The County of Hanau-Münzenberg was a territory within the Holy Roman Empire. It emerged when the County of Hanau was divided in 1458, the other part being the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg. Due to common heirs, both counties were merged from 1642 to 1685 and from 1712 to 1736. In 1736 the last member of the House of Hanau died and the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel inherited the county.
Geography
The county of Hanau-Münzenberg was positioned to the north of the river Main stretching from the West of Frankfurt am Main eastwards through the valley of the river Kinzig to Schlüchtern and into the Spessart mountains to Partenstein. Capital was the town of Hanau. The counts had also castles in Windecken (disused after the 16th century) and Steinau an der Straße.
For the following years population counts of Hanau-Münzenberg do exist: 1632: 5,140 families 1707: 6,706 families 1754: 48,000 inhabitants
History
Emergence
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.
First Reformation
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.