Engelsbrand is a municipality in the district of Enz in

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. It is home to the luxury watchmaker Stowa. It contains the villages of Engelsbrand, Salmbach, and Grunbach.

History

The three villages of Engelsbrand, Salmbach, and Grunbach were founded in the 11th or 12th centuries ''

Waldhufendorf The ''Waldhufendorf'' ("forest village"; plural: -''dörfer'') is a form of rural settlement established in areas of forest clearing with the farms arranged in a series along a road or stream, like beads on a chain.Dickinson, Robert E (1964). ''G ...

'' as part of the settling of the area around

Hirsau Abbey Hirsau Abbey, formerly known as Hirschau Abbey, was once one of the most important Benedictine abbeys of Germany. It is located in the Hirsau borough of Calw on the northern slopes of the Black Forest mountain range, in the present-day state of ...

. The first documentation of the communities occurred on 24 July 1404, when canons from Brötzingen requested the separation of several villages, including the Engelsbrand three, from Brötzingen for the formation of a new

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

in Langenbrand. This application was approved on 10 September of the same year, making Engelsbrand subservient to the Count of Württemberg. The Engelsbrand three were struck with plague and frequently sacked during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of batt ...

, the reign of

Louis XIV of France , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of ...

, and the

Coalition Wars The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, sometimes called the Great French War, were a series of conflicts between the French and several European monarchies between 1792 and 1815. They encompass first the French Revolutionary Wars agains ...

. In 1807, the three villages were assigned to , a province of the

Kingdom of Württemberg The Kingdom of Württemberg (german: Königreich Württemberg ) was a German state that existed from 1805 to 1918, located within the area that is now Baden-Württemberg. The kingdom was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which existe ...

. Three years later, they were assigned to , which both came under the Schwarzwaldkreis in 1817.

Coat of arms

The

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

of Engelsbrand shows a

holly ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...

leaf with two berries and a burning log over a white field divided by an oblique and wavering blue band, combining the coats of arms of the three villages in the municipality. A first draft of this coat of arms, commemorating the merger of Engelsbrand, Grunbach, and Salmbach into one municipality on 1 January 1975, was authorized for use by the Enzkreis district office on 20 December 1984. The blue band is taken from Grunbach and Salmbach, as is the holly leaf that symbolizes the flora of the

Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is ...

, while the burning log, representing forest-clearing activities by medieval farmers, is from Engelsbrand proper.

References

{{Authority control Municipalities in Baden-Württemberg