Counts of Louvain
former country
The Counts of Louvain were a branch of the Lotharingian House of Reginar which from the late 10th century ruled over the estates of Louvain (French) or Leuven (Dutch) in Lower Lorraine.
History
The likely ancestor of the Reginars, Gilbert, Count of the Maasgau, a vassal of the West Frankish king Charles the Bald, married a daughter of the Carolingian emperor Lothair I in 846. Reginar I "longneck", possibly his son, was the most powerful noble in the now kingless kingdom of Lotharingia (Lorraine), in the period from 910 to 915. His son and successor Gilbert swore fealty to the East Frankish king Henry the Fowler in 925 and three years later married his daughter Gerberga of Saxony. His younger brother's son Reginar III held lands in the region of Mons.
About 990, Lambert the Bearded (d. 1015), son of Count Reginar III, married Gerberga, daughter of the Carolingian duke Charles of Lower Lorraine, and by 1003 he was being described as a Count of Louvain. His county, with its original capital of Louvain built upon the Dyle river, between the old Pagus of Brabant and Pagus of Hasbania, rapidly increased in size and power. In 1013, Lambert annexed part of the county of Bruningrode, located between Louvain and Tienen, and this became a source of long-running conflict with the prince-bishops of Liège.
Lambert's family gained great influence in the Holy Roman Empire, acquiring more comital titles over time.
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This entry incorporates text from “Counts of Louvain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.