The German Question, Part Twenty

"Going Dutch, The Move Toward Independence"

The history of what is now called "the Netherlands" (literally 'the Lowlands")* is extremely complicated, as it overlaps the history of Belgium, and Luxembourg, too. During certain periods of history, the area was  called, "The Low Countries." While most people probably think of both Belgium and the Netherlands as having been around for a long, long time, the actual separate political entities, as such, are not really all that old. It would take many articles to even try to explain in a fairly straight-forward way, even the basic history of this entire region. So I'm going to give just as brief a sketch as I feel is possible.

As was noted in earlier segments to this series, most of this general area was eventually settled by Germanic tribes, with the "Batavians" and "Frisians" being the most prominent, at first. Much of the far southern part of the area, what is now a part of Belgium, was settled long ago by a Celtic tribe, the Belgae, who gave their name to Belgium. The Romans later occupied much of the area, thus adding a bit of their genetic matter to the area of present-day Belgium. The Romans designated the Germanic speaking areas of the region as part of "Lower Germania." ** The Germanic tribe, the Franks, later conquered a substantial part of this general region. The modern Dutch language traces back to the Frankish dialects from those times (now called "Low Franconian" by linguists), although there is also Frisian influence (both Frankish and Frisian are West Germanic in origin, as are English and German), and even more, in the far northeastern area of the Netherlands to this day, Frisian is still spoken, more specifically, the West Frisian dialect.

With the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire, much of this general area was a part of that German dominated empire,*** and a couple of the German emperors were born in this region. As with other parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the various "states" enjoyed tremendous independence within the loose organization of the empire, and the local rulers more or less "owned" the territories, often selling off or adding to their properties. Wars, advantageous marriages, and wheeling-dealing changed boundaries of the various states on a regular basis, and it was no different in this area of the "Lowlands." The area was taken over by the House of Burgundy (of France) during the latter part of the 1300s and well into the 1400s. In the late 1400s, along came the Habsburgs, who took over the area, and they eventually proceeded to unify the region into one entity (that is Belgium and the Netherlands were combined as one political unit).**** Karl V (Charles V), the Habsburg ruler and German emperor, was born in this area (in Ghent). He granted a special autonomy in the mid 1500s to the region within the old German Empire (Holy Roman Empire), and declared that these various provinces could only be considered as one political unit.^ Karl was also involved with the House of Burgundy of France and granted separation of the region from France. (Hey, I told you this was complicated, and we're not done yet! Just to show you how complicated these monarchies could be, Karl V, in addition to being German emperor, was also "King of Italy" and "King of Spain!")

Now, Karl's son, Philip, was raised in Spain (became Philip II of Spain). He succeeded his father and this began a period when the Netherlands became part of the Spanish Empire! (See, I warned you we weren't done yet!) The Reformation brought Protestantism to a large part, but certainly not all, of the Lowlands. Philip was a devout Catholic and he sent Spanish torturers...I mean "Inquisitors," as well as an army, to the area. This was the beginning of what is termed "The 80 Years War" (Ah, I WON'T be covering all 80 years!). The Spanish and local Catholic forces essentially did well in the southern part of the region (now mainly Belgium, which is still Catholic to this day), but they encountered far more stubborn resistance in the northern areas (which is now the Netherlands, and is still essentially Protestant, but not exclusively so). What were mainly "Dutch Protestant" provinces united and issued a proclamation of independence from Spain, with William of Orange (Willem van Oranje, in Dutch) as their leader and first monarch.^^ The war continued, however, although on a somewhat smaller scale. Thousands of people in the Lowlands were executed and tortured, especially during the first couple of decades of this war. To confuse matters more, if that's possible, the "80 Years War" actually evolved into the more general European war known as "The Thirty Years War," which will be covered separately, along with the changes it brought. (A Word History is below the notes)

* In every day English we refer to the modern country as "Holland," and even the Dutch use this term at times. "Holland" is actually only a part of the western Netherlands, and in modern times, is divided into North Holland and South Holland. The term comes from "holt" (wood) + "land" ("land" is a word common to all of the Germanic languages), thus "woodland," or forested land. "Holt" was once also commonly used in English, but is now archaic, although in close relative, German, it is still commonly used as their general word for "wood," as "Holz." 

** "Lower Germania" consisted of much of modern Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and a part of western Germany (the general area around the city of Cologne, which was the capital of the entire region).

*** In those times, all of the Germanic speaking people in the area commonly referred to themselves as "Germans," and not what we think of as "Dutch," although the terms "Dutch" (in English), "Diets" (in Dutch), and "Deutsch" (in German) are all actually the same word, just variants of one another. By the way, the Dutch call their language "Nederlands."

**** The Habsburgs had risen to rule (own) much of modern day Austria, and parts of Switzerland, and Germany. They also were almost always elected as German emperors for hundreds of years. The thing to remember is, just as the other local German rulers owned their territories, the Habsburgs did also, and their positions as German emperors were separate from their own possessions.

^ The area actually also contained parts of modern France and Germany, but you have to remember, these provinces frequently had boundary changes, as I mentioned previously, and the sense of belonging to a specific nation had not yet developed in many areas.

^^ William/Willem was born near present day Giessen, in the German state of Hessen.

WORD HISTORY:
Wain-While not a common word on its own anymore (sometimes in poetry), it is part of the fairly common name "Wainwright." It goes back to Indo European root "wegh," which had the notion of, "movement, ride, travel;" thus also, "transport/carry." This produced the Old Germanic offshoot "wagnaz," which then gave Old English "waegn," which then lost the "g" sound and became "waen," and later still "wain." This meant "wagon" (sometimes spelled "waggon") and remained our word for "wagon" until the more modern form, WAGON, was borrowed from Dutch in the 1520s, probably as a result of the common trade association with the Dutch. "Wagon" is from the same source, and has the same history. German has "Wagen," as in "Volkswagen," Dutch has "wagon," and West Frisian, in a development much like its cousin, English with "wain," has "wein."