Barrois mouvant
| County (Duchy) of Bar | ||||||||||
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Grafschaft (Herzogtum) Bar (de) Comté (Duché) de Bar (fr) Barensis Comitatus (Ducatus) (la) |
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| Vassal of Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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 France in 1477, showing the duchy of Bar in "Valois-Anjou" colours
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 The Duchy of bar in the 17th century, as against the modern administrative divisions of France
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| Capital | Bar-le-Duc | |||||||||
| Government | Feudal monarchy | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | Established | 1033 | ||||||||
| • | Divided from the Duchy of Lorraine | 1033 | ||||||||
| • | Divided between France and the Empire | 1301 | ||||||||
| • | Raised to a duchy | 1354 | ||||||||
| • | United with the Duchy of Lorraine | 1480 | ||||||||
| • | Passed by treaty to the French crown | 1766 | ||||||||
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The County of Bar, from 1354 the Duchy of Bar, was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire encompassing the pays de Barrois and centred on the city of Bar-le-Duc. Part of the county, the so-called Barrois mouvant, became a fief of the Kingdom of France in 1301. The Barrois non-mouvant remained a part of the Empire. From 1480, it was united to the imperial Duchy of Lorraine. Both imperial Bar and Lorraine were ceded to France in 1738. With the death of the last duke, Stanislaus Leszczynski, in 1766, the duchy escheated to the French crown.
The county of Bar originated in the frontier fortress of Bar (from Latin barra, barrier) that Duke Frederick I of Upper Lorraine built on the bank of the river Ornain around 960. The fortress was originally directed at the counts of Champagne, who had made incursions into Frederick's allodial lands. Frederick also confiscated some lands from the nearby Abbey of Saint-Mihiel and settled his knights on it. The original Barrois was thus a mixture of the duke's allodial lands and confiscated church lands enfeoffed to knights. On the death of Duke Frederick III in 1033, these lands passed to his sister, Sophia (died 1093), who was the first person to associate the comital title with Bar, styling herself "Countess of Bar".
Sophia's descendants, of the House of Montbéliard, expanded Bar "by usurpation, conquest, purchase, and marriage" into a de facto autonomous state perched between France and Germany. Its population was francophone and culturally French, and the counts were involved in French politics. Count Reginald II (died 1170) married Agnes, a sister of the queen of France, Adele. His son, Henry I, died on the Third Crusade in 1190. From 1214 to 1291 Bar was ruled by Henry II and Theobald II, who secured the western frontier with Champagne by granting fiefs to French nobles and buying their homage.
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Wikipedia