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ow a large Frankish empire came into being: the Merovingian Empire, stretching from Paris to here in the Netherlands and the Lower Rhine territory (so the Duffelt as well) was part of it. The king of the Franks, Clovis, converted to Christianity in 500 and had
Etween 800 and 1050 Northwest Europe was infested by invading and looting Vikings, who sailed up the Rhine and repeatedly showed up in our regions and
he meanwhile powerful Frankish empire- the empire of Charlemagne- now stretched all over Europe and covered the greater part of the former West-Roman Empire. After his death this realm was divided into three parts; the western part fell to Charles the Bald, the eastern part to Louis the German and the narrow and long middle part- from the Mediterranean as far as Friesland- the Central Franconia- to Lothair. The Duffelt belonged to this part. (The Verdun treaty of 843)
t the death of Lothair in 855, the territory on the Lower Rhine that belonged to the Carolingian Middle Empire, became under Lothair II part of Lotharingen, which stretched from the Jura (actual partly in France and Switzerland) to the North Sea. (For this Middle Empire was divided into two halves, a northern and southern part). 15 years later, at the death of Lothair II, this empire was again divided between his two uncles (the treaty of Meersen 870); east of the river Meuse everything changed hands with the possessor of eastern Franconia, the above mentioned Louis the German, so also the Lower Rhine with the Duffelt. (As the other –lower- part of Middle Francia on that occasion went over to Western Francia- Charles the Bald- Middle Francia disappeared completely from the maps)
nother 55 years later, in 925, a German king, Henry the Fowler ( 919-936), made use of the prevailing confusion in the Loharian territories to incorporate the whole of Nether-Lotharingia in the East Empire. (By the way this also happened to the Dutch provinces with the exception of the regions west of the Scheldt (actual Flemish Belgium)
n 936 the son of Henry the Fowler, Otto I, had himself crowned emperor in Aix-la-Chapelle (today Achen) and immediately tried to break the power of his dukes and instead of it to clothe the bishops with temporal power. That was much more stable in connection with successions and the resultant disorder. In 939 he defeated near Birten (Xanten) the army of Eberhard van Franken. Later on Otto made his brother Bruno bishop of Cologne and even granted him the title of Duke of Lotharingia. The possession of Lotharingia was mainly of importance because of the great number of properties in the area between Meuse and Rhine of which the “ Reichswald” (State forest) is a remainder.
n the 12th century the archbishopric is the real power in Rhineland. The climax is about 1200. Gradually however some opposition grew in the form of temporal counties, which came to birth outside the territory of the archbishopric, which was mainly situated in the region of old Roman cities and settlements, a narrow strip of land west of the Rhine, so in our region.
he history of the Duffelt is mainly connected with the one of “ Graafschap”(County) later Dukedom Cleve of which this region was a part. Only a small part, near Nijmegen- amongst others Ooij and Erlecom- remained part of Gelre. Kleve: about 1000 AD a great struggle for power arose in the Hatwarian district and the Lower Rhine region, in which Wichman van Vreden and the archbishop Heribert van Keulen got involved. On the diet of realm, which Henry II held in 1020 in Nijmegen, he tried to put an end to this struggle. Not before Adela died in Cologne and Balderik in Zyfflich, in a monastery founded by him, this struggle was over. To fill up this vacuum of power, the emperor sent two brothers of unknown birth to the Lower Rhine: Gerard and Rutger Flamens.
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