County of Hanau-Lichtenberg

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Banner of the Holy Roman Emperor with haloes (1400-1806) .svg
Territory in the Holy Roman Empire
Hanau-Lichtenberg
coat of arms
Blason du comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg.svg



Arose from 1456: Division of the County of Hanau ,
1480: Assault of Lichtenberg ,
1570: Assault of Zweibrücken-Bitsch
Form of rule county
Ruler / government Count
Today's region / s FR-67 / FR-57 / DE-RP


Reichskreis Upper Rhine Empire Circle
Capitals / residences Babenhausen , Buchsweiler
Dynasties Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg
Denomination / Religions Roman Catholic , Lutheran from 1544
Language / n German


Incorporated into 1736: Landgraviate Hessen-Darmstadt ,
1736: Landgraviate Hessen-Kassel


Philipp I (the elder), the progenitor of the Hanau-Lichtenberg line, on his epitaph in the town church of St. Nikolaus in Babenhausen

The county of Hanau-Lichtenberg was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire . It was created in 1456-80 from part of the County of Hanau and half of the Lichtenberg region . After the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg died out in 1736, it fell to Hessen-Darmstadt and Hessen-Kassel . Its center was in Lower Alsace with the capital Buchsweiler .

history

The Lichtenberg inheritance

In 1452, Count Reinhard III died after only one year of reign . von Hanau (* 1412; † 1452). Heir was his only four year old son Philip I, the younger (* 1449, † 1500). Concerned about the continued existence of the dynasty, the relatives and other important decision-makers of the county agreed not to apply the family primogeniture statute of 1375, one of the oldest in Germany, and to give the uncle of the heir and brother of the late Reinhard III, Philip I dem Elderly (* 1417, † 1480) to allow the area of ​​the County of Hanau south of the Main as a secondary education . It essentially concerned the Babenhausen office and the Hanau shares in the Umstadt condominium, which is shared with the Electoral Palatinate . This equipment made it possible for him to marry and to witness descendants entitled to inherit, thus increasing the security for the continued existence of the count's house. Philip I the Elder now called himself von Hanau-Babenhausen .

Philip the Elder Ä. married Anna von Lichtenberg (* 1442; † 1474) in 1458 , one of the two heirlooms of Ludwig V von Lichtenberg (* 1417; † 1474). After the death of the last Lichtenberger, Ludwig's brother, Jakob von Lichtenberg , Philipp I. d. Ä. 1480 half of the Lichtenberg rule in lower Alsace with the capital Buchsweiler . This resulted in the line and county of Hanau-Lichtenberg . His nephew Philipp I (the younger) of Hanau and his descendants called themselves to distinguish themselves from this in future "Counts of Hanau-Munzenberg ". The other half of the inheritance went to Philip's brother-in-law. Ä., Simon IV. Alarm clock from Zweibrücken-Bitsch . Hanau-Lichtenberg received the offices from the Lichtenberg inheritance

In addition, two other offices from the inheritance were now condominiums between Hanau-Lichtenberg and Zweibrücken-Bitsch, namely:

This incomplete real division led to a permanent conflict between the houses in Hanau-Lichtenberg and Zweibrücken-Bitsch. The situation was such that an arbitration agreement finally brokered by Emperor Maximilian I in 1513 took nine years to implement: It was not until autumn 1522 that the parties finally agreed that the Brumath office should become Zweibrücken-Bitsch, the Willstätt office completely came to the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg.

Parts of the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg, especially the areas on the Upper Rhine and those in the catchment area of Strasbourg , were badly affected by the peasant uprisings around 1525. The unrest was ended regionally by the Renchen Treaty . However, Count Philip III felt . von Hanau-Lichtenberg was not bound by it because he was not sufficiently involved in the negotiations on the contract. These experiences made the count also react skeptically to the Reformation . It was only his son, Count Philip IV , who introduced the Lutheran version.

Lichtenberg Castle (Alsace) after an engraving by Merian 1663
Buchsweiler Castle
Hanauer Hof , city residence of the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg in Strasbourg

The Zweibrücken inheritance

In 1570 there was the next big inheritance. Count Jakob von Zweibrücken-Bitsch (* 1510; † 1570) and his brother Simon V. Wecker, who died in 1540, left only one daughter each. Count Jakob's daughter, Margarethe (* 1540; † 1569), was married to Philipp V von Hanau-Lichtenberg (* 1541; † 1599). The legacy included the second half of the Lichtenberg reign, not already ruled by Hanau-Lichtenberg, the Zweibrücken-Bitsch county and the Ochsenstein reign . At first, after the inheritance, a dispute arose between the husbands of the two cousins, Count Philip I of Leiningen-Westerburg and Count Philip V of Hanau-Lichtenberg. The latter was able to prevail against Philip I. The following areas came from the County of Zweibrücken-Bitsch to the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg:

