Brabant – Willem Blaeu, 1635

“Brabantia Ducatus.” Copper engraving published in Amsterdam in 1635 by Willem Jansz. Blaeu in “Le Theatre du Monde ou Nouvel Atlas“. With original hand colouring. Size: 38.2 × 49.6 cm.

On Blaeu’s map of the Duchy of Brabant, with west at the top, we see in the lower right corner a splendid cartouche showing a seated female figure holding a globe, a pair of dividers and a scale bar in German miles. In the lower left corner is a second cartouche with another female figure and the coat of arms of Brabant. The map covers the region between the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt, with Namur as the southernmost city. It was first published in the Atlas Appendix of 1631; this example is the second edition of the map. A few years later it was incorporated into the world-famous Atlas Maior.

From the fifteenth century onward, voyages of discovery and expanding trade contacts had made the world ever “larger.” Land and sea charts became indispensable, especially for sailors. As ordinary citizens also grew interested in geography, a lively market developed in the seventeenth century for globes, maps, and atlases.

Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571–1638) seized this opportunity. The finest cartographer of his age, he ran his own printing and publishing house in Amsterdam. His maps were much sought after, and his business flourished. After his death the press was taken over by his sons Cornelis and Joan, who inherited both his skill and his entrepreneurial drive. Joan Blaeu assembled all the best maps then available to create the greatest world atlas of his time: the Atlas Maior.

From 1662 the atlas was offered for sale: nine large folio volumes containing nearly 600 maps and some 3,000 pages of text. The publication caused a sensation. Each volume was bound in leather with gilt decoration on the covers—an object of luxury and prestige. Everyone wanted to own one.

The atlas soon became a status symbol. It was not truly up to date—the maps were mostly reissues of earlier plates, sometimes already obsolete as new discoveries appeared—but that did not deter buyers. Among those who acquired a copy were Prince William III and King Charles I of England. The whole world, it was said, now lay open on their table.

On the reverse of the map Blaeu describes the Duchy of Brabant as a land that in earlier times had been much larger than in his own century. Once it had included parts of Flanders and Hainaut and reached as far as the borders of Holland and Liège. Chronicles record that saints such as Bavo and Livinus had lived there, and that by the ninth century Brabant already existed as an administrative entity, comprising three counties: Cambrésis, Hainaut and Louvain. In later centuries the territory was greatly reduced by wars and political realignments, though it remained one of the richest and most densely populated regions of the Low Countries.

Blaeu praises the military spirit of the Brabanters. Their armies, he writes, had fought as far away as England and even Rhodes; they had restored kings to their thrones and waged war almost continuously, rarely knowing peace. In 1175 they helped King Henry II of England recover his lost towns; in 1202 Duke Henry I defeated and captured the Count of Holland; in 1234 Duke John I triumphed over a coalition of Guelders, Cologne, Nassau and Luxembourg. In the fourteenth century the Brabanters aided King Edward III of England in his wars, helping him defeat the French, Bretons and Spaniards. Emperors and kings of France likewise sought their assistance. Their valor, says Blaeu, was celebrated in countless campaigns—from Lisbon, captured from the Saracens by Emperor Conrad III, to the crusades in which Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Brabant, conquered Jerusalem and Palestine.

Brabant also knew internal strife, notably the uprisings of the men of Grimbergen against their duke. One famous battle was won under touching circumstances: the young duke, still an infant in his cradle, was placed atop a tall tree amid the army so that his soldiers could hear his cries and fight with double courage. Such legendary scenes were cited as proof of the loyalty and heroism of the Brabant people.

Blaeu then describes the towns and administration. Brabant, he notes, counts twenty-six cities: Leuven, Brussels, Antwerp and ’s-Hertogenbosch are the four capitals; Tienen, Lier and Nivelles are smaller capitals; other important towns include Aarschot, Bergen op Zoom, Mechelen, Breda, Diest and Maastricht. Among the lesser towns he lists Turnhout, Hoogstraten, Duffel, Herentals, Helmond and Grave. The lordships of Ravenstein, Breda, Grimbergen and Diest are independent jurisdictions, as are nineteen baronies. The province enjoys extensive privileges: the ruler may not condemn any inhabitant without due process and legal defense; foreigners may not hold public office; subjects may freely dispose of their property and may hunt anywhere except in five designated forests. Should the ruler violate these rights, the States of Brabant, Blaeu writes, are lawfully entitled to renounce their allegiance—a striking early-modern expression of Brabant’s spirit of independence.

The five celebrated forests of the land are the Sonian, Saventerloo, Grotenhout, Grotenheide and Meerdal woods. The political structure consists of three estates: the clergy (represented by the abbots), the nobility (including the dukes, marquises, barons and lords of Aarschot, Bergen op Zoom, Diest, Hoogstraten, Breda, Boxtel and Gaasbeek), and the third estate, formed by the four capital cities. Throughout the country people speak Flemish, except in the southwestern “Pays Romain“, where French is spoken—a language, Blaeu remarks, “corrupted from Latin.”

Price: Euro 750,-