 It was probably originally a division of the old "pagus" of Hesbaye, but whose lords expanded their jurisdiction, encroaching on neighbouring "pagi".A manuscript of the abbey of Orval attributes its foundation to Charlemagne, but this is a legend.There is some correspondence between lands mentioned in the will of Duke Eberhard of Friuli in 866 and the later county of Huy, "the implication being that [the county] had once been governed by Eberhard".