It is known that in 1273 Vlaardingen was granted city rights by Floris V, older city rights are possible, but not provable. In 1574, during the Eighty Years War of Dutch independence, Vlaardingen later became a shipbuilding area and a significant harbour for the herring fishing industry. The fishing boats ceased to use Vlaardingen in the years after World War II, because of the industrialization in and close to Vlaardingen, the city suffered from heavy air pollution and sometimes sick making smog during the 1970s. One day, a school had to be closed because of the smog. Many environmental groups arose in and around Vlaardingen and the it was seen as one of the most dirty cities of the country, there are still some ship repair business in Eastern Vlaardingen beside the Nieuwe Maas River. The Vulcaanhaven was for years the largest privately owned artificial harbour in the world. The last major herring factory, Warmelo & Van Der Drift, left Vlaardingen in the middle of 2012 to relocate to Katwijk aan Zee, there are still some ferry terminals. Historical buildings in the include the Grote Kerk, the Waag next to the church and the old town hall, all on the Markt, the former marketplace, the Visbank at the harbour
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Roman province
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In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy, largest territorial and administrative unit of the empires territorial possessions outside of Italy. The word province in modern English has its origins in the used by the Romans. Provinces were generally governed by politicians of senatorial rank, usually former consuls or former praetors and this exception was unique, but not contrary to Roman law, as Egypt was considered Augustus personal property, following the tradition of earlier, Hellenistic kings. The territory of a people who were defeated in war might be brought under various forms of treaty, the formal annexation of a territory created a province in the modern sense of an administrative unit geographically defined. Republican provinces were administered in one-year terms by the consuls and praetors who had held office the previous year, Rome started expanding beyond Italy during the First Punic War. The first permanent provinces to be annexed were Sicily in 241 BC, militarized expansionism kept increasing the number of these administrative provinces, until there were no longer enough qualified individuals to fill the posts. The terms of provincial governors often had to be extended for multiple years,241 BC – Sicilia taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed at the end of the First Punic War. 237 BC – Corsica et Sardinia, these two islands were taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed soon after the Mercenary War, in 238 BC and 237 BC respectively. 197 BC – Hispania Citerior, along the east coast of the,197 BC - Hispania Ulterior, along the southern coast of the, part of the territories taken over from the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. 147 BC – Macedonia, mainland Greece and it was annexed after a rebellion by the Achaean League. 146 BC – Africa, modern day Tunisia and western Libya, home territory of Carthage and it was annexed following attacks on the allied Greek city of Massalia. 67 BC – Creta et Cyrenae, Cyrenaica was bequeathed to Rome in 78 BC, however, it was not organised as a province. 58 BC – Cilicia et Cyprus, Cilicia was created as a province in the sense of area of command in 102 BC in a campaign against piracy. The Romans controlled only a small area, in 74 BC Lycia and Pamphylia were added to the smal Roman possessions in Cilicia. Cilicia came fully under Roman control towards the end of the Third Mithridatic War - 73-63 BC, the province was reorganised by Pompey in 63 BC. Gallia Cisalpina was a province in the sense of an area of military command, during Romes expansion in Italy the Romans assigned some areas as provinces in the sense of areas of military command assigned to consuls or praetors due to risks of rebellions or invasions. This was applied to Liguria because there was a series of rebellions, Bruttium, in the early days of Roman presence in Gallia Cisalpina the issue was rebellion. Later the issue was risk of invasions by warlike peoples east of Italy, the city of Aquileia was founded to protect northern Italy form invasions
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Germania Inferior
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Germania Inferior was a Roman province located on the west bank of the Rhine. According to Ptolemy, Germania Inferior included the Rhine from its mouth up to the mouth of the Obringa, the territory included modern Luxembourg, southern Netherlands, part of Belgium, and part of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, west of the Rhine. The army of Germania Inferior, typically shown on inscriptions as EX. GER. INF, included several legions at various times, of these, Legions I Minervia and XXX Ulpia Victrix were the most permanent. The Roman Navys Classis Germanica, charged with patrolling the Rhine, the first confrontations between a Roman army and the peoples of Germania Inferior occurred during Julius Caesars Gallic Wars. Germanic influence increased during Roman times, leading to the assimilation of all Celtic peoples in the area, Germania Inferior had Roman settlements since around 50 BC and was at first part of Gallia Belgica. Although it had occupied since the reign of Augustus, it wasnt formally established as a Roman province until around AD85. It later became an Imperial province and it lay north of Germania Superior, these two together made up Lesser Germania. The adjective Inferior refers to its downstream position, as attested in the early 5th century Notitia Dignitatum, the province was renamed Germania Secunda in the 4th century. It was administered by a consularis and formed part of the Diocese of Gaul, up to the end of Roman control, it was an intensely garrisoned province that was inhabited by Romans and Ripuarian Franks in the 5th century. After the final abandonment of the province it became the core of the Frankish Kingdom, de Romeinen tussen Schelde en Maas. Livius. org, Germania inferior http, //www. library. ucla. edu/yrl/reference/maps/blaeu/germania-inferior-nt. htm#qvarta_branbantiae Blaeu Atlas Germania Inferior Hilary of Poitiers, an open letter sent to the bishop of the province of Germania Secunda, among others
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Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
23.
