Flag and coat of arms of the canton and the city of Bern

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Coat of arms of the canton , the former administrative district and the city of Bern
Flag of the canton , the former administrative district and the city of Bern

The coats of arms and flags of the canton , the former administrative district and the city of Bern are identical and show, as a talking coat of arms, a bear walking up the golden street as a coat of arms figure .

Blazons

The official blazon reads: In red a golden right-angled bar, topped with a striding black bear with red claws .

Another common blazon can be found in Mühlemann: a golden sloping beam in red, covered with a red-armored black bear with a red tongue.

It is taken for granted that the bear must be male and that its open throat with the knocked-out tongue has to emphasize its ability to defend itself. This is clearly expressed in Mühlemann's blazon.

The coat of arms of the canton of Bern bears a crown of sovereignty , the coat of arms of the city of Bern a wall crown . The coat of arms of the former district of Bern appeared without a mark.

Colours

The Bernese stand colors red and black can also be used as a hanging flag .

The status colors are red and black. Yellow (or gold) is not one of the Bernese class colors.

The "Appearance of the Canton of Bern", which was written by the State Chancellery of the Canton of Bern and applies to the cantonal administration, defines red as follows:

  • CMYK (four color printing): C0 / M100 / Y100 / K0
  • Pantone : Pantone 032 C or U

history

Left Bern city seal from 1224, right coin
Image of the Bern bear hunt from the Tschachtlan Chronicle , original coat of arms above the city gate

The oldest known representation of a bear as the emblem of the city of Bern is the city seal from 1224, which shows a heraldic bear striding upwards to the right with a raised left front paw. Coins have been preserved from 1228. The oldest preserved color representation of today's coat of arms is a shield from the late 14th century. According to the city chronicles, Bern was founded in 1191 by Duke Berthold V von Zähringen . According to the founding legend, he is said to have named the city after the first animal hunted in the area of ​​the future city - a bear. Hence the bear as a heraldic animal. Historically, the Bernese coat of arms is a so-called speaking coat of arms, i.e. a coat of arms that illustrates the associated name. According to the chronicler Conrad Justinger , the coat of arms of the city of Bern consisted of a black bear on a silver background, walking upwards (heraldically) to the right. The later chroniclers Bendicht Tschachtlan and Heinrich Dittlinger adopted this in their chronicles.

The oldest surviving colored depiction of today's coat of arms, set shield from the 14th century
Military flag of the city ​​and republic of Bern .

Justinger attributed the change of colors to the battle lost by the Bernese at Schosshalde in 1289, in which a Bernese is said to have saved a piece of the banner captured by the enemy, which was then changed. Sixteenth-century chroniclers explained the change in two different ways. According to Valerius Anshelm , the change is said to have been made on the orders of the victorious Duke Rudolf II of Austria , according to Aegidius Tschudi the red color goes back to the blood with which the banner is said to have been stained and now showed a bear on a red background, according to Johannes Stumpf initially still with a silver road, which was later changed to a gold one as a sign of freedom.

The oldest description of today's Bernese coat of arms is provided by the so-called Guglerlied from approx. 1375 preserved in the Justinger Chronicle ; there it says in the opening stanza:

Berner Waffen is so quickly
dealt with it;
one is red, the medium gel,
in it instead of indelible one
painted over even
black, the clawen are red for him;
he is swerzer than a
col , bris he hunt sol.

From then on at the latest, Bern's coat of arms did not change any more. With the separation of the city of Bern and the canton of Bern in 1831/32, the coat of arms of the city and republic of Bern became the coat of arms of the cantons and cities and in 1944, when the coats of arms of the districts and municipalities of the canton of Bern were determined, also the coat of arms of the district of Bern.

The colors red and yellow (heraldic: gold) also appear in the coat of arms of the dukes of Zähringen . The Zähring cities of Bräunlingen , Neuenburg am Rhein and Rheinfelden also have these “Zähring” or “Baden” colors in their coat of arms. However, there is no evidence that these colors are directly related to the coat of arms of the city and the canton of Bern: Zähringerstädte also exist in whose coat of arms the colors red and yellow do not appear, such as Burgdorf , Freiburg im Breisgau , Freiburg im Üechtland and other.

The Bernese military flag of the Ancien Régimes , which is often found next to or instead of the canton flag, shows a continuous white cross on a background flamed in the livery colors of red and black. This flag became orderly of the Bernese militias in 1703 . Its use within the military was gradually restricted with the emergence of the Swiss flag and finally stopped in 1865 by the last units of the Landwehr . The civic community of Bern carries the flamed flag as the official banner.

The Bernese coat of arms in its older form is also the coat of arms of the city ​​of New Bern in North Carolina in the United States of America, founded in 1710 by the Bern patrician Christoph von Graffenried . In addition, the ice hockey club SC Bern has the colors and the bear's head in its logo.

Adaptations of the Bern coat of arms and the Bern flag

See also

literature

  • Rudolf von Fischer: From the Bärner coat of arms . In: Bern journal for history and local history . tape 7 , 1945, doi : 10.5169 / seals-240893 .
  • Manuel Kehrli: The Bernese coat of arms stone from 1706 in the town church of Zofingen . In: Zofinger Neujahrsblatt . Volume 96, 2011, pp. 13-18 .
  • Louis Mühlemann: coat of arms and flags of Switzerland . 3. Edition. Bühler, Lengnau 1991, ISBN 3-9520071-1-0 .
  • Hugo Gerald Ströhl: German coat of arms roll . Julius Hoffmann, Stuttgart 1897.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Resolution of the government council regarding the adjustment of the district coats of arms of October 31, 1944 ( memento of October 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) in the Bernese systematic collection of laws, accessed on February 16, 2011
  2. ↑ Wikie Genealogie, going back to Mühlemann
  3. ^ Book of arms of the canton of Bern / Armorial du canton de Berne. The Bernese state coat of arms and the coats of arms of the administrative districts and municipalities . On behalf of the Bernese government council, published by the municipal authorities on the anniversary of “150 years of the Bernese constitution 1831”; edited by the Bern State Archives with the assistance of graphic artist Hans Jenni. Staatlicher Lehrmittelverlag, Bern 1981 p. 24ff.
  4. ↑ Visual appearance of the Canton of Bern: Design principles (PDF; 526 kB) , State Chancellery of the Canton of Bern, Edition 12/2007, No. 2.3: "Heraldically, yellow does not belong to the Bernese colors".
  5. ↑ a b Konrad Justinger : Cronicka of the city of Bern. (PDF 92 MB) In: DigiBern. University of Bern , November 4, 2006, p. 53 , accessed on September 10, 2009 (Middle High German).
  6. ↑ Pascal Ladner , Siegel und Heraldik , in: Rainer C. Schwinges (Ed.), Berns brave time: The 13th and 14th centuries rediscovered , Bern, Schulverlag blmv AG and Stämpfli Verlag AG, Bern 2003, ISBN 3-292 -00030-0 and ISBN 3-7272-1272-1 , pp. 244-245.
  7. ^ Society for Older German History . tape 3 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  8. ↑ Reference to zaehringerloewe.de ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zaehringerloewe.de
  9. ↑ Historical overview on Fahnenwelt.ch (section Flamed flags ), accessed on February 16, 2011
  10. ^ Website New Bern , accessed on February 16, 2011

Web links

Commons : Coats of arms of Bern  - Collection of images, videos and audio files