Cirksena

The House of Cirksena was the ruling family of East Frisia (German: Ostfriesland). They descended from a line of East Frisian chieftains from Greetsiel.

In 1439, in the wake of clashes between different lines of chieftains, the town of Emden was first placed by Hamburg under direct rule and then, in 1453, given to the Cirksena. The family administered and ruled the town until 1595.

The Cirksena gained strength and succeeded the chieftain line of the tom Broks, after their opponent Focko Ukena was defeated and expelled by several allied chieftains, led by Edzard Cirksena. Ulrich Cirksena (d. 1466) was elevated to the rank of imperial count by Emperor Frederick III and enfeoffed with the Imperial County of East Frisia.

The most important ruler from the House of Cirksena was Edzard I (1462–1528), under whose leadership the Imperial County of East Frisia reached its greatest extent. During his reign, the Reformation spread throughout East Frisia. In 1654, the Cirksena were elevated to princes by the emperor. Charles Edzard, the last ruler from the House of Cirksena, died without issue during the night of 25/26 May 1744 (reportedly from a glass of buttermilk, which he is said to have drunk after a hunt). Immediately thereafter, the state was taken over by Frederick the Great.

The Cirksena provided the County of Rietberg rulers from 1581 to 1699. This initially happened as a personal union with East Frisia after Count Enno III had married Rietberg's daughter-heir, Walburg von Rietberg. In the Treaty of Berum (1600), however, he ceded the County of Rietberg to his daughters.

In 1601, Enno's brother, Count John III, married his niece, Sabina Catherine, Enno's daughter and heiress of Rietberg, with papal dispensation. Both were converted to Catholicism, and the Catholic branch line of the House of Cirksena was founded. The last male descendant of the House of East Frisia in Rietberg, Count Ferdinand Maximilian, died in 1687. His heiress, Maria Ernestine Francisca, married Maximilian Ulrich von Kaunitz in 1699.

The coat of arms of the family of Cirksena displays a crowned, golden harpy (or angel) on a black field. This motif appears in a variety of successor coats of arms; for example, in the final comital coat of arms of East Frisia, which Count Rudolf Christian adopted in 1625. Here, the harpy is in the upper left of the shield. This coat of arms is still used today as the emblem of East Frisia.

The upper half of Emden's coat of arms also depicts the Cirksena harpy. Until the Emden Revolution in 1595, the Cirksena resided in the town of Emden. Even the Dutch town of Delfzijl opposite Emden incorporated the Cirksena coat of arms into its own. This goes back to the rule of Edzard the Great in Groningerland. Likewise, the harpy is part of the coat of arms of Aurich district, albeit in a different colour, which also goes back to the Cirksena. Even the present-day municipality of Krummhörn, where the ancestral homeland of the Cirksena lay, has the family's coat of arms in its municipal shield.