Pragmatic Sanction of 1549

It was Charles' plan to centralize the administrative units of Holy Roman Empire. The Seventeen Provinces (roughly comprising present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the French région of Nord-Pas de Calais) were carved out of the Holy Roman Empire. Earlier, the Seventeen Provinces had been fiefs either of the Holy Roman Empire or of the kingdom of France, united under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy, hence the name Burgundian Netherlands. The Pragmatic sanction transformed this agglomeration of lands into a unified entity, of which the Habsburgs would be the heirs.

After Charles' abdication in 1556, the Seventeen Provinces passed to his son Philip II of Spain.