Bremen coat of arms

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BremenBremen
Bremen coat of arms.jpg
Detail of a painting depicting a ship
Ship data
Surname:

Wappen von Bremen ,
Das Wappen von Bremen or
Wapen van Bremen

Keel laying : ?
Launching ( ship christening ) : ?
Completion: 1689
Builder: Bremen
Crew: 200-250 men
Guns: 52 cannons
Technical specifications
Type: Two-decker classified as a frigate
Length over all: 112 feet (about 34 m)
Width: 29 feet (about 9 m)
Drive: sail
Draft: ?

The Wappen von Bremen (also Das Wappen von Bremen or Wapen van Bremen ) was a frigate of the Free Imperial City of Bremen , which was used as a convoy ship in the late 17th century and early 18th century to protect Bremen and neutral merchant ships from piracy , especially on the sea route England was deployed.

The purchase

After the Bremen Council had repeatedly used smaller ships or buoyers to protect the waters of the Weser and the Weser estuary in the 15th to 17th centuries , with the beginning of the Palatinate War of Succession (1688-1697), larger convoy ships suitable for the sea became necessary as the Maritime trade in the North Sea was threatened by French war and privateers . As early as 1689, the merchant's parents had therefore equipped a convoy ship, the frigate Golden Lion , privately financed by Bremen merchants , and used it on the England route. However, it quickly became apparent that this ship was too small to permanently secure trade on this important route. The merchants therefore asked the council to park a larger and better armed ship for this purpose. On December 17, 1690, the council decided that “only one, but capable and defension capables ship should be bought and procured” . At the beginning of 1691 a stronger convoy ship with the coat of arms of Bremen was purchased and equipped at the expense of the convoy .

The ship

The coat of arms of Bremen was a three-masted ship of the frigate type, comparable to the Kurbrandenburg convoy ship Friedrich Wilhelm on horseback . The convoy ship was built in Bremen in 1689 and was about 34 meters long and 9 meters wide. In addition to the large square sails , it had blind sails (small additional sails that could be set below and above the bowsprit ), leeward sails (sails that could be attached to the side extensions of the yards to increase the sail area) and a triangular latin sail that could be placed on the rearmost mast above the stern. The 300-load ship first had to be converted for its new use in the spring of 1691. It could now carry 52 guns, 46 cannons and 6 basses . The crew numbered about 200 men.

The coat of arms of Bremen was armed with 42 cannons , eighteen of them 12-pounders, the rest of smaller caliber. About 30 guns were placed on the battery and main deck, two in the captain's cabin aiming backwards and the rest on the poop deck and forecastle deck , the latter probably aiming partially forwards. The ship had three dinghies, including a sloop . The captain's cabin was luxuriously furnished according to the taste of the time with gilded mirrors, chairs with corduan leather covers and dinnerware made of English pewter. As the convoy leader's ship, the stern was adorned with three splendid lanterns according to admiral law .

Jürgen Bake, admiral of the Bremen navy

The Dutchman Jürgen Bake from Amsterdam became the captain of the ship . From the crew of 200 to 250 men were around 50 well-armed marines - the inventory list of the coat of arms of Bremen from 1698 shows a stock of 42 muskets , 46 pistols , 180 hand grenades , as well as cutlass , cutlass and halberds . The powder supply is specified as 40 barrels.

The use

Little is known about the convoy journeys of the arms of Bremen in detail. According to the ruling of the council, the ship should “mainly be used for the security of Engel's negotiations” and “not for any other purpose, whereby that can be prevented or troubled to some extent, used and employret” . It was therefore mainly used on the route of trade in England, which led from the Weser to London , Hull , Newcastle and on to Scotland , but occasionally also to accompany ships to Amsterdam, Bergen or the Baltic Sea . It was also stipulated that only large ships with three masts should be placed under the protection of the convoy, as it was feared that smaller ships could hold up the convoy and thus endanger it as a whole.

Individual episodes have been preserved from hearsay by contemporary Peter Koster . In 1691 he drove the Bremen – London route three times without any special events. The next year he was able to steal three prizes from the pirate Jean Bart . On the fourth voyage of the year, he managed to narrowly escape five French pirates in a storm off Texel . He made a total of five trips this year. In 1694, seven French pirates equipped with 16 to 20 cannons blocked the convoy in the mouth of the Ems until reinforcements from Bremen arrived. The next year he was forced to run back to Bremen on the exit to England. A pirate with about 30 guns was still repulsed but when two more pirates arrived, the retreat began. A Dutch convoy that happened to pass by chased away the attackers. Only trips to England have come down to us from this contemporary.

After the end of the Palatinate War of Succession, the Bremen coat of arms was decommissioned by the council and sold in 1698 at an auction for 6,000 thalers to the Bremen merchants Daniel Meinertzhagen , Conrad Grelle, Peter Löning, Friedrich Harloch and comrades. When a few years later with the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) the threat to maritime trade arose again, in 1704 the council put a new convoy ship into service, called the Roland von Bremen . In the same year, the merchants who had acquired the coat of arms of Bremen also upgraded them to a convoy ship for a trip to Cádiz , Málaga and Alicante . For this company, Captain Bake was once again commissioned to command the ship. The whereabouts of the ship after its return from the Mediterranean is unknown.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The ship shown here carries the Bremen coat of arms at the stern, since the person depicted in the hidden painting area was the captain of the coat of arms of Bremen , this ship could actually also be the coat of arms . But it is also conceivable that the artist only depicted a ship of this size with the Bremen coat of arms as a symbol for the captain's ship.
  2. ^ A b Ernst Baasch: Hamburg's convoy shipping and convoy being: a contribution to the history of shipping and shipping facilities in the 17th and 18th centuries . Chapter XV: The convoy system of Bremen, p. 371.
  3. ^ Heinrich Schecker: The convoy ship "The coat of arms of Bremen" . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch , Volume 31 . Historical Society Bremen , Bremen 1928, p. 268.
  4. ^ Peter Koster : Chronicle of the Imperial Free Empire and Hanseatic City of Bremen 1600–1700 . Bremen 2004. ISBN 3-86108-687-5 , p. 371 (so-called Koster-Chronik , a manuscript finished in 1700).
  5. ↑ a b Compare the inventory list of the arms of Bremen in Heinrich Schecker: The convoy ship "The arms of Bremen" . In: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Volume 31 , pp. 275–280.
  6. ^ Ernst Baasch: Hamburgs Convoyschiffahrt und Convoywesen: a contribution to the history of shipping and shipping facilities in the 17th and 18th centuries . Chapter XV: The convoy system of Bremen . P. 395.

literature