County of Hainaut

Common card · No. 223735

The County of Hainaut ( ay-NOH; French: Comté de Hainaut; Dutch: Graafschap Henegouwen; Latin: Comitatus Hanoniensis), sometimes spelled Hainault, was a territorial lordship within the medieval Holy Roman Empire that straddled the present-day border of Belgium and France. Its most important towns included Mons (Dutch: Bergen), now in Belgium, and Valenciennes, now in France. In present-day terms, the original core of Hainaut consisted of the central part of the Belgian province of Hainaut, and the eastern part of the French département of Nord (the arrondissements of Avesnes-sur-Helpe and Valenciennes). It was named after the river Haine, and stretched from there southeast to include the Avesnois region, and southwest to the Selle (Scheldt tributary). In the Middle Ages, its Counts also gained control of part of the original pagus of Brabant to its north and the pagus of Oosterbant to the east, although they did not form part of the old pagus of Hainaut. Hainaut appears in 8th-century...

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