I am interested in helping out, the thing is I'm not convinced there's any real gameplay that adds to the game in focussing on Flanders & Holland.. I dont know a heck of a lot on the subject, and that alone makes me have doubts.
Outside of flavour, why would I want to play this mod?
Good piont Matz, that's why I'm going to explain you a small part of the history of the region we call today the Low Countries:
After the treaty of Verdun (843), the old empire of Charlemagne was divided ( after the dead of Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious, his three surviving sons divided his empire in three parts: Lothair got the middle part ( Low Countries, Alsace, Lorraine, Burgundy and the Provence ), Charles the Bold got the western part ( = France ) and Louis the German got the Eastern part ( = HRE ). After the dead of Lothair II, the middle part had no longer a ruler. The king of Frans and the HRE emperor decided to divide his kingdom themselves, but meanwhile, the small territories in the middle empire realised they where free to do whatever they wanted. France and the HRE made these small states vassals. Flanders became part of France, Brabant ( + everything more eastern ) and the counties and duchies in the Netherlands became part of the HRE.
The HRE was a large empire and hard to handle, so the nobles at the borders became semi-independant. In the early years of the 12th century, the official HRE emperor and his son, the self-proclaimed new emperor, struggled for power and loyal feudal lords. Meanwhile, some duchies and counties established at the border of the HRE and the HRE emperors noticed they could be faithfull allies. The old emperor of HRE had crowned the duke of Limburg as duke of Lower Lorraine, but when the new emperor, the son of the one who crowned the duke of Limburg, rose to power, he discharged the duke of Limburg ( because the duke was loyal to the old emperor ) and made one of his loyal allies, Godfried I of Brabant duke of lower Lorraine. Later, the duke of Limburg was crowned again as Duke of Lower Lorraine by the old Emperor, who won the struggle in HRE, but the duke of Brabant and his allies weren't to happy with his removal and started a long series of struggles in the Low Countries.
At the same moment, the Netherlands profitted of the situation and gained there independance ( althoug they were "loyal" to the HRE emperor when they could gain profit out it )
In the west Flanders was a vassal to the French king. A Flemish noble, Baldwin I With The Iron Arm ( cool name isn't it? ) captured the daughter of the French king Charles the Bald, and forced him to give his family more power and independance. Baldwin became the first count of Flanders and started to add semi-independant parts of France to his county.
after 1000 AD, most parts of the region were independant and struggling to gain the upperhand in the Low Countries. Flanders and Brabant florished, each at there own way. Brabant expanded his territory to the north and the west and became one of the suppreme powers in the region after the Battle of Woeringen ( 1288 ). Flanders florished with the trade. Bruges was called the Venice of the north and the Flemish cities had a population close tho the number of inhabitants of London and Paris. England and Flanders became exeptionally rich with this trade.
But England, HRE and France wanted to gain profit to.
HRE was weakened, so the emperor couldn't solve his problems on his own and asked the Prince-Bisshop of Köln and the Prince-Bisshop of Trier for help. These two weren't very happy with the expansion of Brabant and formed and alliance with some neighbouring counties and duchies. Brabant did the same. The alliance of Brabant and the German alliance called their allies to arms and met at Woeringen. After a fierce battle, the duke of Brabant triumphed. Now, HRE had a important enemy at his borders !
France wanted Flanders back and assembled an army to tell them. After a period of anxiety, France marched into Flanders with a well trained army of profession soldiers. Flanders had almost no professional soldiers and formed an army of peasants and militiamen. In 1302, they lined up near Kortrijk. Result of the battle: a huge defeat of the professional army by the Flemish militiamen, armed with "goedendags" . Flanders got arrogant after the victory at Kortrijk, but were defeated shortly after. In the meanwhile, their cities became more independant from there count and cities like Ghent became pretentious. The coalition of large cities attacked the armies of the count and his loyal, smal cities. After a while, the count got his power back.
Brabant and Flanders realised they where both very powerfull and decided they could better form an alliance by marriage. This wasn't a very clever act, because the count of Flanders claimed the important centres of commerce in Brabant like Antwerp (inharitance of his wife ) after the death of the duke of Brabant. This was the start of a new series of struggles.
Flanders and Brabant realised too late the danger of France and Burgundy.
the ruler of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, related to the king of France, defeated the armies of Flanders near Westrozebeke in 1389. This battle, together with a very clever politic of marriage was the end of the independant duchies and counties. In the 14th century, Flanders and Brabant ruled almost the whole of The Southern Netherlands. The dukes of Burgundy planned a series of marriages. after some years, almost every state in the Belgium-region was a part of the burgundian dukes. This region was inherited by the Spanish line of the Habsburgers at the end of the middle ages.
Meanwhile, the regions in the Netherlands struggled to, but preserved their independance. When the "Belgian" politic of commerce, expansion and marriage failed, the "Dutch" politic worked out perfectly and was the start of the Golden Age of the Netherlands much later ...
You see, this was an exciting period, HRE, France and England struggled for power on this area, the battlefield of Europe, the Low Countries !!
( Tomorrow I'll tell you why and how ( ran out of time
) )
Tax
) weren't so hot during those times as far as I know. Not even sure those regions you mentioned existed during the middle ages!!!
.
PM OR MAIL ME
!(so school is killing me too).
I would like to learn to make maps for this game.