Parts of the county of Zweibrücken-Bitsch were fiefdoms of the Duchy of Lorraine . Philip V of Hanau-Lichtenberg made this powerful and Roman Catholic duchy an enemy through the immediate introduction of the Reformation with a Lutheran creed : it withdrew the fiefs. In July 1572 Lorraine troops occupied the county and reversed the Reformation. Since Philip V was not up to the overwhelming power of Lorraine, he chose the legal route. At the trial before the Imperial Court of Justice, Lorraine was able to rely on the fact that, on the one hand, considerable areas of Zweibrücken-Bitsch were Lorraine fiefs and, on the other hand, the Counts of Leiningen had sold their inheritance claims to Lorraine in 1573.

Only in 1604 and 1606 was there a contractual settlement between Hanau-Lichtenberg and Lorraine. It included a division and took into account the old treaties: The Bitsch rule fell back to Lorraine and the Lemberg office , which had been an allod of the Zweibrücker counts, was assigned to Hanau-Lichtenberg. As a result, Bitscherland remained Catholic, while the Lutheran denomination was introduced in the Lemberg office.

Association with Hanau-Münzenberg

Johann Reinhard III. from Hanau-Lichtenberg, last of the line

In 1642 the Counts of Hanau-Münzenberg died out in the male line. At this time, Count Friedrich Casimir (* 1623; † 1685), who was only nineteen years old, ruled Hanau-Lichtenberg . The Thirty Years' War was still raging , the relationship to the late last Hanau Munzenberger was only extensive, and the assumption of power was by no means certain. On secret routes and incognito, Count Friedrich Casimir was brought to Hanau by his guardian, Baron Georg II von Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl (* 1588, † 1644). There he first had to contractually guarantee a number of concessions to the patriciate of the Neustadt before he could take power. This included, above all, freedom of religion for the Reformed denomination, the “state religion” in Hanau-Munzenberg, because Hanau-Lichtenberg had remained Lutheran and Friedrich Casimir was himself a Lutheran. In the following year, with the help of Landgravine Amalie Elisabeth von Hessen-Kassel (* 1602; † 1651), a born Countess of Hanau-Münzenberg, the claims of Count Friedrich Casimir were also enforced against the Archbishop of Mainz. In return, he concluded an inheritance contract with the Landgravine stating that, should the Hanau house die out, Hanau-Münzenberg should fall to Hesse-Kassel. In 1647 Friedrich Casimir married the widow of his Hanau-Münzenberg predecessor, Sibylle Christine von Anhalt-Dessau (* 1603; † 1686), who was twenty years his senior . The step was probably made necessary by the precarious financial situation of the county, because it saved the endowment for the countess widow. The marriage remained childless.

In 1680 the parts of the county in Alsace fell under the sovereignty of France . Above all, this meant restrictions on the Lutherans . In numerous parishes, the churches were converted into simultaneous churches , Lutherans and Roman Catholics had to share the worship space. However, Lutheranism remained strong in the county: there were 55 parishes in the Alsatian part, that was more than a third of all Lutheran parishes in Alsace.

The inheritance of Count Friedrich Casimir, who died childless, fell to the two sons of his brother Johann Reinhard II (* 1628; † 1666): Count Philipp Reinhard (* 1664; † 1712) received Hanau-Münzenberg and Count Johann Reinhard III. (* 1665; † 1736) Hanau-Lichtenberg. The County of Hanau-Lichtenberg was independent again. When Philipp Reinhard died without a direct heir, his brother Johann Reinhard III inherited. also the Hanau-Munzenberg part of the country, and the county of Hanau was reunited.

Succession

1736 died with Johann Reinhard III. the last male representative of the Hanau family. Due to the inheritance contract of 1643, the Hanau-Münzenberg part of the state fell to Hessen-Kassel , due to the marriage of the only daughter of the last Hanau Count, Charlotte (* 1700; † 1726), with the Hereditary Prince Ludwig (VIII.) (* 1691; † 1768 ) from Hessen-Darmstadt the county Hanau-Lichtenberg to there. For decades, the affiliation of the Babenhausen office to the Munzenberger or Lichtenberger inheritance remained controversial between Hessen-Kassel and Hessen-Darmstadt . This dispute was only settled after 40 years through a real division.

