Counts of Liège


The Counts of Liugas, or Luihgau, also known in some modern sources as the "Counts of Liège", were 10th and 11th century counts in the pagus or gau of "Liugas" which had many spelling variants, and has traditionally been thought to have been named after the nearby city of Liège.
Only a small number of mentions were made of this pagus or territory, all between 779 until 1059. It lay between Liège and Aachen, in what is now the Belgian province of Liège. There are two counts associated with the area in the 10th century, Sigehard and Richar. After 1000 there are also some records which indicate that a Count Theobald or Thibaut held a county there.

Name and relationship with Liège

The etymologies of both Liège and Liugas/Luihga are uncertain, and it is also uncertain that they are related. The etymology of Liège is believed to derive from Proto-Germanic :wikt:liudiz|*liudiz, originally meaning "people" or "folk", which was a root with many derived meanings, such as "vassals". Concerning the pagus name Maurice Gysseling reconstructed the name as "Leuwa". Ernst thought its real name was Louva or Luvia, or the Pagus Luvensis.
In Latin medieval records the pagus or county is never referred to simply as the Pagus Leodicensis or Leodiensis, which would be the normal way to name a pagus or gau of Liège. In fact, Liège was described in medieval records as being within a different pagus, called Hasbania. Since at least the 19th century, scholars including Godefroid Kurth have doubted the traditional explanation of the name Liugas as being derived from the name of the city Liège, though it was the dominant centre of power in the area. In the 20th century historians such as Manfred Van Rey and Ulrich Nonn have continued to question the traditional explanation of Liugas as a "Liège gau".
In contrast, in 1902, the influential Belgian historian Léon Vanderkindere argued that it could not be a mere coincidence that the names were so similar, and referred to the pagus as Luihgau, emphasizing the similarity of "Luih" with the modern Dutch name of Liège, "Luik". As a result of such reasoning, German scholars traditionally tended to use the term "Lüttichgau", Lüttich being the German name of Liège. And in other languages such as English there are also occasional references to a "County of Liège".
While Liège is on the west bank of the Meuse, all the places in Luigas on in the countryside east of it. The treaty of Meerssen in 870, which divided the Frankish kingdoms along the Meuse, is the only record which indicates a left-bank part to the county, but this document also explicitly doesn't include Liège in Liugas. The main part which is on the eastern side is referred to as a appurtenance of Visé, which, as Nonn explains, was chief town of the jurisdiction of St Remacle, and had a jurisdiction on the west side of the river which was presumably divided from it by the treaty. The treaty also used quite different spellings for the two jurisdictions: Sancti Laurentii Leudensi and Liugas.
The medieval records consistently spell the pagus name in a wide range of ways, using -ch-, -k-, -g-, -v-, -w-, never with a -d- or -t-. The city, on the other hand, always had a dental consonant -d- until about 980, when Lethgia and Ledgia appear, followed by occasional forms such as Legia, although spelling with -d- continued to dominate.

Geographical definition and early attestations

The pagus of Liege, existed in the 8th to 11th century. Although the city of Liège itself is on the western bank, the places named as being in the pagus are on the eastern side, between the Meuse and the nearby imperial capital in Aachen, in what is now Germany.
Vanderkindere believed the territory must have approximated the late medieval church deanery of St Remacle.
As summarized by Ulrich Nonn, up to the year 1000:
In the 11th century, the following records are relevant. From 1041 there was a count named Dietbold or Tietpald, generally modernized to Theubald or Thibaut, whose possessions were closer to Aachen than the earlier records:
In 1072 and 1098, Harne, which Ernst interprets as Walhorn, one of the places mentioned above, still named as being in the county of Diepold, is described as being in the Ardennes pagus Harduenne instead.

Count Sigehard

, presumed to be the same Lotharingian count mentioned holding lands in the Pagus of Hainaut in this period, in 908 and 920.

Count Richar

, also took over the county of Mons, in the pagus of Hainaut, when it's count Godefried died.
After he died, two other Lotharingian nobles were killed defending it from Reginar IV, who was attempting to claim lands his father Reginar III once had. They were Count Werner and his brother, Reynald.
Richar was a close relative, probably a nephew, of Godefried who he replaced. He is thus likely to be a member of the so-called "Matfried" noble clan. According to Eduard Hlawitschka Werner and Reynald were probably brothers of Richar.
After the death of Richar, Werner and Reynald, the position of count in Hainaut was taken up by another relative named Godefried, Godefried the Captive, whose mother was a sister of Duke Godefried, and Bishop Wicfried of Cologne.

Speculations

Also speculated to have had comital status have been:
In the area of the pagus of Liugas, the counties of Dalhem and Limburg developed in the 11th and 12th centuries.

Also see