Count Reinhard III of Hanau (22 April 1412 – 20 April 1452 in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

) was Count of

Hanau Hanau () is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and is part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ...

from 1451 until his death. He was the son of Count Reinhard II of Hanau and his wife,

Catherine of Nassau-Beilstein Katharina of Nassau-Beilstein (died 6 September 1459) was Countess of Hanau by marriage to Reinhard II, Count of Hanau, and regent of Hanau during the minority of her son Reinhard III from 1452 until 1458. Life She was the daughter of Count Henr ...

Reign

In 1434, when his father was still alive, he took over the guardianship of the children of his widowed sister from her first marriage with Count Thomas II of Rieneck, when she remarried with Count William II of Henneberg-Schleusingen. When his father died in 1451, he took up government of the

County of Hanau The County of Hanau was a territory within the Holy Roman Empire, evolved out of the Lordship of Hanau in 1429. From 1456 to 1642 and from 1685 to 1712 it was divided into the County of Hanau-Münzenberg and the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg. ...

. However, he died only ten months later. During his short reign, nothing remarkable happened.Ernst J. Zimmermann, ''Hanau Stadt und Land'', 3rd ed., Hanau, 1919, reprinted 1978, p. 98

Death

Reinhard III died on 20 April 1452 in

. He had travelled to Heidelberg to be treated by a specialist at

Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

. He was buried in the St. Mary's Church in Hanau. For the next 200 years, all but one of the Counts of Hanau-Münzenberg were minors when they inherited the county and died before their 30th birthday, leaving the county to an underage son. The only exception was Reinhard IV. This pattern started with Reinhard III and repeated over nine generations.

Image

A Late Gothic winged

altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting o ...

Wörth am Main Wörth am Main (officially '; ) is a town in the Miltenberg district in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Lower Franconia (''Unterfranken'') in Bavaria, Germany. It has a population of around 4,700. Geography Location Wörth am Main lies on the le ...

from around 1485-1490 – originally from St. Mary's Church in Hanau – depicts Count Philip the Younger and his ancestors, including Reinhard III and his wife. Since this image was painted 40 years after Reinhard's death, it is reasonable to assume that it is not very accurate.

Marriage and issue

He married on 11 July 1446 with

Countess Palatine Margaret of Mosbach Countess Palatine Margaret of Mosbach (2 March 1432 – 14 September 1457) was the eldest daughter of Count Palatine Otto I of Mosbach and his wife, Johanna of Bavaria-Landshut. She married on 11 July 1446 to Count Reinhard III of Hanau, who ...

(2 March 1432 – 14 September 1457). They had two children: # Philip I the Younger (1449–1500); #

Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular througho ...

(1452 – March 14, 1467), betrothed to Philip of

Eppstein Eppstein is a town in the Main-Taunus-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. Eppstein lies west of Frankfurt am Main, around 12 km north east of the state capital Wiesbaden, and is at the edge of the Taunus mountains. The ruins of the Eppstein castle is ...

, died before the marriage.

Ancestors

References

* Reinhard Dietrich, ''Die Landesverfassung in dem Hanauischen'' = ''Hanauer Geschichtsblätter'', vol. 34, Hanau, 1996, * Reinhard Suchier, ''Genealogie des Hanauer Grafenhauses, in: Festschrift des Hanauer Geschichtsvereins zu seiner fünfzigjährigen Jubelfeier am 27. August 1894'', Hanau, 1894 * Ernst J. Zimmermann, ''Hanau Stadt und Land'', 3rd ed., Hanau, 1919, reprinted 1978

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reinhard 03 Hanau Counts of Hanau 1412 births 1452 deaths 15th-century German people