Oude Rijn (Utrecht and South Holland)
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For the Oude Rijn branch in Gelderland Province, see, Oude Rijn. The Oude Rijn is a branch of the Rhine delta in the Dutch provinces of Utrecht and its present-day length is 52 kilometres. In Roman times, it was the main Rhine branch, forming the border of the Roman Empire. In medieval times, it was used for transport and there is a towpath along large sections of the river. The river silted up in the course of the Middle Ages and had lost all of its importance by the 17th century. The city of Utrecht was founded at a ford near the fork of river Kromme Rijn into the Vecht to the north, of the original fork, little remains today and both Vecht and Rijn start from the city moat. For the first few kilometres of its course, the river is channelised and it becomes the Oude Rijn after the railway bridge near Harmelen. Then it flows westward through Woerden where first the river Lange Linschoten branches off to the south, after Woerden, the river Grecht branches off to the north and the Oude Rijn continues through the towns of Nieuwerbrug, Bodegraven, and Zwammerdam. Here the river De Meije ends into the Oude Rijn, in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Aar Canal ends in the Oude Rijn at the same location where the river Gouwe branches off to the south. It flows then along Koudekerk aan den Rijn and Hazerswoude-Rijndijk, after Zoeterwoude-Rijndijk and Leiderdorp, the Oude Rijn flows through Leiden. Here starts the Rhine-Schie Canal and the stream Zijl, the Nieuwe Rijn is a short branch that together with the Oude Rijn are part of Leidens moat system and both branches merge in the citys centre. The stream Korte Vliet discharges into the Oude Rijn and it continues through Valkenburg and Rijnsburg to Katwijk, at Katwijk aan den Rijn the oegstgeesterkanaal merges with the Oude Rijn. From here the river has been straightened into a canal and ends into the North Sea through a station, preventing high tides inland. In Roman times, the river Oude Rijn, which was much wider, many of the border-guarding castella and castra along the river evolved into cities and villages, including, Laurum, Nigrum Pullum, Albaniana, Matilo, Praetorium Agrippinae, and Lugdunum Batavorum. In Valkenburg, the layout of the Roman castellum has been marked in the pavement, media related to Oude Rijn at Wikimedia Commons
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Katwijk
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Katwijk is a coastal municipality and town in the province of South Holland, which is situated in the mid-western part of the Netherlands. The Oude Rijn river flows through the town and into the North Sea, Katwijk is located on the North Sea, northwest of Leiden and 16 km north of The Hague. It shares its borders with the municipalities of Noordwijk, Teylingen, Oegstgeest, Leiden, in January 2016, Katwijk had a population of 64.169 and covers an area of 31.13 km2, of which 6.59 km2 is water. Katwijk is by far the largest town in the Duin- en Bollenstreek, the town consists of a number of districts, including namesakes Katwijk aan den Rijn and Katwijk aan Zee. On 1 January 2005 the various districts had the following populations, Katwijk aan den Rijn Katwijk aan Zee Katwijk-Noord Rijnsburg Valkenburg Lying on the coast, Katwijk aan den Rijn lies just slightly inland. Rijnsburg is situated east of Katwijk aan den Rijn whereas Valkenburg finds itself to the south, Katwijk-Noord is situated north of Katwijk aan Zee. Although consisting of separate towns that still today maintain separate identities. The creation of the municipality of Katwijk is a recognition of that fact, the town hall of the current municipality of Katwijk is located in Katwijk aan den Rijn, near the boundary of Katwijk aan Zee. All these districts lie along the Oude Rijn, the name Katwijk probably has its origins in the name of a Germanic tribe called the Chatten. The Dutch word wijk means area, so the name meant something like the Chatti area. In Romans times, Katwijk was a place of strategic importance and it was located at the Roman Empires northern border, at the mouth of the Rhine river, which in Roman times was larger in this area than it is today. There was a deal of traffic along the Rhine. Katwijk was also a point for the voyage to Britain. Built during the reign of Emperor Claudius, the name was Lugdunum Batavorum. The towns name was associated with the name of the city of Leiden. In 1231, the first reference to Catwijck appeared in records, the history of the modern municipality of Katwijk is essentially the history of its constituent parts, which for each village extends back to Roman times. However, Katwijk aan Zee, Katwijk aan den Rijn and Valkenburg were part of the same heerlijkheid called Beide de Katwijken en t Zand and they have been administratively joined for centuries despite their differing characters. Katwijk aan Zee was a town and Katwijk aan den Rijn had an agricultural character
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Praetorium Agrippinae
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Praetorium Agrippinae was a Roman settlement in the province of Lower Germania, in the area of the Cananefates, located in modern-day Valkenburg, Netherlands. It was an encampment on the Old Rhine, on the northern border of the Roman Empire. Praetorium Agrippinae is mentioned on the Tabula Peutingeriana between the castella of Matilo in the east and Lugdunum Batavorum to the west. A praetorium is a headquarters, and Praetorium Agrippinae takes its name from the mother of the emperor Caligula, Vipsania Agrippina. It is almost certain that Caligula stayed in the area in 39 or 40 AD, most probably, he visited the area in preparation for a never executed invasion of Brittannia, and the castellum may have been erected for this operation. However, finds of coins and terra sigillata pottery suggest that Roman army units may have been stationed there before its construction, the fort was built in the current centre of Valkenburg, and was at first fortified by a pallisaded earthen wall and three moats. Initially, two maniples of legionaries and two turmae of cavalry from the cohors III Gallorum Equitata were stationed at the fort. After the Revolt of the Batavi, however, when the tribes had razed the fortress to the ground. Around 180 AD the Romans enlarged the fort and rebuilt it in stone, in total,7 building phases have been distinguished. Like all other forts on the Dutch limes, Valkenburg was deserted after the collapse of the Roman border defense around 275 AD, Valkenburg, however, is one of the few castella where evidence for Late Roman building activities was found. During the reign of Constantius I Chlorus a granary was constructed here for the shipment of grain to Brittannia, to the southeast of the fortress, a large civil settlement developed, stretching for approx. 1 km along the via militaris, archaeological investigations have uncovered living quarters, storehouses and granaries, and possibly a bath house. A large cemetery containing over 700 graves was found as well, between 70 and 110 AD, a small military encampment was located here as well. Valkenburg is one of the best excavated Roman sites in the Netherlands, investigations started already in 1875, but the main excavations were done between 1941 and 1953 under the direction of Albert Egges van Giffen. This allowed for detailed reconstruction of Roman building practices and feeding habits, in the 1970s and 1980s, further excavations were done in the area of the vicus. A recent re-analysis showed that the houses here were built in narrow rectangular parcels, some of the finds can be seen in the Torenmuseum in Valkenburg. On the central square of town, the Castellumplein, the contours of the fort are visualised with bronze dots in the pavement, the foundations of one of the forts gates have been reconstructed as well. Outside town, on the N206 provincial road, a reconstruction of the road can be seen
26.
Valkenburg, South Holland
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Valkenburg is a village and former municipality in the province of South Holland, in the western Netherlands. Valkenburg is now part of the municipality Katwijk and had a population of 3,900 in 2006, on 1 January 2006, Valkenburg and Rijnsburg were merged into the municipality of Katwijk. The former municipality of Valkenburg had about 3878 inhabitants and a area of 15.74 km2 of which 0.23 km2 is water. On the second Wednesday in September there is a horse market,2010 marked its 1066th year of operation. The former Valkenburg Naval Air Base, which was situated here since 1936, was closed in 2006
27.
Matilo
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Matilo or Matilone was once a Roman fort in modern-day Leiden. Positioned on the banks of the Oude Rijn, it served to protect the Roman borders in the province of Germania inferior. On the Peutinger map, it lies between the encampments of Albaniana and Praetorium Agrippinae, the seventh-century Ravenna Cosmography gives its name as Matellionem. Matilo probably derives its name from a body of water near which it was situated, as is usually the case with Roman place-names ending in -on, -one and this particular water body had most likely already received its name before Roman settlement along the Oude Rijn. It is therefore of Celtic or Germanic origin and its meaning remains unclear, due to lack of any evidence predating Roman finds, archaeologists usually conclude that the Romans were the first to settle in this particular location. Before their arrival, people mostly lived further from the river, the first Romans arrived at the site in 47 AD as part of a larger operation to reinforce the Germanic limes. In order to increase the efficiency of supply chains and communication lines within his army, general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo had a built, connecting the Meuse. Matilo was erected there, at the place of the Oude Rijn. Archaeological evidence seems to suggest that the Romans only constructed the fort itself somewhere at around 70 AD, the construction of Matilo therefore immediately followed the Batavian Rebellion in 69 and as such played an important role in restoring order to the province of Germania Inferior. Somewhere between 85 and 116, the moat was palisaded and between 130 and 196 AD the Romans added three moats and rebuilt the armoury in stone and they did this once more sometime in 196–243, and replaced the wooden outer wall with a stone one as well. The wall and moats were then once more after that. Archaeological findings of ammunition for an onager indicate that a division was once garrisoned there. Matilo - Rodenburg - Roomburg, De Roomburgerpolder van Romeins castellum tot moderne woonwijk, lems, E. Op zoek naar Matilo, Sporen van de Romeinen in Leiden
28.
