Coat of arms of Brandenburg
| Coat of arms of Brandenburg | |
|---|---|
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| Details | |
| Armiger | Government of Brandenburg |
| Adopted | 1990 |
| Escutcheon | Argent an eagle Gules armed and beaked Or, langued Gules. The wings charged with a trefoil Or. |
| Earlier versions | 1816-1946 The Prussian Province of Brandenburg |
This article is about the coat of arms of the German state of Brandenburg.
According to tradition, the Märkischer Adler ('Marcher eagle'), or red eagle of the March of Brandenburg, was adopted by Margrave Gero in the 10th century. Gustav A. Seyler states that the Ascanian Albert the Bear was the originator. He divided his territory among his children, thereby creating the territories which would later become Anhalt, Brandenburg, and Meissen.
The March of Brandenburg, known as the Holy Roman Empire's 'sandbox' (Streusandbüchse), was granted in 1415 to Burggrave Frederick VI of Nuremberg of the House of Hohenzollern. Over the centuries, the Hohenzollerns made these poor marshes and woodlands the nucleus of a powerful state.
After being formally enfeoffed as Elector Frederick I of Brandenburg, he quartered the arms of Hohenzollern (quarterly sable and argent) and the burgraviate of Nuremberg (Or, a lion sable within a border compony gules and argent) with the Brandenburg red eagle. The blue escutcheon with the golden sceptre, as symbol of the office of archchamberlain (Erzkämmerer) of the Empire, was added under Frederick II (1440-70).
In December 1470, Emperor Frederick III gave the duchies of Pomerania (argent a griffin gules), Kashubia (Or a griffin sable), Stettin (Szczecin) (azure a griffin gules) and Wenden (argent, a griffin bendy-sinister vert and gules) in liege to the electors of Brandenburg, making them in turn the overlords of the dukes of Western Pomerania. The quarters and crests of these duchies and the Principality of Rügen (parted horizontally, a black lion in gold and a wall of bricks in red and blue), however, were incorporated in the Brandenburg arms.
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