Category: House of Reginar

Categories: German Nobility | European Noble Houses

Main sub-categories:

House of Hainaut

House of Montfort-l'Amaury

House of Leuven (and Brabant)

House of Percy (England)
House of Hesse (Germany) (contains more branches)

The House of Reginar (or "House of the Reginars", "The Regnarids", "Reiniers", or "Regniers" etc) was a noble family in Lower Lotharingia during the Carolingian and Ottonian centuries, ancestors of several later noble European houses, who often used the name Raginhar. The first certain member is Reginar who is traditionally known as "Long neck".

The dynasty includes two Dukes of Lotharingia, and the first dynasties of the Counties of Hainault and Louvain. The Louvain branch thrived further, becoming Landgraves and later Dukes of Brabant, Dukes of Lothier and Dukes of Limburg. That branch ended in 1355, leaving its duchies to the House of Luxembourg which in turn left them to the House of Valois-Burgundy in 1383. Notable side branches of the Louvain line are the House of Hesse which ruled Hesse from 1264 until 1918 and is still existing today, and the main English Percy line, powerful Earls in northern England.

Following the death of Charles the Fat, the Reginarids began a long fight with the Conradines for supremacy in Lotharingia. They triumphed in 910, with the election of Charles the Simple as king. It was the combined forces of the Ottonian Bruno, and the Carolingians of West Francia that finally broke the Reginarids' hold on power. In 958, Reginar III had his lands confiscated and redistributed to Gerard, Count of Metz, of the Matfridings, enemies of his family since the reign of Zwentibold.

The Reginarids supported Lothair of France against Otto II, but they made a deal with the latter in 978. Their descendants in Mons/Hainaut and then Louvain continued to strive for independent power between the eastern and western (German and French) kingdoms, but only their descendants in other dynasties achieved this. Their possessions were the core of what became the late medieval Burgundian and Hapsburg Netherlands, and in turn the modern "Benelux" (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg).

The house also produced a queen-consort of England in the form of Adeliza of Leuven, who married Henry I of England.

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