08-03-2007, 11:59 PM
Quote:Salve Joel,
Just to complicate measure, the Low Countries translate as "the Netherlands" and that would be the Dutch, sometimes refered to as Holland, but that's just a province (or actualy, two, Noord and zuid Holland). Belgium used to be a part of the Netherlands only a few hunderd years ago, and the Flemish (Vlaanderen) share the language. Belgium is in fact a lot higher then the Netherlands, the border is near the faultline of the Brabant Massive and the Dutch mainly occupy the swampy riverdelta of the Rhine and the Maas river. Wallonia, the French part, has the Ardennes and is higher still. The Roman Limes runs through the Netherlands, then part of Germania Inferior, on the southern border of the Neder Rhine, now only a distant memory of a real river. The site www.limes.nl will show you the tract of the Limes and the fortifications. The site www.Livius.com is an English language goldmine on this stretch of the ancient border.
To make it even more complated....
The "Low Countries" can be translated as the "Nederlanden / Netherlands" but is also often used for the current Netherlands + Belgium + Luxembourg (the "Benelux"). Those 3 countries were united in 1 country a few times in history: the Netherlands (or "Belgica" in Latin) during the 15th century. When those Netherlands came under Spanish rule it lead to a war of independance, but only the Northern Netherlands became independant in 1648, the Southern Netherlands remained occupied by Spain. The Nothern Netherlands (the current Kingdom of the Netherlands) and Souterns Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg) were united again after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, but a revolution organised by the French speaking people of the Southern Netherlands lead to the independance of Belgium in 1830, Luxembourg became independant in 1890.
But that's way after the period we tend to discuss on this forum :wink:
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(Jo Vansteenkiste)
Viroviacum Romanum (Wervik - Belgium) [url:2hhvemuv]http://www.viroviacum.be[/url]
legionair of Legio XI CFP [url:2hhvemuv]http://www.legioxi.be[/url]
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(Jo Vansteenkiste)
Viroviacum Romanum (Wervik - Belgium) [url:2hhvemuv]http://www.viroviacum.be[/url]
legionair of Legio XI CFP [url:2hhvemuv]http://www.legioxi.be[/url]
"Nunc est bibendum!"