United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg

Vereinigte Herzogtümer Jülich-Kleve-Berg (de)
Verenigde Hertogdommen Gulik-Kleef-Berg (nl)

State of the Holy Roman Empire

1521–1614

Coat of arms

Map of the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle around 1560,
United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg highlighted in red

Capital

Düsseldorf

Languages

South Guelderish, Limburgish

Government

Principality

Historical era

Middle Ages

•

Cleves and Mark
inherited by
Duke of Jülich-Berg

1521

•

Partitioned at Xanten

12 November 1614

Preceded by

Succeeded by

	Duchy of Berg
	Duchy of Cleves
	Duchy of Jülich
	County of Mark
	County of Ravensberg

Margraviate of Brandenburg
Palatinate-Neuburg

Today part of

Germany

Netherlands

Coat of arms

Jülich-Cleves-Berg was the name of two former territories across the modern German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the modern Dutch province of Gelderland. From 1521 to 1666, the territory was a combination of states in personal union, all reichsfrei territories of the Holy Roman Empire. The name was resurrected after the Congress of Vienna for a short-lived province of the Kingdom of Prussia between 1815 and 1822.

The United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg was a combination of states of the Holy Roman Empire. The duchies of Jülich and Berg united in 1423. Nearly a century later, in 1521, these two duchies, along with the county of Ravensberg, fell extinct, with only the last duke's daughter Maria von Geldern left to inherit; under Salic law, women could only hold property through a husband or guardian, so the territories passed to her husband — and distant relative — John III, Duke of Cleves and Mark as a result of their strategic marriage in 1509. These united duchies controlled most of the present-day North Rhine-Westphalia that was not within the ecclesiastical territories of Electoral Cologne and Münster.

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Wikipedia