Leiden
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Leiden is a city and municipality in the Dutch province of South Holland. Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn, at a distance of some 20 kilometres from The Hague to its south, the recreational area of the Kaag Lakes lies just to the northeast of Leiden. A university city since 1575, Leiden houses Leiden University, the oldest university of the Netherlands, Leiden is a city with a rich cultural heritage, not only in science, but also in the arts. One of the worlds most famous painters, Rembrandt, was born, other famous Leiden painters include Lucas van Leyden, Jan van Goyen and Jan van Steen. The city has one of Europes most prominent scientific centres for more than four centuries. Modern scientific medical research and teaching started in the early 18th century in Leiden with Boerhaave, many important scientific discoveries have been made here, giving rise to Leiden’s motto, ‘City of Discoveries’. It is twinned with Oxford, the location of the United Kingdoms oldest university, Leiden University and Leiden University of Applied Sciences together have around 35,000 students. Leiden is a university city, university buildings are scattered throughout the city. Leiden was formed on a hill at the confluence of the rivers Oude. In the oldest reference to this, from circa 860, the settlement was called Leithon, the name is said to be from Germanic *leitha- canal. Leiden has in the past erroneously been associated with the Roman outpost Lugdunum Batavorum and this particular castellum was thought to be located at the Burcht of Leiden, and the citys name was thought to be derived of the Latin name Lugdunum. However the castellum was in closer to the town of Katwijk. The landlord of Leiden, situated in a stronghold on the hill, was subject to the Bishop of Utrecht. This county got its name in 1101 from a domain near the stronghold, Leiden was sacked in 1047 by Emperor Henry III. Early 13th century, Ada, Countess of Holland took refuge here when she was fighting in a war against her uncle, William I. He besieged the stronghold and captured Ada, Leiden received city rights in 1266. In 1389, its population had grown to about 4,000 persons, burgrave Filips of Wassenaar and the other local noblemen of the Hook faction assumed that the duke would besiege Leiden first and send small units out to conquer the surrounding citadels. But John of Bavaria chose to attack the citadels first and he rolled the cannons with his army but one which was too heavy went by ship
29.
Alphen aan den Rijn
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Alphen aan den Rijn is a town and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland, between Leiden and Utrecht. The town is situated on the banks of the river Oude Rijn, the municipality had a population of 107,117 in 2014, and covers an area of 132.49 km2 of which 5.91 km2 is water. The municipality of Alphen aan den Rijn also includes the communities of Aarlanderveen, Zwammerdam, the town is located in what is called the Green Heart of the Netherlands, which is a somewhat less densely populated centre area of the Randstad. The name Alphen is probably derived from the name of the Roman fort Albaniana and its remains still lie underneath the city centre today. The area around Alphen aan den Rijn has been inhabited for 2000 years, in the Roman era, the Oude Rijn was the main branch of the Rhine River and formed the north border of the Roman Empire. Since the rule of Emperor Claudius, divisions of the Roman army were stationed here, consequently, several Roman fortifications were located along the Oude Rijn, including castellum Albanianae in the centre of Alphen. The Romans had also built the first bridge over the Oude Rijn, Alphen was therefore an important commercial site in the area until Germanic raids ended that in 240 AD. After recurring problems with flooding, especially in Utrecht and Leiden, the Oude Rijn has not flooded since. During the Middle Ages, Alphen was a fiefdom called Alphen en Rietveld, in the 17th century, Alphen became prominent again as a hub for commerce. The Oude Rijn was used for traffic, there are still portions along the river where the towpath is present. The current municipality was formed in 1918 through the amalgamation of the municipalities of Alphen, Aarlanderveen. In 1964, the municipality of Zwammerdam was added as well, in 2014 the municipalities of Boskoop and Rijnwoude were amalgamated as well, doubling the land area and increasing the population to over 100,000. During the Second World War, the majority of Jews from Alphen were deported and subsequently murdered, after the war, the Jewish congregation was disbanded and merged with the one in Leiden. Since 1950, the city began to grow rapidly, a large new neighbourhood was built on the north side. And since the 1990s, a new development was built at the citys south side. Now Alphen aan den Rijn is mostly a commuter city, in recent years, a large part of the town centre has undergone a full urban renewal. Many older buildings built in the 1950s and earlier have been demolished to make place for modern architecture, as of 2006, all of these projects have been finished. On 9 April 2011, an opened fire at a shopping centre in Alphen aan den Rijn, killing six people
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Voorburg
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Voorburg is a Dutch town and former municipality in the western part of the province of South Holland, the Netherlands. Together with Leidschendam and Stompwijk, it makes up the municipality Leidschendam-Voorburg and it has a population of approximately 39,000 people. It is considered to be the oldest city in The Netherlands, in 2002, the cities of Leidschendam and Voorburg were merged under the new municipality named Leidschendam-Voorburg. Situated adjacent to the city of The Hague, it is regarded as one of its suburbs. It was positioned along the Fossa Corbulonis, a canal connecting the Rhine and this waterway is now known as the Rijn-Schie canal and is still a dominant landmark of the present day borough. His son, the astronomer and mathematician Christiaan Huygens, spent several years in his fathers country house in Voorburg. The house, located next to the railway station, now functions as a museum. Philosopher Baruch Spinoza also lived in Voorburg from 1663 to 1670, in Voorburg, Spinoza continued work on the Ethics and corresponded with scientists, philosophers, and theologians throughout Europe. Until 2009 Voorburg hosted the major branch of the statistics institute, the CBS. The latter two are now part of the Randstad Rail network, Voorburg used to be an Intercity station, because there was an eternal agreement with the railways that every passing train should stop there. It lost that status, as the new station is elevated. Voorburg Cricket Club Sportpark Westvliet cricket ground was approved by the ICC as the Netherlands latest ODI venue and it joins the VRA ground in Amstelveen and the Hazelaarweg ground in Rotterdam in gaining ODI status. Bangladesh played one Twenty20 International match each against Scotland and Netherlands there in July 2012. org, Fossa Corbulonis
31.
