1467   

The Burgundian lands had transgressed well into the Low Countries, uniting some of the lands in which Lower-Frankish dialects were spoken, like Flanders, Holland and Brabant. These dialects, descended from the language of the Franks, the Germanic tribe that conquered Gaul after the Romans left and gave that country its name. The present Dutch language is the direct descendant of these dialects. The Eastern-Franks living in what is now Germany, had lost their Lower-German language long since, having become High-German speakers in the early middle ages, under the influence of their Southern, Bavarian and Swabian neighbours, whose language had been influenced by Celtic and Romance.

It was however not only in the Burgundian lands that Lower-Frankish was a factor. In the Lower Rhineland and Westphalia, the dynasty of Cleves and Juliers united some duchies and counties in which the "Oesterse" dialect became the official Chancellery language. Despite Saxon and High-German influences it was very similar to the ancestors of the Dutch language, and has influenced it greatly. It was widely used in what is now the Eastern and Northern Netherlands also. The present Dutch province of Guelderland was a part of the Cleves-Juliers domain from time to time. And this country had some political influence in the North-eastern Netherlands. Remember that the present border between the Netherlands and Germany, was non-existent at the time. The  map on the next page depicts the situation at the death of Philip the Good in 1467.