At the very moment when all the Belgian principalities had won their complete political autonomy and rejected the French, the English, and the German influence, they were brought together under the scepter of one dynasty, and became united in a solid monarchic federation. As such, they constitute, between Germany and France, that buffer state represented on the map of Europe by the kingdoms of Belgium and Holland. The unconscious tendency of the preceding centuries was brought to a head in the fifteenth century by the dukes of Burgundy. They were aided in large part by the political circumstances of the time. France was exhausted after the Hundred Years’ War and Germany had lost the prestige and the strength of its monarchic power. In favoring the desire for a union of the Belgian principalities, the dukes saved Belgium from conquest or absorption by France. They continued and completed the work of the warriors of the battle of the Golden Spurs. The Scheldt was no longer a political barrier between the east and the west of the country. Belgium, as a united political body, was now for the first time a reality. The achievements of the Burgundian dukes may be considered from two points of view. We may consider the territorial and geographical consolidation and the political reform. As for the territorial consolidation, there existed, at the end of the fourteenth century, three ruling houses in Belgium, each of them dominating many provinces, and each hoping to bring the whole country under its scepter. These houses were those of Luxemburg, Bavaria, and Burgundy. The house of Luxemburg had annexed to its hereditary duchy the duchies of Brabant and Limburg; that of Bavaria ruled Hainaut, Holland, and Zeeland; that of Burgundy possessed the duchy of the same name with the counties of Flanders and Artois. It was the Duchess Jeanne of Brabant who turned the scale in favor of Burgundy. Although she had promised the duchy of Brabant to the house of Luxemburg, she gave it to her niece, wife of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Flanders. So, in 1404, according to the testamentary devises of the late Jeanne of Brabant, Brabant and Limburg went to Antoine, youngest son of Philip the Bold, while to John without Fear, the eldest son, were given Flanders and Artois. There were thus a Flemish and a Brabantine branch of Burgundy. Antoine, Duke of Brabant, married Elizabeth of Gorlitz, heiress of the duchy of Luxemburg, and annexed that vast territory to his two other duchies (1409). His son John IV, by his marriage with Jacqueline of Bavaria, added to the duchies transmitted by his father the counties of Hainaut, Holland, Zeeland, and the seigneurie of Friesland. John IV was an insignificant prince. History remembers him for having, in 1425, founded the University of Louvain. His brother, Philip de Saint-Pol, died without issue, and thereupon the states of Brabant offered the possessions of the