generations had seen many rebellions, confiscations, and expulsions. The larger region of Lower Lotharingia had been part of a separate kingdom, but it no longer had a king. The eastern and western kingdoms of the old Carolingian dynasty, the forerunners of later France and Germany, contested for control, together with the local magnates. By the year 1000, the area was under lasting control of the eastern kingdom, and not only Loon, but also other well-known counties such as Hainaut and Brabant, were developing into the forms known in the later Middle Ages. The 10th century history of these counties is now difficult to reconstruct. By 1000, royal power in the region was partly in the hands of the bishops of Liège, who had been granted important secular lordships. In the early tenth century, at least until 939, it has traditionally been proposed (for example by Christophe Butkens, and much later Léon Vanderkindere) that the so-called Regnarid dynasty had controlled all or most of the region. In particular, a count named Rudolf, who was proposed to be the younger brother of Reginar III, had a county in the area of Maaseik in 952. This county of Rudolf, called Hufte or Huste in the two medieval documents which mention it, apparently included lands very close to Borgloon itself, according to a charter estimated to be from 958/959. Furthermore, a Count Rudolf, perhaps the same one, had also ruled a neighbouring county to the southwest of Borgloon, outside the future county of Loon, based in Avernas. The Reginars suffered serious set-backs. In 939 their leader Duke Gilbert was killed. In 958 his nephew Reginar III was exiled, and although the two sons of Reginar III returned in 973, and began slowly establishing the power bases that eventually became the counties of Hainaut and Leuven, the fate of their proposed uncle Rudolf is unknown. However, Bishop Balderic II, brother of Count Gilbert of Loon, the first certain count, did have common ancestry with Lambert I, Count of Louvain, a descendant of the Reginarids. According to the most widely accepted hypothesis, developed by Joseph Daris, Léon Vanderkindere, and up-dated by Jean Baerten and others, the counts of Loon, although related to the Regnarids, were actually members of the "Balderics family", descendants of Count Ricfrid. This family had strong links to the Ottonian dynasty in Germany while the Regnarids were seen as rebels, and two members