The first surviving records indicating that Hainaut was a county are the records of the Carolingian dynasty being divided into parts in 831, 843 and 870. Most of the early medieval records mentioning Hainaut, starting in the 9th century, describe it as a pagus, a land or country, rather than a county. 8th- and 9th-century attestations, as listed by Ulrich Nonn, however, never name any specific counts who ruled it:
