Thus, at the beginning of the feudal system, there existed no political and no linguistic unity in Belgium. Moreover, although Flanders formed a politically united body, Lotharingia was subdivided into several small principalities: the duchy of Brabant, including the actual provinces of Brabant and Antwerp, the county of Limburg, the county of Namur, the duchy of Luxemburg, the county of Hainaut, and two ecclesiastical principalities, Cambrai and Liège. The absence of political unity was a consequence of the new political constitution of most of the countries of Western Europe in the tenth century--of feudalism, so called. In place of the former despotic and centralized power of the King there was now to be found the locally asserted rule of dukes, counts, viscounts, etc. These public officers who, in the ninth century, were still subordinate agents of the King, without any other power than that delegated to them by their master, had succeeded, partly through the weakness of the heirs of Charles the Great and partly on account of the invasions of the Normans in the ninth century and the incursion of the Hungarians in the tenth, in grasping more firmly their delegated powers and in making their military, political, and financial perquisites hereditary. Thanks to the custom whereby the King granted them a domain, called _beneficium_, as a reward for their services or to insure their loyalty, they had succeeded in getting a strong political foothold in their respective provinces, and had continuously developed their possessions and their influence. In the tenth century the dukes and counts, formerly officers of the King, had won for themselves an independent and hereditary position. The kingdom was now everywhere broken up into small principalities, practically autonomous, where the King no longer exercised his power and where the people were now dominated by local dynasties. The new political organization, called feudalism, existed, of course, in Belgium also, and contributed in a large measure to the complete absence of political and national unity throughout the country. Each county, each duchy, became a world apart, had its own politics and made war on the neighboring principality, or aided it in case of attack from others. So Flanders enjoyed friendly relations with Cambrai and Hainaut; Hainaut was on good terms with Namur and Luxemburg. Sometimes they fought one another: Brabant and Limburg were enemies for a long time. Later they became united under the same princes. The same phenomenon existed in the Northern Netherlands: Holland was friendly toward Cleves, but fought against Gueldre on account of Utrecht, against Flanders on account of Zealand, against Utrecht on account of Friesland, etc.