Brabant

(brah'bawng,) an old duchy of the Netherlands. It was originally inhabited by the Menapii and Tuugri. The Franks settled in it in the 5th cent. In 1005, Godfrey, Count of Ardennes, was acknowledged duke of B. by the Emperor Henry II. B. pa ed to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, 1429, and to Austria, 1484, by the marriage of the Emperor Maximilian with Mary, the heire of Charles the Bold. The Emperor Charles V. left it to his son Philip II. of Spain. At the peace of Munster, 1648, it was divided into Spanish B., now forming the pro vs. Antwerp, and S. Brabant, in Belgium; and Dutch or North B., which still belongs to Holland. Brace, CHARLES LORING, an American author and traveller, B. at Litchfield, Conn., in 1826, graduated at Yale Coll., in 1847. He is the author of Hungary in 1851; Home Life in Germany (1853); Norsefolk (1857); and The New West (1869). [s. 110]