In 1803 the now so-called Hanauerland on the right bank of the Rhine came to the Grand Duchy of Baden , on the left bank of the Rhine mostly to France. Only the area around Pirmasens fell to Bavaria in 1816 .

structure

The Umstadt condominium was half under Hanau-Lichtenberg until 1504. Since around 1680, most of the offices on the left bank of the Rhine in Alsace were under French sovereignty, the office on the left bank of Lemberg and the areas on the right bank of the Rhine remained under German sovereignty. From 1680, the offices of Brumath , Buchsweiler , Hatten , Ingweiler , Offendorf , Pfaffenhofen , Westhofen , Wörth and Wolfisheim were under French sovereignty . The offices of Babenhausen , Lemberg, Lichtenau and Willstätt remained outside of French sovereignty .

coat of arms

In 1626 Hanau-Lichtenberg had the following coat of arms: Quartered shield: 1. Three red rafters of the Counts of Hanau in gold, 2. In gold, the red lion of the Counts of Zweibrücken , 3. In silver, a black lion, framed in red, of the Lords of Lichtenberg 4. In red two silver bars from the Ochsenstein lordship , overlaid with a red central shield , framed in gold, for Bitsch .

literature

Coat of arms of the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg at the count's office in Bouxwiller
  • Reinhard Dietrich : The state constitution in Hanau. The position of the lords and counts in Hanau-Münzenberg based on the archival sources. Self-published by the Hanauer Geschichtsverein, Hanau 1996, ISBN 3-9801933-6-5 ( Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 34).
  • Charles Haudot: Les Sceaux des Lichtenberg et des Hanau-Lichtenberg . In: Société d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie de Saverne et Environs (Eds.): Cinquième centenaire de la création du Comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg 1480 - 1980 = Pays d'Alsace 111/112 (2, 3/1980), p 39-46.
  • Hans-Walter Herrmann : The county of Zweibrücken-Bitsch. In: Hans-Walter Herrmann, Kurt Hoppstädter (Hrsg.): Geschichtliche Landeskunde des Saarlandes. Volume 2: From the Frankish conquest to the French Revolution. Historical association for the Saar area, Saarbrücken 1977, ISBN 3-921870-00-3 , pp. 323–332 ( communications from the historical association for the Saar area NF 4).
  • Johann Georg Lehmann : Documented history of the county Hanau-Lichtenberg. 2 volumes. Schneider, Mannheim 1862 (reprint: Zeller, Osnabrück 1974).
  • Timotheus Wilhelm Röhrich: Communications from the history of the Evangelical Church of Alsace. Volume 2: Evangelical images of the times, and the Church of the Fathers under the Cross. Treuttel and Würtz, Strasbourg et al. 1855, pp. 58–97: “How the Alsatian rule Hanau-Lichtenberg became Protestant” .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lehmann, Vol. 2, pp. 441, 446f.
  2. ^ Wilhelm Mechler: The territory of the Lichtenberger right of the Rhine . In: Société d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie de Saverne et Environs (Eds.): Cinquième centenaire de la création du Comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg 1480 - 1980 = Pays d'Alsace 111/112 (2, 3/1980), p 31-37 (35).
  3. ↑ Froben Christoph von Zimmer: Zimmerische Chronik . Volume II. Edited by Karl August Barack. Freiburg / Tübingen 1881, page 251. Digital full-text edition in Wikisource .
  4. ↑ Jean-Claude Brumm: Quelques dates importantes dans l'histoire… . In: Société d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie de Saverne et Environs (Eds.): Cinquième centenaire de la création du Comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg 1480 - 1980 = Pays d'Alsace 111/112 (2, 3/1980), p 10f.
  5. ↑ Kathrin Ellwardt: Lutherans between France and the Empire: Church buildings in the Alsatian offices of the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg under Johann Reinhard III. and Louis IX. In: New Magazine for Hanau History 2016, pp. 18–59 (24).
  6. ^ Walter Bodmer: L'immigration suisse dans le comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg au dix-septième siècle , Collection d'études sur l'histoire du droit et des institutions de l'Alsace; 6. Heitz, Strasbourg 1930. German translation The Swiss immigration to the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg in the seventeenth century , translated from the French by Klaus Kochensperger, Vellmar. 115 p. (With map on p. 114). Online (PDF, 1.2 MB) ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kochersperger-genealogie.de
  7. ↑ Ludwig Ewald: Historical overview of the territorial changes in the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt and the Grand Duchy of Hessen . Second, corrected and especially revised in view of the territorial changes that took place in 1866. In: Contributions to the statistics of the Grand Duchy of Hesse , Volume 13, Darmstadt 1872, p. 28 f. On-line