Forum Hadriani
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Forum Hadriani, in the modern town of Voorburg, was the northern-most Roman city on the European continent and the second oldest city of the Netherlands. It was located in the Roman province Germania Inferior and is mentioned on the Tabula Peutingeriana, the site Forum Hadriani formed the nucleus of the civitas of the Cananefates, who lived west of the Batavians. It was situated along the Fossa Corbulonis or Corbulo-canal and this waterway was established about 47 CE by the Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, forming an important shortcut between the rivers Rhine and Meuse. After the Batavian Rebellion, in which participated, the Cananefates became loyal allies of the Romans. In 121 emperor Hadrian made a voyage along the northwestern border of the empire. He gave the town his own name, Forum Hadriani, an alternate name, maybe the only official name, was Municipium Aelium Cananefatium. The shortened version of this name, MAC, has been engraved in a couple of Roman milestones found in the neighbourhood. About 270 CE, after several plagues and attacks by Saxon pirates, in 1771 a bronze right hand was excavated during garden work on the Arentsburg estate. This hand was used by Étienne Maurice Falconet as model for the statue of Peter the Great. The first scientific excavations at the site of Forum Hadriani were carried out by Caspar Reuvens, Reuvens held the worlds first professorship of archaeology. Reuvens died before he could publish his findings, more excavations were done between 1908 and 1915 by Jan Hendrik Holwerda, who published the results of Reuvens together with his own discoveries in a comprehensive monograph in 1923. List of Latin place names in Continental Europe Photos Livius. org, Forum Hadriani
32.
Frisian Kingdom
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The Frisian Kingdom, also known as Magna Frisia, is a modern name for the Frisian realm in the period when it was at its largest. This empire was ruled by kings and emerged in the mid-7th century and it lay mainly in what is now the Netherlands and - according to some 19th century authors - extended from the Zwin near Bruges in Belgium to the Weser in Germany. The center of power was the city of Utrecht, in medieval writings, the region is designated by the Latin term Frisia. There is a dispute among historians about the extent of this realm, possibly Frisia consisted of multiple petty kingdoms, which transformed in time of war to a unit to resist invading powers, and then headed an elected leader, the primus inter pares. It is possible that Redbad established an administrative unit, among the Frisians at that time there was no feudal system. The ancient Frisii were living in the region between the Zuiderzee and the River Ems. In the Germanic pre-Migration Period the Frisii and the related Chauci, Saxons, all of these peoples shared a common material culture, and so cannot be defined archaeologically. What little is known of the Frisii and their kings is provided by a few Roman accounts about two Frisian kings visiting Rome in the 1st century, Malorix and Verritus, by 400 AD the Frisii abandoned the land and disappeared from archeological records. During the Migration Period new Frisians resettled in the north and the west of the Low Countries, the Frisians consisted of tribes with loose bonds, centered on war bands but without great power. In the second half of the 7th century the Frisian kingship reached its maximum geographic development, the laten were tenants of lands they did not own and might be tied to it in the manner of serfs, but in later times might buy their freedom. The exact title of the Frisian rulers depends on the source, Frankish sources tend to call them dukes, other sources often call them kings. Only three Frisian rulers are named in written sources. Under the rule of the king Aldgisl, the Frisians came in conflict with the Frankish mayor of the palace Ebroin, Aldgisl could keep the Franks at a distance with his army. In 678 he welcomed the English bishop Wilfrid, who, like him, was not a friend of the Franks. Under Redbad, the tide turned in favour of the Franks, in 690 the Franks were victorious in the battle of Dorestad under the Austrasian mayor of the palace, Pepin of Herstal. Though not all the consequences of this battle are clear, Dorestad became Frankish again, as did the castles of Utrecht, after Pepin died, in 714, Redbad took advantage of the battle for succession in Francia and regained southern Frisia. He made a treaty with the Neustrasian mayor of the palace, Ragenfrid, so that in 716 his armies could enter the Frankish land as far as Cologne, the army returned to the north with a large war loot. Redbad made plans to invade Francia for the time and mobilised a large army
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Francia
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The kingdom was founded by Clovis I, crowned first King of the Franks in 496. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Most Frankish Kings were buried in the Basilica of Saint Denis, modern France is still named Francia in Spanish and Italian. The Franks emerged in the 3rd century as a confederation of smaller Germanic tribes, such as the Sicambri, Bructeri, Ampsivarii, Chamavi and Chattuarii, in the area north and east of the Rhine. Some of these peoples, such as the Sicambri and Salians, already had lands in the Roman Empire, in 357 the Salian king entered the Roman Empire and made a permanent foothold there by a treaty granted by Julian the Apostate, who forced back the Chamavi to Hamaland. As Frankish territory expanded, the meaning of Francia expanded with it, after the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after the fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus. Jovinus was dead by 413, but the Romans found it difficult to manage the Franks within their borders. The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, in c, around 428 the Salian king Chlodio, whose kingdom included Toxandria and the civitatus Tungrorum, launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum and the Somme. The kingdom of Chlodio changed the borders and the meaning of the word Francia permanently, Francia was no longer barbaricum trans Rhenum, but a landed political power on both sides of the river, deeply involved in Roman politics. Chlodios family, the Merovingians, extended Francia even further south, the core territory of the Frankish kingdom later came to be known as Austrasia. Chlodios successors are obscure figures, but what can be certain is that Childeric I, possibly his grandson, Clovis converted to Christianity and put himself on good terms with the powerful Church and with his Gallo-Roman subjects. In a thirty-year reign Clovis defeated the Roman general Syagrius and conquered the Roman exclave of Soissons, defeated the Alemanni, Clovis defeated the Visigoths and conquered their entire kingdom with its capital at Toulouse, and conquered the Bretons and made them vassals of Francia. He conquered most or all of the neighbouring Frankish tribes along the Rhine, by the end of his life, Clovis ruled all of Gaul save the Gothic province of Septimania and the Burgundian kingdom in the southeast. The Merovingians were a hereditary monarchy, the Frankish kings adhered to the practice of partible inheritance, dividing their lands among their sons. Cloviss sons made their capitals near the Frankish heartland in northeastern Gaul, Theuderic I made his capital at Reims, Chlodomer at Orléans, Childebert I at Paris, and Chlothar I at Soissons. During their reigns, the Thuringii, Burgundes, and Saxons and Frisians were incorporated into the Frankish kingdom, the fraternal kings showed only intermittent signs of friendship and were often in rivalry. Theuderic died in 534, but his adult son Theudebert I was capable of defending his inheritance, which formed the largest of the Frankish subkingdoms and the kernel of the later kingdom of Austrasia. Theudebert interfered in the Gothic War on the side of the Gepids and Lombards against the Ostrogoths, receiving the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, and part of Venetia
