AHC: Netherlands is called as Lower Franconia

Is it possible for Netherlands to be called as Lower Franconia or Franconia since the French still call Dutch as Basse Francique.

Most of the Lowlands used to be ruled by the Duchy of Lower Lorraine. I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to keep that title. Franconia by that time referred to a more central part of 'Germany' so you probably need to go back further than 1000.

kasumigenx said:

Is it possible for Netherlands to be called as Lower Franconia or Franconia

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Not without an important enough Frankish presence. Franconia is only a variant over "Francia" as France, Ile-de-France ("Liddle Franke" : Little France), Franconia.

You'd need, for instance, an earlier Frankish presence in Frisia, which is going to be quite hard without butterflying their conquest of Gaul and maybe would require a Vth PoD with Franks remaining in Toxandria.

After that, the best bet would be no Merovingian decline after Dagobert I, with a maintained pressure on Frisians and Saxons (that were tributaries of Franks at this point) and an earlier fort/town creations in the region (making it a missionary center).
Even that is no garantee it would make the population self-indentifying as Franks, but it's better than nothing.

since the French still call Dutch as Basse Francique.

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We don't.

Bas Francique is the name of a linguistic classification, a sub-branch of Lower Germanic distinct from Old Saxon. It's no more a way to call Dutch in French than "Low Franconian" in English.

LSCatilina said:

Not without an important enough Frankish presence. Franconia is only a variant over "Francia" as France, Ile-de-France ("Liddle Franke" : Little France), Franconia.

You'd need, for instance, an earlier Frankish presence in Frisia, which is going to be quite hard without butterflying their conquest of Gaul and maybe would require a Vth PoD with Franks remaining in Toxandria.

After that, the best bet would be no Merovingian decline after Dagobert I, with a maintained pressure on Frisians and Saxons (that were tributaries of Franks at this point) and an earlier fort/town creations in the region (making it a missionary center).
Even that is no garantee it would make the population self-indentifying as Franks, but it's better than nothing.


We don't.

Bas Francique is the name of a linguistic classification, a sub-branch of Lower Germanic distinct from Old Saxon. It's no more a way to call Dutch in French than "Low Franconian" in English.

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The people of holland and flanders are franks..

They are closer to Low Saxon actually.

Also, I think you mistook with Lower Lorraine which was the Duchy that covered the Netherlands, Belgium (sans the County of Flanders) and the Rhineland.

Monter said:

They are closer to Low Saxon actually.

Also, I think you mistook with Lower Lorraine which was the Duchy that covered the Netherlands, Belgium (sans the County of Flanders) and the Rhineland.

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No, we're not Low Frankish/Old Dutch and Old Saxon both didn't undergo teh High German Consonant shift. However it meant, that Franks in Low Countries and the neighbouring northern Rhineland drifted apart from their Frankish brethern, which did undergo said consonant shift, it didn't change much to the distance to the Saxons.

I first read the OP's question for the whole Low Countries AKA Netherlands. Anyway with now Belgium and the Rhineland, chances for this increase a lot. However it may cause problems to find a suitable name, after all Franconia only is suitable adaptation, in German the region is known as Franken (the German name for the Franks is Franken, OTOH the same is true for Saxony/Sachsen or Bavaria/Bayern).

In the Low Countries Flanders, Brabant, Limburg and Southern Gelderland the people developed from (Germanic) Franks, Holland and to a lesser degree Zeeland was more Friso-Frankish (though increasingly Frankish) and Utrecht might even add some Saxon to the Friso-Frankish mix. In the Walloon regions there were Romance speaking Franks.

OTOH as LSCatalina has pointed out in several discussions the Frankish identity was also a political one. To a degree I agree, however the peoples in the Rhineland and the Low Countries actually descend form the tribes, which joined together in the tribal confederacy known as the Franks (not unlike the Saxons).
Anyway, even if for instance Lotharingia survives in some form, a Lotharingian counterpart to Ile-de-France and Franken (Franconia) could form.