Pragmatic Sanction of 1549

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The Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 was an edict, promulgated by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, reorganizing the Seventeen Provinces.

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.

The Pragmatic Sanction is said to be one example of how particularism caused the First Revolt in the Netherlands. Each of the 17 provinces were very different from one another and they all had extremely different laws, customs and political practices. This imposing law angered many people who still continued to see their province as a separate entity from its neighbours. This as well as many other issues such as the creation of Bishoprics and the Heresy Laws can be said to have been the cause of the Dutch Revolt.