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In 1452, after a reign of only one year, Count Reinhard III of Hanau (1412–1452) died. The heir was his son, Philip I (the Younger) (1449–1500), only four years old. For the sake of the continuity of the dynasty after years of political fighting, his relatives and other important decision-makers in the county agreed not to turn to the 1375 primogenitur statute of the family – one of the oldest in Germany – but to separate the administrative district of Babenhausen from the county of Hanau and let the heir's uncle and brother of the deceased, Philip I (the Elder) (1417–1480), have it in his own right as a county. This arrangement of 1458 allowed him to have a befitting marriage and offspring entitled to inherit, and so increased the chances of survival of the comital house. This created the Line of Hanau-Lichtenberg. Later on – to distinguish the "old" county from Hanau-Lichtenberg – the part of the county which stayed with Philip I (the Younger) was called Hanau-Münzenberg.
The History of Hanau-Münzenberg is dominated by a large series of guardianships for counts still minor when inheriting the county from their fathers: Without interruption this happened during six accessions between 1512 and 1638. Always the counts died in their late 20th or 30th leaving behind a minor as successor. Most probably the reason was a hereditary disease. The effect of this was that the politics of expansion which on the long term dominated the success of the Lordship of Hanau and later the county of Hanau came to a halt when Philip I (the Younger) died in 1500.
Slowly but early Hanau-Münzenberg participated in the Reformation, to be exact: its Lutheran version. The reformation was introduced gradually during the reign of Philipp II: when church staff retired, their successor would be a Lutheran. As early as 1523, the pastor Adolf Arborgast was included in the chapter of the St. Mary's Church in Hanau, the central church of the county. When he was appointed, he explained that he wanted to spend little effort on vespers and the daily mass, but would instead concentrate on his sermons and putting forward the Gospel. The real reformer of Hanau was his successor Philipp Neunheller MA; during his time in office, the new faith gained more and more ground. The Catholic faith was never officially banned. The number of Catholic priests steadily decreased, as they were not replaced when they retired.
Also under the reign of Philipp II started the project to replace the mediaeval fortifications of the town of Hanau by the latest in Renaissance-fortification available. This investment became necessary due to the introduction of modern artillery the mediaeval fortification could not withstand. The new walls were placed outside the mediaeval ones and included a settlement, "Vorstadt", which had developed outside the gates.
When Philipp Ludwig I died in 1580 another guardianship had to be installed for the benefit of his successor, Philipp Ludwig II, still a minor. Guardians became the Counts John VI, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg (1536–1606), Louis I, Count of Sayn-Wittgenstein (1568–1607) and Philipp IV, Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg (1514–1590), who was replaced in 1585 by his son, Count Philipp V of Hanau-Lichtenberg (1541–1599). The dominating figure in this constellation became the Count of Nassau. Additionally Philipp Ludwig's widowed mother, Countess Magdalene of Waldeck-Wildungen, remarried on 9 December 1581 Count John VII, the Middle, of Nassau-Siegen (1561–1623), the son of Count John IV. In consequence Philipp Ludwig II and his younger brother, Count Albrecht, joined the Nassau-Dillenburg court, a centre of the Reformation movement in Germany and closely tied to the Electorate of the Palatinate of the Rhine. The new ideas he encountered here greatly influenced his life and policies. By using his rights under the Cuius regio, eius religio rule, he changed the confession of his county to Calvinism in 1593. He succeeded with this nearly everywhere in his sphere of influence, except in a few villages in the district Bornheimerberg, which surrounded Frankfurt and the condominiums shared with the Roman Catholic archbishop-elector of Mainz. The villages in the vicinity of Frankfurt had strong ties to this (mainly) Lutheran city and a majority of the villagers just went to Lutheran services in "foreign" Frankfurt territory. Also in the condominiums Philipp Ludwig II shared with Mainz he couldn't change anything — whether his subjects had become Lutheran during the reformation or had remained Roman Catholic.
With his marriage in 1596 to Katharina Belgica, third daughter of William the Silent, he gained a personal connection to one of the leading personalities of Calvinism in Europe.
The introduction of Calvinism and the location of the County of Hanau-Münzenberg, at only half a day's journey away from Frankfurt with its trade fairs, made Hanau an attractive place to settle for Calvinist refugees from France and later from the Southern Netherlands. They were often wealthy traders and were attractive subjects for a ruler in need of tax revenues. In 1597 and 1604, the count and the refugees entered into two treaties which gave them a large degree of self-government and founded the "New Town" of Hanau, south to the historic mediaeval settlement. This proved to be a big success and initiated an economic growth for Hanau which lasted even into the 19th century. Both the towns, "Old Hanau" and "New Hanau" were surrounded by a modern fortification of baroque style. This proved to be a first class asset in the following Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).
