and a league formed against him by his princely neighbours, but he had a hard struggle to face, and many ups and downs of fortune. He it was to whom Brabant owed the great charter of its liberties, called La joyeuse entrée, because it was granted on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Johanna (Jeanne) with Wenzel (Wenceslaus) of Luxemburg, and was proclaimed on their state entry into Brussels (1356).
Henry, the only legitimate son of John III., having died in 1349, the ducal dignity passed to his daughter and heiress, the above-named Johanna (d. 1406). She had married in first wedlock William IV., count of Holland (d. 1345). Wenzel of Luxemburg, her second husband, assumed in right of his wife, and by the sanction of the charter La joyeuse entrée, the style of duke of Brabant. Johanna’s title was, however, disputed by Louis II., count of Flanders (d. 1384), who had married her sister Margaret. The question had been compromised by the cession to Margaret in 1347 of the margraviate of Antwerp by John III., but a war broke out in 1356 between Wenzel supported by the gilds, and Louis, who upheld the burgher-patrician party in the Brabant cities. The democratic leaders were Everhard Tserclaes at Brussels and Peter Coutercel at Louvain. In the course of a stormy reign Wenzel was taken prisoner in 1371 by the duke of Gelderland, and had to be ransomed by his subjects. After his death (1383) his widow continued to rule over the two duchies for eighteen years, but was obliged to rely on the support of the house of Burgundy in her contests with the turbulent city gilds and with her neighbours, the dukes of Jülich and Gelderland. In 1390 she revoked the deed which secured the succession to Brabant to the house of Luxemburg, and appointed her niece, Margaret of Flanders (d. 1405), daughter of Louis II. and Margaret of Brabant (see Flanders), and her husband, Philip the Bold of Burgundy, her heirs. Margaret of Flanders had married (1) Philip I. de Rouvre of Burgundy (d. 1361) and (2) Philip II., the Bold, (d. 1404), son of John II., king of France (see Burgundy). Of her three sons by her second marriage John succeeded to Burgundy, and Anthony to Brabant on the death of Johanna in 1406. Anthony was killed at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 and was succeeded by his eldest son by Jeanne of Luxemburg St Pol, John IV. (d. 1427). He is chiefly memorable for the excitement caused by his divorce from his wife Jacoba (q.v.), countess of Holland. John IV. left no issue, and the succession passed to his brother Philip I., who also died without issue in 1430.
On the extinction of the line of Anthony the duchy of Brabant became the inheritance of the elder branch of the house of Burgundy, in the person of Philip III., “the Good,” of Burgundy, II. of Brabant, son of John. His grand-daughter Mary (d. 1482), daughter and heiress of Charles I., “the Bold,” (d. 1477) married the archduke Maximilian of Austria (afterwards emperor) and so brought Brabant with the other Burgundian possessions to the house of Habsburg. The chief city of Brabant, Brussels, became under the Habsburg régime the residence of the court and the capital of the Netherlands. In the person of the emperor Charles V. the destinies of Brabant and the other Netherland states were linked with those of the Spanish monarchy. The attempt of Philip II. of Spain to impose despotic rule upon the Netherlands led to the outbreak of the Netherland revolt, 1568 (see Netherlands).
In the course of the eighty years’ war of independence the province of Brabant became separated into two portions. In the southern and larger part Spanish rule was maintained, and Brussels continued to be the seat of government. The northern (smaller) part was conquered by the Dutch under Maurice and Frederick Henry of Orange. The latter captured ’s Hertogenbosch (1629), Maastricht (1632) and Breda (1637). At the peace of Münster this portion, which now forms the Dutch province of North Brabant, was ceded by Philip IV. to the United Provinces and was known as Generality Land, and placed under the direct government of the states-general. The southern portion, now divided into the provinces of Antwerp and South Brabant, remained under the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs until the death of Charles II., the last of his race in 1700. After the War of the Spanish Succession the southern Netherlands passed by the treaty of Utrecht (1713) to the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs. During the whole period of Austrian rule the province of Brabant succeeded in maintaining, to a very large extent unimpaired, the immunities and privileges to which it was entitled under the provisions of its ancient charter of liberty, the Joyous Entry. An ill-judged attempt by the emperor Joseph II., in his zeal for reform, to infringe these inherited rights stirred up the people under the leadership of Henry van der Noot to armed resistance in the Brabançon revolt of 1789–1790.
