The Low Countries: 800

In Carolingian times, in the 8th and 9th Centuries, the Low Countries were part of Austrasia, the middle kingdom belonging to Lothair, one of Charlemagne's three grandsons.

The major urban settlements were Utrecht (seat of the bishopric Nedersticht and built on an earlier Roman settlement), Dorestad (which has since disappeared but was then a major center of trade that handled both goods from the Mediterranean and the Baltic), and Nijmegen (where Charlemagne had built one of his courts). All three were situated on land slightly higher than Holland, which was just being colonized at the time.

Drawing based on a map in G.P. van de Ven, ed., Man-Made Lowlands, (3rd revised edition, 1996) and J.C.H. Blom and E. Lamberts, eds., History of the Low Countries (1999).

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