Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Duchy of Lorraine
959–1766
Duché de Lorraine; German Herzogtum Lothringen; from Lotharingia. Capital: Nancy. An imperial duchy that emerged from the division of Lotharingia (959), long ruled by the House of Lorraine (from Gerard of Alsace, 1048).
- Existed
- 959–1766
- Shown on the map
- 1431–1439, 1453–1474, 1482–1635, 1648–1672, 1700–1701, 1713–1733, 1748–1756, 1763–1768 (8 periods)
- Peak area
- 18k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
Duché de Lorraine; German Herzogtum Lothringen; from Lotharingia. Capital: Nancy. An imperial duchy that emerged from the division of Lotharingia (959), long ruled by the House of Lorraine (from Gerard of Alsace, 1048). Duke René II defeated and killed Charles the Bold at Nancy (1477), preserving Lorraine's independence and blocking the Burgundian "middle kingdom." Repeatedly occupied by France, Lorraine was granted for life to the deposed Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński (father-in-law of Louis XV) in 1737; on his death the duchy was incorporated into France in 1766. (Duke Francis III had earlier exchanged Lorraine for Tuscany and married Maria Theresa, founding the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.)
Common questions
- What was the Duchy of Lorraine?
- Duché de Lorraine; German Herzogtum Lothringen; from Lotharingia. Capital: Nancy. An imperial duchy that emerged from the division of Lotharingia (959), long ruled by the House of Lorraine (from Gerard of Alsace, 1048).
- When did the Duchy of Lorraine exist?
- The Duchy of Lorraine existed 959–1766. On this map it is drawn 1431–1439, 1453–1474, 1482–1635, 1648–1672, 1700–1701, 1713–1733, 1748–1756, 1763–1768.
- How large was the Duchy of Lorraine?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Duchy of Lorraine covered about 18,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica and specialist snippets, and flags entries built on unreliable foundations — the 911 treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte known only from Dudo of Saint-Quentin, and Arnaud Amalric's alleged order at Béziers attested only decades after the fact. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Duchy of Lorraine en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Lorraine
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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