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Dagobert I
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Dagobert I was the king of Austrasia, king of all the Franks, and king of Neustria and Burgundy. He was the last king of the Merovingian dynasty to wield any real royal power, Dagobert was the first of the Frankish kings to be buried in the royal tombs at Saint Denis Basilica. Dagobert was the eldest son of Chlothar II and Haldetrude, Chlothar had reigned alone over all the Franks since 613. In 623, Chlothar was forced to make Dagobert king of Austrasia by the nobility of that region, the rule of a Frank from the Austrasian heartland tied Alsace more closely to the Austrasian court. Dagobert created a new duchy in southwest Austrasia to guard the region from Burgundian or Alemannic encroachments, the duchy comprised the Vosges, the Burgundian Gate, and the Transjura. Dagobert made his courtier Gundoin the first duke of this new polity that was to last until the end of the Merovingian dynasty, upon the death of his father in 629, Dagobert inherited the Neustrian and Burgundian kingdoms. His half-brother Charibert, son of Sichilde, claimed Neustria but Dagobert opposed him, brodulf, brother of Sichilde, petitioned Dagobert on behalf of his young nephew, but Dagobert assassinated him and gave the Aquitaine to his own younger sibling. Charibert and his son Chilperic were assassinated in 632, Dagobert had Burgundy and Aquitaine firmly under his rule, becoming the most powerful Merovingian king in many years and the most respected ruler in the West. In 631, Dagobert led three armies against Samo, the ruler of the Slavs, but his Austrasian forces were defeated at Wogastisburg, also in 632, the nobles of Austrasia revolted under the mayor of the palace, Pepin of Landen. As king, Dagobert made Paris his capital, during his reign, he built the Altes Schloss in Meersburg, which today is the oldest inhabited castle in that country. Devoutly religious, Dagobert was also responsible for the construction of the Saint Denis Basilica and he also appointed St. Arbogast bishop of Strasbourg. Dagobert died in the abbey of Saint-Denis and was the first Frankish king to be buried in the Saint Denis Basilica, the author of the Chronicle of Fredegar criticises the king for his loose morals in having three queens almost simultaneously, as well as several concubines. The chronicle names the queens, Nanthild and the otherwise obscure Wulfegundis and Berchildis, in 625/6 Dagobert married Gormatrude, a sister of his fathers wife Sichilde, but the marriage was childless. After divorcing Gormatrude in 629/30 he made Nanthild, a Saxon servant from his personal entourage and she gave birth to, Clovis II later king of Neustria and Burgundy. Shortly after his marriage to Nanthild, he took a girl called Ragnetrude to his bed and it has been speculated that Regintrud, abbess of Nonnberg Abbey, was also a child of Dagobert, although this theory does not fit Regintruds supposed date of birth between 660 and 665. She married into the Bavarian Agilolfing family
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Willibrord
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Willibrord was a Northumbrian missionary saint, known as the Apostle to the Frisians in the modern Netherlands. He became the first Bishop of Utrecht and died at Echternach and his father, named Wilgils or Hilgis, was styled by Alcuin as a Saxon of Northumbria. The king and nobles of the district endowed him with estates until he was at last able to build a church, Willibrord grew up under the influence of St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York. He spent the years between the ages of 20 and 32 in the Abbey of Rathmelsigi, in Ireland, which was a centre of European learning in the 7th century, both of these trips to Rome have historical significance. As Bede tells us, Willibrord was not the only Anglo-Saxon to travel to Rome. The way in which he described the visit and its purpose is important, unlike all the others, Willibrord was not on the pilgrimage to the graves of the apostles Peter and Paul. As such he came to the not as a pilgrim. The second time he went to Rome, on 21 November 695, in the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Pope Sergius I gave him a pallium and consecrated him as bishop of the Frisians. He returned to Frisia to preach and establish churches, among them a monastery at Utrecht, Willibrord is counted the first Bishop of Utrecht. After Hugobert died, Irmina founded a Benedictine convent at Horren in Trier, when a plague threatened her community, she gained the help of Willibrord, and when the pestilence passed by the convent, she gave Willibrord the lands for his abbey in Echternach. Pepin of Heristal died in 714, in 716 the pagan Radbod, king of the Frisians, retook possession of Frisia, burning churches and killing many missionaries. Willibrord and his monks were forced to flee, after the death of Radbod in 719, Willibrord returned to resume his work, under the protection of Charles Martel. Winfrid, better known as Boniface, joined Willibrord and stayed for three years, before travelling on to preach in Germanic territory, Willibrord died on 7 November 739 at the age of 81, and according to his wish, was buried in Echternach. He was quickly judged to be a saint, Willibrord wells, which skirted his missionary routes, were visited by the people, to solicit the healing of various nervous diseases, especially of children. In the Roman Catholic Church his feast day is celebrated on 7 November outside England, in the Church of England, he is celebrated on 7 November. Numerous miracles and relics have been attributed to him, at Gravelines, where Willibrord is said to have landed after crossing the Channel on his mission to the Frisians, the church in the old town is dedicated to him. Gravelines grew up after ca.800 around the chapel commemorating Willibrord’s mission, there is a 13th-century chapel dedicated to Willibrord at Wissembourg Abbey, where Willibrords benefactress Irmina of Oeren was also venerated. A Life was written by Alcuin and dedicated to the Abbot of Echternach, Alcuin probably made use of an older one written by a British monk, which is now lost
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Roman Catholicism
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
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Pepin II
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Pepin II, commonly known as Pepin of Herstal, was a Frankish statesman and military leader who de facto ruled Francia as the Mayor of the Palace from 680 until his death. He took the title Duke and Prince of the Franks upon his conquest of all the Frankish realms, the son of the powerful Frankish statesman, Ansegisel, Pepin worked to establish his family, the Pippinids, as the strongest in Francia. He was able to realise his dreams by becoming Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia in 680, Pepin subsequently embarked on several wars to expand his power. He united all the Frankish realms by the conquests of Neustria, in foreign conflicts, Pepin increased the power of the Franks by his subjugation of the Alemanni, the Frisians, and the Franconians. He also began the process of evangelisation in Germany, Pepins statesmanship was notable for the further diminution of Merovingian royal authority, and for the acceptance of the undisputed right to rule for his family. Therefore, Pepin was able to name as heir his grandson Theudoald, but this was not accepted by his powerful son Charles Martel, leading to a civil war after his death in which the latter emerged victorious. Pepin, sometimes called Pepin II and Pepin the Middle, was the grandson and namesake of Pepin I the Elder through the marriage of Pepin Is daughter Begga to Ansegisel and he was also the grandfather of Pepin the Short and great-grandfather of Charlemagne. That marriage united the two houses of the