Coat of arms of the county of Hanau

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Hanau coat of arms on the former “Zum Löwen” inn in Altheim . The Order of the Garter ( “ Honi soit qui mal y pense ” ) is a free ingredient

The coat of arms of the County of Hanau was initially the coat of arms of the Hanau rulership and, since 1429, of the Hanau county . It was created in the 13th century, based on the coat of arms of the Counts of Rieneck .

predecessor

The oldest known coat of arms of the Lords of Hanau was a soaring lion, which was featured in Reinhard I's equestrian seals. It was taken over by the von Dorfelden gentlemen - a relationship between the two families is likely, but not really proven.

Emergence

Rieneck coat of arms according to Scheibler's book of arms 1450–1480
Coat of arms of the Lords and Counts of Hanau

In the second half of the 13th century, Reinhard I von Hanau participated in the dispute between the Archbishops of Mainz and the Counts of Rieneck for power in the western Spessart . Reinhard I. stood on the side of the archbishops. The long-lasting conflict ended in 1271 with the victory of the Archbishop of Mainz, Werner von Eppstein . Part of the peace agreement was that a daughter of Count Ludwig III. von Rieneck, Elisabeth , with rich trousseau and under her status (!), had to be married to Reinhard's son Ulrich I.

Hanauer - obviously proud of this sized rise - designed their own coat of arms for the appropriate Rienecker model - yellow / red, but just rafters instead of Rienecker beams. They soon gave up the soaring lions that had previously been used and that were shown in Reinhard I's equestrian seals. Ulrich I, husband of Elisabeth von Rieneck, still uses it together with the new rafter coat of arms on the split shield of his back seal. The lion appears for the last time in some secretion seals under Ulrich II . Since the end of the 13th century, only the rafters have appeared as the Hanau coat of arms symbol. Ulrich II also took over the Rienecker Helmzier , a white, soaring swan with which the Rieneckers wanted to prove their descent from Lohengrin . This identical crest led to a dispute, which was ended in 1367 with a settlement: Rieneck leads a whole standing swan, but Hanau leads a growing half swan.

Later changes

End of the county of Rieneck

The similarity of the coats of arms leads in later centuries to the assumption that both houses come from the same root. In any case, Count Philip III. von Rieneck made this argument foreseeable that he would die without a male heir and that Emperor Charles V asked for the eventual transfer of his fiefdom to Count Philip III. von Hanau-Munzenberg asked what the Kaiser granted. The emperor abdicated the same year, the Count of Hanau tried this transfer of his successor King Ferdinand I get confirmed. Before that happened, however, Count Philip III died. von Rieneck on September 3, 1559. With regard to material inheritance claims, the Count of Hanau was unable to assert much against the Rieneck lords, but he took over the Rienecker coat of arms and their names in his titulature .

Coat of arms of the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg

With the Lichtenberg inheritance of Philip the Elder in 1480, the coats of arms of the County of Hanau and the Lordship of Lichtenberg were first combined by dividing the shield into quarters and alternating each of the two coats of arms. In 1590, the Ochsenstein coat of arms was added to the heart of the shield . In 1606 the coat of arms was completely redesigned: The shield was again divided into four fields showing the coat of arms of Hanau, the County of Zweibrücken , the Lordship of Lichtenberg and the Lordship of Ochsenstein. The heart shield is occupied by the coat of arms of the Bitsch dominion . In the final version, which was created when Count Friedrich Casimir took office and the counties of Hanau-Münzenberg and Hanau-Lichtenberg were united, the coat of arms now has two rows with three fields each, showing the following coats of arms: Hanau, Grafschaft Rieneck , Zweibrücken, Münzenberg , Lichtenberg and Ochsenstein. The centerpiece is the Bitsch coat of arms. The design can still be seen on several historical buildings in Hanau, such as the side entrance of the Marstall, the office building of the Hanau City Palace , the Frankfurter Tor and the Neustadt town hall.