Philipp Ludwig II also reinstated a Jewish community in Hanau. Space was allocated for the Jews on the southern fortifications of the historic town, which was no longer needed, due to the new fortifications. This Ghetto was not part of one either town, but placed directly under the administrative control of the county.
Count Philipp Ludwig II also tried to get a university for his county by founding the "Hohe Landesschule" in Hanau. It was modeled on the Herborn Academy, where he had studied himself. Even so, it did not develop into a university but still exists today as a secondary school.
The Calvinist county initially joined the forces of the Calvinist Frederick V but had to surrender to the emperor and the Roman Catholic forces. The reigning count, now Philipp Moritz, chose to change sides, in order to retain the military command of his capital. He was appointed Colonel and was expected to provide three companies. In November 1631, Swedish troops occupied Hanau and King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden entered the city. Philipp Moritz decided to change sides for the second time. He was a Calvinist and for him choosing between the Roman Catholic Emperor and the Lutheran Swedish king may have been like a choice between Scylla and Charybdis. Gustavus Adolphus appointed him to colonel and gave him a Swedish regiment. As a reward for his changing sides, he gave him the district of Orb, the shares the Electorate of Mainz had held in the former County of Rieneck and the districts of Partenstein, Lohrhaupten, Bieber and Alzenau. He gave Philipp Moritz's brothers, Heinrich Ludwig (1609–1632) and Jakob Johann (1612–1636) the town and district of Steinheim, which was also a former possession of Mainz. These possessions were lost when the Catholic side gained the upper hand after the Battle of Nördlingen in September 1634. Changing sides again would have made Philipp Moritz seem untrustworthy. So he decided to flee to Metz and from there via Chalon, Rouen and Amsterdam to his Orange-Nassau relatives in the Hague and Delft. He left his youngest brother, Jakob Johann, as regent in Hanau, because Jakob Johann was considered politically neutral. Hanau as a well-developed fortress remained occupied by Swedish troops under General Jakob von Ramsay until 1638, who controlled the surrounding countryside from Hanau. He excluded Jakob Johann from any influence and so the later left the town too.
From September 1635 to June 1636, Hanau was unsuccessfully besieged by imperial troops under General Guillaume de Lamboy. This siege proved the value of the modern defensive system, which had been constructed only a few years before. Thousands of refugees fled from the surrounding villages into the town. Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen used the occupation of Hanau by the Swedish and the siege as background in his picaresque novel Simplicius Simplicissimus. After a nine-month siege, the city was relieved by an army under Landgrave Wilhelm V of Hesse-Kassel. He was Philipp Moritz's brother-in-law, as he had married Philipp Moritz's sister, Amalie Elisabeth. A church service was held annually to commemorate the relief. After 1800, this developed into an annual Lamboy festival.
In 1637, Philipp Moritz reconciled with the new Emperor, Ferdinand III and changed sides again. He returned to Hanau on 17 December 1637. General Ramsay ignored this and interned Philipp Moritz in his own Castle in Hanau. However, on 11 February [O.S. 2 February] 1638 the Wetterau Association of Imperial Counts, an association predominated by Calvinists, staged a coup against the Swedes and restored Philipp Moritz to power. General Ramsay was arrested and taken to Dillenburg, where he died months later from injuries sustained during the action. But also Count Philipp Moritz died only months after gaining power again.
Philipp Moritz was succeeded by the last two counts of Hanau-Münzenberg: Philipp Ludwig III, still a boy nine years old when dying in 1641 and Johann Ernst, Count of Hanau-Münzenberg-Schwarzenfels, a cousin, dying childless after less than three months in office. With him the House of Hanau-Münzenberg became extinct.
Heir to it was Count Friedrich Casimir, Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg, then still a minor under the guardianship of Georg II of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl. The relation to count Johann Ernst was quite remote and the inheritance endangered in more than one way: The inheritance happened during the final years of Thirty Years' War, the feudal Overlords of Hanau-Münzenberg were partly enemy to Hanau and tried to hold back fiefs traditionally held by Hanau-Münzenberg. Further, the county of Hanau-Münzenberg was of Reformed Confession, Friedrich Casimir and the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg were Lutheran. And even to reach the capital of Hanau-Münzenberg, the town of Hanau, proved a problem: Friedrich Casimir could do so only in disguise. The inheritance could finally be secured by two treaties:
These treaties secured the unification of the two Hanau counties under one ruler and saved Hanau-Münzenberg as a unit.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Hanau-Münzenberg”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.