Pippinids and the Arnulfings which created what would be called the Carolingian dynasty, Pepin II was probably born in Herstal, modern Belgium, whence his byname. As mayor of Austrasia, Pepin and Martin, the duke of Laon, fought the Neustrian mayor Ebroin, who had designs on all Francia. Ebroin defeated the Austrasians at Lucofao and came close to uniting all the Franks under his rule, however, he was assassinated in 681, Pepin immediately made peace with his successor, Waratton. However, Warattons successor, Berthar, and the Neustrian king Theuderic III, the king and his mayor were decisively defeated at the Battle of Tertry in the Vermandois in 687. Berthar and Theuderic withdrew themselves to Paris, where Pepin followed, Pepin was created mayor in all three Frankish kingdoms and began calling himself Duke and Prince of the Franks. In the ensuing quarrels, Berthar killed his mother-in-law Ansfled and fled and his wife Anstrude married Pepins eldest son Drogo, Duke of Champagne, and Pepins place in Neustria was secured. Over the next years, Pepin subdued the Alemanni, Frisians. He also began the evangelisation of Germania, in 695, he placed Drogo in the Burgundian mayorship and his other son, Grimoald, in the Neustrian one. Around 670, Pepin had married Plectrude, who had inherited substantial estates in the Moselle region and she was the mother of Drogo of Champagne and Grimoald II, both of whom died before their father. However, Pepin also had a mistress named Alpaida who bore him two sons, Charles Martel and Childebrand. Just before Pepins death, Plectrude convinced him to disinherit the sons he had with his second wife Alpaida in favour of his grandson, Theudoald, Pepin died suddenly at an old age on 16 December 714, at Jupille
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Oegstgeest
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Oegstgeest is a town and municipality in the province of South Holland in the western Netherlands. Its population was 22,903 in 2014, the portion geest in the name refers to the geest lands, which were excavated in the seventeenth century for the benefit of the urban expansion of Leiden. About the Oegst part more uncertainty exists, the name was formerly often spelled Oestgeest or Oostgeest, which could indicate the geographical location of the village, east of the geest lands. However, the oldest spelling found in a copy of a list of goods of the St. Martins Cathedral in Utrecht from the tenth century states Osgeresgeest and this could indicate an original resident and owner of the territory, Osger. In the Middle Ages they also spoke of the Church of Kerckwerve if one referred to the Oegstgeester parish church, Oegstgeest is one of the earliest inhabited places along the coast. By the 9th century there was already a church in the same location as the current Little Green Church which. The existence of church is an indication that there may have been a community there. From the 11th to the 14th century, Oegstgeest enjoyed a period of progress and this ended when Leiden was granted city rights. The carrying out of trades and construction were no longer permitted within a distance from the city. In 1399, the heerlijkheid of Oegstgeest and that of Poelgeest were merged because their declining populations could no longer afford to pay the taxes to the Count of Holland. Until the 19th century the boundary of Oegstgeest extended right to the city walls, but in the 19th and 20th century, it conceded more and more of its territory to the rapidly expanding city of Leiden. Before the early 20th century, Oegstgeest had a rural character and it consisted of several unconnected smaller settlements. Only after 1900 were new neighbourhoods built between the settlements, first Wilhelminapark was built, followed by Prins Hendrikpark, Buitenlust or Indische Buurt, Julianapark, Oranjepark, and Emmapark, and Grunerie and the area between Emmalaan and Lange Voort. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Haaswijk and Morsebel neighbourhoods were built, in 2006 construction started on a new neighbourhood, Nieuw Rhijngeest. In 2017 there will be a new housepark being built, at the current location of the footballclub ASC, herefor ASC will move to the old location of the cricketclub of Oegstgeest. The municipality of Oegstgeest covers an area of 7.97 km2 of which 0.67 km2 is water, Oegstgeest lies just to the north of Leiden, with which it is conjoined in a conurbation and formed the Leiden region. Oegstgeest is a municipality, but it is effectively a suburb of Leiden. The municipality of Katwijk is to the west, the municipality of Teylingen to the north, Oegstgeest is the birthplace of the famous Dutch writer Jan Wolkers as well as stand up comedian Theo Maassen
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East Francia
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East Francia or the Kingdom of the East Franks was a successor state of Charlemagnes empire and precursor of the Holy Roman Empire. Until 911 it was ruled by Carolingian dynasty and it was created after the 840-43 civil war between Charlemagnes grandchildren which ended with the Treaty of Verdun which divided the former empire into three kingdoms. In August 843, after three years of war following the death of emperor Louis the Pious on 20 June 840. The division of lands was based on the Meuse, Scheldt. The contemporary East Frankish Annales Fuldenses describes the kingdom being divided in three and Louis acceding to the eastern part, while West and Middle Francia contained the traditional Frankish heartlands, the East consisted mostly of lands only annexed to the Frankish empire in the eighth century. These included the duchies of Alemannia, Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia, as well as the northern and eastern marches with the Danes, in 869 Lotharingia was divided between West and East Francia under the Treaty of Meersen. The short lived Middle Francia turned out to be the theatre of Franco-German wars up until the 20th century, all the Frankish lands were briefly reunited by Charles the Fat, but in 888 he was deposed by nobles and in East Francia Arnulf of Carinthia was elected king. The increasing weakness of royal power in East Francia meant that dukes of Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia, Saxony, Kings increasingly had to deal with regional rebellions. Because Conrad I was one of the dukes, he found it hard to establish his authority over them. Duke Henry of Saxony was in rebellion against Conrad I until 915 and struggle against Arnulf, on his deathbed Conrad I chose Henry of Saxony as the most capable successor. This kingship changed from Franks to Saxons, who had suffered greatly during the conquests of Charlemagne, by his death in July 936 Henry had prevented collapse of royal power as was happening in West Francia and left a much stronger kingdom to his successor Otto I. After Otto I was crowned as the Emperor in Rome in 962 the era of the Holy Roman Empire began, the term orientalis Francia originally referred to Franconia and orientales Franci to its inhabitants, the ethnic Franks living east of the Rhine. The use of the term in a sense, to refer to the eastern kingdom, was an innovation of Louis the Germans court. Since eastern Francia could be identified with old Austrasia, the Frankish heartland, under his grandson, Arnulf, the terminology was largely dropped and the kingdom, when it was referred to by name, was simply Francia. When it was necessary, as in the Treaty of Bonn with the West Franks, Henry I refers to himself as rex Francorum orientalium, king of the East Franks, in the treaty. By the 12th century, the historian Otto of Freising, in using the Carolingian terminology had to explain that the kingdom of the Franks was now called the kingdom of the Germans. The regalia of the Carolingian empire had divided by Louis the Pious on his deathbed between his two faithful sons, Charles the Bald and Lothair. Louis the German, then in rebellion, received nothing of the jewels or liturgical books associated with Carolingian kingship
40.