The coat of arms now contained the following fields, in the upper row heraldic right: Three red rafters in a golden field ( County Hanau ), middle: red bars in a golden field or eightfold red and gold stripes (County Rieneck), heraldic left: red lion in golden field ( county of Zweibrücken ); Second row heraldic right: Crossed by red and gold ( Reign Munzenberg ), middle: Black lion in a silver field with red shield border ( Reign Lichtenberg ), heraldic left two silver crossbars in a red field ( Reign Ochsenstein ); Middle shield: Red shield with golden shield border ( Herrschaft Bitsch ). The corresponding small helmet from the heraldic right side: 1. Growing swan (County Hanau), 2. Sitting red lion between two black and white plumes (County Zweibrücken), 3. Peacock's tail between two red and gold flags on a prince's hat (Dominion Munzenberg) , 4. Silver swan on a crowned helmet (Grafschaft Rieneck), 5. Swan trunk (Herrschaft Lichtenberg), 6. Body of a man with a red and silver cap and similar dress (Herrschaft Ochsenstein).

Coat of arms of the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg

aftermath

End of the county of Hanau

1736 died with Count Johann Reinhard III. the last male representative of the Hanau Count House. Due to a contract of inheritance from 1643, the Hanau-Munzenberg part of the state fell to the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel , due to the marriage of the only daughter of the last Hanau Count, Charlotte , with the Hereditary Prince Ludwig (VIII.) Of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Hanau-Lichtenberg share was transferred there . Both ruling houses and both states, as well as their successor states, the Electorate of Hesse (until its fall in 1866) and the Grand Duchy of Hesse (until the introduction of the Republic in 1918) continued the Hanau coat of arms as part of their own coat of arms.

Todays use

  • The coat of arms is still used today by the city of Hanau . It went through some changes in the process. The form that is valid today goes back to a suggestion by the heraldist Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt from 1905, who tried to leave out some unhistorical elements.

later uses of the Hanau rafter coat of arms

  • Coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Darmstadt, the coat of arms of Hanau: bottom center

  • Coat of arms of the Electorate of Hesse, the coat of arms of Hanau: top center (quartered with Rieneck)

  • Coat of arms of the city of Hanau

literature

  • Hans-Peter Lachmann: Seal of the Lords and Counts of Hanau. In: Eckhard Meise (Ed.): 675 years old town Hanau. Festschrift for the city anniversary and catalog for the exhibition in the Historical Museum of Hanau am Main. Peters, Hanau 1978, ISBN 3-87627-242-4 , pp. 141-149.
  • Uta Löwenstein: County of Hanau . In: Knights, Counts and Princes - Secular Dominions in the Hessian Area approx. 900-1806 = Handbook of Hessian History 3 = Publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse 63. Marburg 2014. ISBN 978-3-942225-17-5 , p. 196 -230.
  • Alfred Matt: Les Armoiries . In: Société d'Histoire et d'Archaeologie de Saverne et Environs (ed.): Cinquième centenaire de la création du Comté de Hanau-Lichtenberg 1480 - 1980 = Pays d'Alsace 111/112 (2, 3/1980), p 59-62.
  • Eckhard Meise: coat of arms in downtown Hanau. In: New magazine for Hanau history . No. 2, 2000, pp. 74-103.
  • Theodor Ruf: Hanau and Rieneck. About the changeable relationship between two neighboring noble families in the Middle Ages. In: New magazine for Hanau history. Vol. 8, No. 6, 1986, pp. 300-311.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Löwenstein, p. 212; Lachmann, p. 141.
  2. ↑ Different explanations in: Löwenstein, p. 212f. However, these ignore the fact that the correspondence between the Rienecker and the Hanau coat of arms is greater than with all other derivations and furthermore the correspondence of the crest.
  3. ↑ Lachmann, p. 141 and Fig.81b.
  4. ↑ Meise: Herrschaftswappen , p. 79f.
  5. ^ Matt, p. 61.
  6. ↑ Matt, p. 60, fig. 3.
  7. ↑ Matt, p. 62, fig. 4.
  8. ↑ Matt, p. 62, fig. 5.
  9. ↑ For the history of the city arms see: Eckhard Meise: The arms of the united cities of Hanau. In: New magazine for Hanau history. 2005, pp. 41–77, on Hildebrandt's work, especially pp. 65ff.
  10. ↑ See: here.