Book excerpt: The word ""Flemish"" refers to the people living in the North of Belgium and France and the South of the Netherlands. The Flemish, also called ""Flemings,"" are of Germanic (Frank) origin. When the Franks invaded what is now Belgium, they settled between the sea and the ""charcoal forest,"" a dense old-growth forest of beech and oak, which extended to the Rhine and formed a natural boundary during the Late Iron Age through Roman times into the Early Middle Ages. The county of Flanders was created 864 when the French king Charles the Bald granted it as a fief to his son-in-law Baldwin with the Iron Arm. Flanders was a part of France but distinguished itself from the rest of the country with its Germanic Flemish population and close economic ties to England. Unlike other French fiefs it was never returned to the French king's control, instead Flanders became a part of the duke of Burgundy's possessions in 1384, which would evolve into present day Belgium.