Treaty of Verdun
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The treaty signed in Verdun-sur-Meuse ended the three-year Carolingian Civil War. Lothairs brother Louis the German and his half-brother Charles the Bald refused to acknowledge Lothairs suzerainty, each of the three brothers was already established in one kingdom, Lothair in Italy, Louis the German in Bavaria, and Charles the Bald in Aquitaine. In the settlement, Lothair retained his title as emperor and, Lothair received Middle Francia and his domain later became the Low Countries, Lorraine, Alsace, Burgundy, Provence, and the Kingdom of Italy. He also received the two cities, Aachen and Rome, and the imperial title, but it conferred only nominal overlordship of his brothers lands. Louis the German received the eastern portion, Charles the Bald received the western portion, which later became France. Pepin II was granted the kingdom of Aquitaine, but only under the authority of Charles, Charles received all lands west of the Rhône, which was called West Francia. Lothairs eldest son, Louis II inherited Italy and his fathers claim to the Imperial, the division of the Frankish realm by the Treaty of Verdun, carried out without any regard to linguistic and cultural continuities, resulted in conflicts in Western Europe until the 20th century. Since the Middle Frankish Kingdom combined lengthy and vulnerable borders with poor internal communications as it was severed by the Alps, it was not a viable entity. This made it difficult for a ruler to reassemble Charlemagnes empire. Only Charles the Fat achieved this briefly, in 855, the northern section became fragile Lotharingia, which became disputed by the more powerful states that evolved out of West Francia and East Francia. Generations of kings of France and Germany were unable to establish a rule over Lothair’s kingdom. In 1766, it passed to France after the death of Stanislaw Leszcyznski, in 1871, Alsace-Lorraine became German, after the victory of Prussia and its German allies over the French in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1919, it became French again by the Treaty of Versailles, in 1940, Germany reannexed Alsace-Lorraine following Germanys successful invasion of France. Finally, in 1945, after World War II, Alsace-Lorraine was solidified as French territory, the collapse of the Middle Frankish Kingdom also compounded the disunity of the Italian Peninsula, which persisted into the 19th century. Oaths of Strasbourg Treaty of Prüm Treaty of Meerssen Treaty of Ribemont Media related to Treaty of Verdun at Wikimedia Commons
41.
County of Holland
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The territory of the County of Holland corresponds roughly with the current provinces of North and South Holland in the Netherlands. The oldest sources refer to the not clearly defined county as Frisia, before 1101, sources talk about Frisian counts, but in this year Floris II, Count of Holland is mentioned as Florentius comes de Hollant. This title was used after Holland was united with Hainault, Bavaria-Straubing. The titles eventually lost their importance, and the last count, Philip II of Spain, around 800, under Charlemagne, the Frankish Empire covered a great deal of Europe. In much of this empire an important unit of administration, corresponding roughly to a shire or county in England, was the gau. A comes or Count ruled over one or more gaue, because of the low trade, the negative trade balance with the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim states, and the disappearance of currency, the economy was more or less reduced to bartering. The kings vassals could only be rewarded by giving them land, from this the system of Feudalism developed. The vassals, who were appointed by the king, strove for a system of inheritance. This become more and more the rule, and in 877 it was legalised in the Capitulary of Quierzy, upon the death of a king, the Frankish kingdom was frequently divided among his heirs. This partible inheritance often caused internal struggle which made centralized government problematic, the Viking Raids further undermined centralized government. At the end of the reign of Emperor Louis the Pious, the power had weakened because of the flood of 838. Upon Lothairs death in 855, the part of Middle Francia was awarded to his second son Lothair II. The Treaty of Ribemont in 880 added the Kingdom of Lotharingia — of which the Low Countries were part — to East Francia, which attempted to integrate it. However, there were no connections there were between the four German Stem Duchies of east Francia, the Franconia, the Saxony, the Bavaria. Lotharingia took a position with a large amount of self-determination. This became clear when Louis the Child, the last Carolingian of East Francia, while the Stem Duchies flocked to Duke Conrad I of Franconia, Lotharingia chose for the Carolingian Charles the Simple, king of West Francia. In Frisia the situation was complex, the power was in the hands of Roriks successor Godfrid the Sea King, who became embroiled in the high politics of the Frankish empire. He was allied with the children of the former Carolingian Lotharingian king Lothair II, the main actor in this murder was Everard Saxo, the count of Hamaland
42.
Dirk I, Count of Holland
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Dirk I was Count of Holland, thought to have been in office from c.896 to c.928 or 939. The actual title of count Dirk I was count in Friesland, in 922 Dirk was present at a place called Bladella, at which he received certain lands from the West Frankish king Charles the Simple. Dirk subsequently erected a nunnery at the lands, at which nuns prayed continuously for the well-being of the comital dynasty. This was the origin of the later Egmond Abbey, under Dirk II the wooden convent was rebuilt in stone to house the relics of Saint Adalbert. Adalbert was not well known at time, but he was said to have preached Christianity in the immediate surroundings two centuries earlier. The monastery was changed to house a community of Benedictine monks from Ghent. Count Dirk and many of his descendants were buried in the abbey church, cordfunke, Graven en Gravinnen van het Hollandse Huis. Cawley, Charles, HOLLAND, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy
43.
William II of Holland
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William II of Holland was a Count of Holland and Zeeland. He was elected as German anti-king in 1247 and remained king until his death and he was the son of Floris IV and Matilda of Brabant. When his father was killed at a tournament at Corbie, William was only seven years old and his uncles, William and Otto, were his guardians until 1239. With the help of Henry II, Duke of Brabant and the archbishop of Cologne, the next year, he decided to extend his fathers hunting residence to a palace which met his new status. This would later be called the Binnenhof and was the beginning of the city of The Hague, meanwhile, after a siege of five months, William took Aachen from Fredericks followers. Only then could he be crowned as king and his power never extended beyond the Rhineland. In his home county, William fought with Flanders for control of Zeeland and he made himself count of Zeeland. In July 1253, he defeated the Flemish army at Westkapelle and his anti-Flemish policy worsened his relationship with France. From 1254, he fought a number of wars against the West Frisians and he built some strong castles in Heemskerk and Haarlem and created roads for the war against the Frisians. William gave city rights to Haarlem, Delft, s-Gravenzande and Alkmaar, William married Elizabeth, daughter of Otto the Child, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, in 1252. They had, Floris V, Count of Holland, in battle near Hoogwoud on 28 January 1256, William tried to traverse a frozen lake by himself, because he was lost, but his horse fell through the ice. In this vulnerable position, William was killed by the Frisians and his body was recovered 26 years later by his son Floris V, who took terrible vengeance on the West-Frisians. William was then buried in Middelburg, contemporary sources, including the chronicle of Melis Stoke, portray William as an Arthurian hero. A golden statue of William can be found on the Binnenhof in The Hague, the inner court of the parliamentary complex of the Netherlands
44.
