Counts of Duras

The Counts of Hesbaye have their roots with the Merovingian and Lotharingian families, providing the basis for much of the nobility of Western Francia from the eighth through eleventh centuries. Hesbaye (Hesbaie), derived from pagus Hasbaniensis, lays in what is today eastern Belgium, south of a line from the river Demer in the west to the town of Maaseik in the east, west and north of the river Meuse as far as the river Dyle in the west. This article discusses the Counts of Hesbaye and provides a guide to the counties that evolved in the 11th and 12th centuries.

The division of Lotharingian territories was agreed to in the Treaty of Meersen of 8 August 870 between Louis the German, King of East Francia, and his half-brother Charles the Bald, King of the West Franks. The treaty allocated …comitatum…in Hasbanio comitatus IV… to Charles. The reference to four unnamed counties within Hesbaye suggests that it might have been a geographical entity and not a county itself. Vanderkindere believed that these four counties are those obtained by quartering Hesbaye, a hypothesis based on an interpretation of geography rather than any contemporary documentation. These counties were, according to him:

No reference to these four counties, or any ruling counts, apart from in the county of Hesbaye itself, has been found prior to the 870 agreement. Counties that have some historical, geographical and genealogical relationship to Hesbaye include Louvain, Grez, Betuwe, Looz, Duras and Aarschot. The counts have numerous relations with the major family dynasties of the medieval Franks.

Hesbaye itself is first mentioned in 715. The third continuator of the Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium names Robertus comes vel dux Hasbanie, who can be identified with the ancestor of Robert of Hesbaye, the direct ancestors of the Robertians and the House of Capet. The ancestors of Ermengarde of Hesbaye, the wife of Louis I the Pious, were also recorded as the Counts of Hesbaye.

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