Since the French conquest of 1794 the history of Brabant is merged in that of Belgium (q.v.). The revolt against Dutch rule in 1830 broke out at Brussels and was in its initial stages largely a Brabançon movement. The important part played by Brabant at this crisis of the history of the southern Netherlands was marked in 1831 by the adoption of the ancient Brabançon colours to form the national flag, and of the lion of Brabant as the armorial bearings of Belgium. The title of duke of Brabant has been revived as the style of the eldest son of the king of the Belgians. (G. E.)
BRABANT, the central and metropolitan province of Belgium,
is formed out of part of the ancient duchy. From 1815 to 1830,
that is to say, during the existence of the kingdom of the Netherlands,
Belgian Brabant was distinguished from Dutch by the
employment of the geographical terms South and North. The
surface of Brabant is undulating, and the highest points, some
400 ft. in altitude, are to be found at and near Mont St Jean.
The province is well cultivated, and the people are well known
for their industry. There are valuable stone quarries, and many
manufactures flourish in the smaller towns, such as Ottignies,
as well as in the larger cities of Brussels and Louvain. Brabant
contains 820,740 acres or 1268 sq. m. Its principal towns are
Brussels, Louvain, Nivelles, Hal, Ottignies, and its three administrative
divisions are named after the first three of those towns.
They are subdivided into 50 cantons and 344 communes. In
1904 the population of the province was 1,366,389 or a proportion
of 1077 per sq. m.
BRABANT, NORTH, the largest province in Holland, bounded
S. by Belgium, W. and N.W. by the Scheldt, the Eendracht,
the Volkerak and the Hollandsch Diep, which separate it from
Zealand and South Holland, N. and N. E. by the Merwede and
Maas, which separate it from South Holland and Gelderland,
and E. by the province of Limburg. It has an area of 231 sq. m.
and a pop. (1900) of 553,842. The surface of the province is a
gentle slope from the south-east (where it ranges between 80 and
160 ft. in height) towards the north and north-west, and the soil
is composed of diluvial sand, here and there mixed with gravel,
but giving place to sea-clay along the western boundary and
river-clay along the banks of the Maas and smaller rivers.
The watershed is formed by the north-eastern edge of the
Belgian plateau of Campine, and follows a curved line drawn
through Bergen-op-Zoom, Turnhout and Maastricht. The landscape
consists for the most part of waste stretches of heath,
occasionally slightly overlaid with high fen. Between the valleys
of the Aa and the Maas lies the long stretch of heavy high-fen
called the Peel (“marshy land”). Deurne, a few miles east of
Helmond, the site of a prehistoric burial-ground, was an early
fen colony. The work of reclamation was removed farther
eastwards to Helenaveen in the second half of the 19th century.
Agriculture (potatoes, buckwheat, rye) is the main industry,
generally combined with cattle-raising. On the clay lands
wheat and barley are the principal products, and in the western
corner of the province beetroot is largely cultivated for the
beet sugar industry, factories being found at Bergen-op-Zoom,
Steenbergen and Oudenbosch. There is a special cultivation of
hops in the district north-west of ’s Hertogenbosch. The large
majority of the population is Roman Catholic. The earliest development
of towns and villages took place along the river Maas
and its tributaries, and the fortified Roman camps which were the
origin of many such afterwards developed in the hands of feudal
lords. The chief town of the province, ’s Hertogenbosch, may be
cited as an interesting historical example. Geertruidenberg,
