Pagus of Hasbania

It contained a substantial Romanized population and the seat of a large bishopric, that played a role in converting northern Franks to Christianity, and in the secular administration of the area.

In modern times "Hesbaye" and "Haspengouw" are geographical terms which are used for example in tourism and agriculture, and do not have the geo-political importance that they had in the early Middle Ages.

Early medieval records mentioning identifiable places in the pagus of Hasbania included both Maastricht and Liège on the Meuse river, which formed the apparent boundary to the south and east.

In the southwest, medieval records show that the pagus stretched to the area near the Abbey of Gembloux, in the modern Belgian Province of Namur.

The second element could be related to the word for the medieval concept of "ban", meaning a type of authority or lordship, and is similar to endings of other Frankish regions known from this period.

Toorians has proposed that such place-names might derive from villas owned by Roman era land owners with the Gaulish name Casibennos.

The Hesbaye became a particularly important region for the Frankish aristocracy and clergy, straddling the northernmost stretch of the medieval Germanic-Romance language border in Europe.

10–11) harvtxt error: no target: CITEREFEwig1969 (help) proposed that Hasbania together with the neighbouring Meuse (Dutch: Maas) river valley, formed one of the old Austrasian provinces ruled by a dux or military leader, along with the Champagne, the Moselle, Alsace and Ribuaria.

Around 800, the Bishop of Liège addressed himself to his faithful parishioners, naming only the people of the Condroz, Lomme (later the core of County of Namur), Hasbania, and the Ardennes, with no mention of the Meuse valley or Texandria further north.

[4] This record has been taken as showing that the northern part of the old Roman civitas now under the spiritual leadership of Liège no longer had clear parochial boundaries, and missionary work to extend the Christian diocese was on-going at this time.

[5] The later medieval Catholic archdeaconries of the Hesbaye region, established by the Bishop of Liège, are difficult to match to political or geographical concepts, though attempts have been made to gain insight this way, for example by Baerten and Verhelst.

Clerically, much of geographical Hesbaye was divided between neighbouring jurisdictions, while the archdeaconry named Hasbania stretched far eastwards over the Meuse, as far as Aachen in modern Germany.

[6] In 680 in a record by the Merovingian King Theuderic III granting lands to the Abbey of St Vaast in Arras, known from a later confirmation of 875–877, places mentioned are described as being in the pagi of Hasbania and Ribuaria.

[7] Hesbaye, or at least the country of the Hesbanien people, is next mentioned in a charter of 741/2 which exists in several versions, wherein a "count or duke of Hasbania" (comes vel dux Hasbanie) named Robert, son of Lambert, granted lands near Diest to Sint-Truiden Abbey.

In surviving versions of that Vita, when Charles Martel exiled Eucherius to Cologne this was under the custody of a Duke Robert of Hasbania (Hasbanio Chrodoberto duce).

This has been seen by for example Gorissen, Ewig, and Nonn (p. 93), as indicating that Robert had jurisdiction over an area larger than Hasbania, including at least part of the neighbouring Meuse valley.

Based almost entirely on his name, this Count or Duke Robert is speculated by genealogists such as Christian Settipani to be a direct ancestor of the Robertians and the royal House of Capet.

And Robert may well have been related to Ermengarde, the wife of Louis I the Pious, because her great-uncle Bishop Chrodegang was named in The Gesta Episcoporum Mettensis as being from Hasbania and of very noble Frankish descent ("ex pago Hasbaniensi" and "Francorum ex genere primæ nobilitatis progenitus").

[12] Historians associate this term with the "pago Hasbaniensi et Masuarinsi" of Count Robert near Diest in 741, and with both the Hesbaye and Meuse (Dutch: Maas) valley to its east.

To the east of it, he was Lay Abbot of important Abbeys stretching from the Meuse to the Mosselle through the Ardennes, Saint-Servais in Maastricht, Echternach, Stavelot-Malmedy, and Saint-Maximin in Triers, running approximately along the border defined in 870.

Most relevant, Dudo of Saint-Quentin, in describing the great deeds of the early Normans, calls Reginar I (who, along with a prince of the Frisians named Radbod, was an opponent of Rollo) a Duke of both Hainaut and Hesbaye.

The detailed listing makes it clear that the various abbeys, the Meuse valley pagus of Masao, and the Luihgau (with Visé) were not included in these four counties.

Vanderkindere proposed a large "northwestern" county of Louvain already existing in 870, stretching as far east as Diest, and all within the original pagus of Hasbania named in the Treaty of Meerssen.

Also known as "Brugeron" in older scholarship, it was named in a charter under which Emperor Otto III confirmed properties of the church of Liège including comitatum de Brunengeruuz.

It was argued already by Jean de Hocsem in the Middle Ages that this had represented the name of an overarching lordship, covering all of Hesbaye, with the Count of Loon under it.

It is not clear who replaced him in Hasbania, but in Hainaut, where he died, his probable relative Count Godfrey "the captive" took control in subsequent years.

Huste or Hufte is considered by Baerten, Gorissen and others be a word derived from Hocht [nl], in Lanaken, close to Maastricht and the Hesbaye.

[23] Baerten's explanation for this is that a suitable heir had been found, Rudolf, son of Nevelong, a boy who had been proposed by Vanderkindere and Daris as the ancestor of the counts of Loon.

Verhelst, differently to Baerten, proposed that 9th-century Avernas originally included not only the medieval deaconries of Sint-Truiden and Zoutleeuw, but also French-speaking Andenne and Hanret [fr].

He believed that in the 7th to 9th centuries, Hasbania expanded past the Meuse (Dutch: Maas) to include the area between Maastricht and Aachen and the future county of Liugas to the south, as far as the Amblève.