Ridderzaal
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The Ridderzaal is the main building of the 13th century Binnenhof in The Hague, Netherlands. It is used for the opening of Parliament on Prinsjesdag. It is also used for royal receptions, and interparliamentary conferences. In the 13th century Floris IV, Count of Holland bought a piece of land next to a lake to build a house on. The Ridderzaal, the hall of Floris V, grandson of Floris IV, was built on this estate in the 13th century. Over the centuries, the government buildings developed around this lake, from the early 17th century, the Ridderzaal became an important trading place for booksellers, as Westminster Hall was in London. In later centuries it served a variety of purposes - as a hall, a promenade, a drill hall, a public record office. It was restored between 1898 and 1904 to serve its present purposes, the Ridderzaal was also the venue for the Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference in 1949. The heavy timber roof structure with its 18-metre-long beams has the appearance of an upturned ship, wooden heads symbolizing eavesdroppers from the higher powers are supposed to deter members of the assembly from lying. The throne in the Ridderzaal was designed by Pierre Cuypers, media related to Ridderzaal at Wikimedia Commons
45.
Floris V, Count of Holland
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Floris V reigned as Count of Holland and Zeeland from 1256 until 1296. His life was documented in detail in the Rijmkroniek by Melis Stoke and his dramatic murder, engineered by King Edward I of England and Guy, Count of Flanders, made him a hero in Holland. He was the son of Count William II, who was slain in 1256 by Frisians when Floris was just two old, and Elisabeth of Brunswick-Lüneburg. First his uncle, then his aunt fought over custody of Holland, at the battle of Reimerswaal on 22 January 1263, Count Otto II, Count of Guelders defeated Aleidis and was chosen regent by the nobles who opposed Aleidis. Otto II served as Floris Vs guardian until he was years old. Floris’s mother continued to reside in Holland after her husband’s death in 1256 and she died on 27 May 1266 and is buried in Middelburg abbey church. She died in the year that Count Floris V was declared old enough to rule without guardianship. Floris was supported by the count of Hainaut of the house of Avesnes, Floris married Beatrix of Dampierre, the daughter of Guy of Dampierre, count of Flanders, in 1269. In 1272 he unsuccessfully attacked the Frisians in a first attempt to retrieve the body of his father, Gijsbrecht and Herman were supported by the craftsmen of Utrecht, the peasants of Kennemerland, Waterland and Amstelland and the West Frisians. He assisted the bishop, John I of Nassau, by making a treaty with the craftsmen. The bishop would become dependent on Hollands support, and eventually added the lands of the lords to Holland in 1279. He gave concessions to the peasants of Kennemerland, Kennemerland was a duneland, where the farmers had far fewer rights than the farmers in the polders. Floris got rid of the Avesnes influence and switched allegiance to the Dampierres, in 1282 he again attacked the troublesome Frisians in the north, defeating them at the battle of Vronen, and succeeded in retrieving the body of his father. After a campaign in 1287–1288 he finally defeated the Frisians, in the meantime he had received Zeeland-bewester-Schelde as a loan from the Holy Roman King Rudolf I of Germany in 1287, but the local nobility sided with the count of Flanders who invaded in 1290. Floris arranged a meeting with count Guy of Flanders, but he was taken prisoner in Biervliet and was forced to abandon his claims and then set free. After Edward I moved his trade in wool from Dordrecht in Holland to Mechelen in Brabant, to gain Flanderss support against France, Edward I now prohibited all English trade with Holland and conspired with Guy of Flanders to have Floris kidnapped and taken to France. The humiliated lords Gijsbrecht IV of Amstel and Herman of Woerden enter the scene again as part of the conspiracy, together with Gerard van Velsen they captured Floris during a hunting party and brought him to Muiderslot castle. The news of the spread quickly, afraid of the people
46.
Binnenhof
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The Binnenhof is a complex of buildings in the city centre of The Hague, next to the Hofvijver lake. It houses the place of both houses of the States General of the Netherlands, as well as the Ministry of General Affairs. Built primarily in the 13th century, the Gothic castle originally functioned as residence of the counts of Holland and it is counted among the Top 100 Dutch heritage sites. The Binnenhof is the oldest House of Parliament in the still in use. Little is known about the origin of the Binnenhof, presumably, the grounds next to the Hofvijver lake, and the small homestead on it, were purchased by Count Floris IV of Holland from Meiland van Wassenaar in November 1229. Between 1230 and 1234 he had the homestead expanded to a small keep, after Floris son and successor William II was crowned King of the Romans in 1248, this construction continued. Between 1248 and 1280, William had the Ridderzaal built, to its left and right, walls were built, which divided the area in front of the building from that behind it. At the end of the wall on the left, near the Hofvijver, the chapel was built. William died in battle in 1256, before the construction of the Ridderzaal had finished, the Binnenhof was the residence of the counts of Holland for a short period. After the house of Holland died out in 1299, the county fell in the hands of the counts of Hainaut, the counts of Hainaut barely resided in the Binnenhof in the early 14th century. Duke Albert I of Bavaria and his successor William II lived in the Binnenhof virtually permanently, under their reign, the castle saw a sizeable expansion, and gradually became enclosed by buildings. When Holland had become part of the Burgundian Empire in 1432, part of the complex was later made into the residence of the stadtholder of Holland, who governed the county in absence of its ruler. After Philip II was deposed as Count of Holland and the Dutch Republic was proclaimed in 1581, in 1584, stadtholder Maurice moved into the stadtholders quarter, and in the same year, the Ridderzaal became the meeting place of the newly formed States General of the Dutch Republic. Between 1806 and 1810, under French rule, the centre of the Netherlands was moved to Amsterdam. When the Netherlands gained independence from France, however, the government moved back to the Binnenhof, the local residents, however, cared more for the historic value of the building, and successfully protested against demolition. Originally built as a ballroom, the Gothic Ridderzaal today forms the centre of the Binnenhof, every third Tuesday of September, on Prinsjesdag, this is where the King holds his annual Speech from the Throne. Other buildings shape a rectangle around the Ridderzaal, creating a courtyard in front of the building. A gilt Neo-Gothic fountain adorns the courtyard and a statue of King William II, one of few Dutch equestrian statues, guards its gate, the Stadtholders Gate, today, the lower house meets in a chamber in the large modern eastern part of the complex
listen)) is a province of the Netherlands with a population of just over 3.6 million as of 2015[3] and a population density of about 1,300/km2 (3,400/sq mi),[4] making it the country's most populous province and one of the world's most densely populated areas. Situated on the North Sea in the west of the Netherlands, South Holland covers an area of 3,403 km2 (1,314 sq mi), of which 585 km2 (226 sq mi) is water. It borders North Holland to the north, Utrecht and Gelderland to the east, and North Brabant and Zeeland to the south. The provincial capital is The Hague, while its largest city is Rotterdam.
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