The pagus of Brabant (Latin: Pagus Bracbantensis; Dutch; Flemish: Brabantgouw) was a geographical region in the early Middle Ages, located in what is now Belgium. It was the first region known to have been called Brabant, and it included the modern capital of Belgium, Brussels. It was divided between the neighbouring counties of Flanders, Hainaut and Louvain (Leuven) in the eleventh century. It was the eastern part, which went to the Counts of Louvain, which kept the name in use, becoming the primary name of their much larger lordship. This led to other regions later being named Brabant - in particular, the French and Dutch-speaking areas east of the Dyle, including Leuven and Wavre, which are still known as "Brabant"; and secondly the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands.
The area of the old pagus of Brabant is and was multi-lingual, divided between Dutch (Flemish) speakers in the north, and French (including Picard) speakers in the south. Today the region includes not only bi-lingual Brussels, but also parts of the modern Dutch-speaking Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant and East Flanders, and the French-speaking provinces of Hainaut and Walloon Brabant.
It lay between the rivers Scheldt, Rupel, Dyle, Lasne and Haine.[1]
This means the territory included not only Brussels but also much of what is now modern Hainaut and Eastern Flanders, including Aalst. Louvain, which later came to be seen as part of Brabant, was, like Ghent in Flanders, just outside the original pagus.
The modern Dutch province of North Brabant was not originally part of Brabant but acquired the name because it was integrated politically.
In the modern Belgian province of Antwerp, Klein-Brabant is geographically in the original pagus of Brabant.
In its earliest forms such as those collected by Nonn, the first part of the name was written with variants such as brac-, brag-, brach-, braim, and brei. According to Deru, this element could derive from Germanic *brakti implying fallow land, or *braki implying marshy land (related to modern Dutch "broek"). These would both be derived from reconstructed Proto-Germanic *brekaną "to break".
The second element of the name -bant is found in several other Frankish pagus names in this region, such as nearby Oosterbant, and Swifterbant and Teisterbant, to the north, and is believed to be connected to the medieval concept of a "ban", relating to areas of duty and authority.
As demonstrated by Deru, the pagus of Brabant between the Scheldt, Haine, Lasne and Rupel rivers, corresponds closely with the northern extension of the Belgic Nervii, both in terms of archaeological evidence such as Nervian coin finds, and also because it lay within the Roman era civitas of the Nervians, and its successor, the medieval bishopric of Cambrai - both of which had their main centres in the south, in the areas of Hainaut and Cambrai.
The oldest records of Brabant come from the Liber Traditionem of Saint Peter's Abbey in Ghent, beginning around 750. Though it was on the opposite side of the Scheldt from Brabant, St Peter's had a strong involvement in lands between the Scheldt and Dender.
In 870, in the Treaty of Meerssen Brabant was mentioned as containing four counties (in Bracbanto comitatus IIII), but the definitions of these political entities can now only be speculated upon. Much of its history in the Early Middle Ages (before 1000) is difficult to reconstruct. Although Leon Vanderkindere (in 1901) and Paul Bonenfant (in 1935) both attempted it, these attempts have been criticized by later historians. What can be said is limited:[2]
After 925 the boundary between the major Frankish kingdoms became permanently fixed along the Scheldt river, making Brabant a frontier province or "March" of what would become the Holy Roman Empire, and eventually Germany. On the western side of that boundary lay the expansionist Counts of Flanders, who were within the western Frankish kingdom that would become France. They developed the fortified city of Ghent upon this river frontier.
In response to this situation, the emperors in Germany established their own March on their side of the Scheldt. One of the first frontier lordships named was at Ename in Brabant, and there were also Valenciennes to the south and Antwerp to the north.
As the 11th century progressed, three large parts of Brabant became permanently politically connected to their powerful neighbours.
The remaining part of Brabant between Brussels and the Flemish part of Brabant also came into the hands of the counts of Leuven and Brussels at some point, and from at least 1085 they referred to themselves also as Landgraves of Brabant, indicating a higher status than a normal Count. Van Droogenbroeck has argued that the counts of Leuven acquired this title to Brabant from their relative Hermann II, Count Palatine of Lotharingia, who died at this time.