Belgium

Belgium, per se, is a "modern" invention. Throughout period the geographical area now known as the kingdom of Belgium was a tapestry of small feudal states, arising out of the decay and decline of the Frankish Carolingian Empire.

Later, as the House of Burgundy accrued power to itself, it collected many of these states together, as the Burgundain Netherlands, which later became known as the "Seventeen Provinces", later divied into Northern and Southern portions, the latter falling under Spanish Hapsburg dominion.