Friedrich Casimir of Hanau (born 4 August 1623 in Bouxwiller; died 30 March 1685 in Hanau) was a member of the Hanau-Lichtenberg branch of the House of Hanau.
He was the ruling Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg from 1641 and of Hanau-Münzenberg from 1642.
Friedrich Casimir was born in Bouxwiller (German: Buchsweiler), the residence of the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg, as the son of Count Philipp Wolfgang (1595–1641) and his wife, Countess Johanna of Oettingen-Oettingen (1602–1639). During his childhood, his parents and he had to flee to Strasbourg several times, due to the Thirty Years' War.
On 14 February 1641, Friedrich Casimir succeeded his father as ruler of the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg. Legally, he was still a minor at the time, so that a guardianship had to be set up. Just one year later, in 1642, he also inherited the County of Hanau-Münzenberg. For the first time since 1458 all parts of Hanau were again united in one hand.
From 1643 to 1645, he made the Grand Tour that was usual for youngers of his standing. He visited countries that were not affected by the Thirty Years' War: France, Spain, Italy, England and the Netherlands. He was probably safer there than in his war-torn homeland.
Under the law at the time, he was a minor until the age of 25. A committee of guardians was established for him and his two brothers, Johann Philipp and Johann Reinhard II. Initially, the committee consisted of Johann Ernst of Hanau-Münzenberg and Baron Georg II of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl, who was a great-grandson of Count Philipp IV of Hanau-Lichtenberg. When Johann Ernst died in 1642, the Baron remained as the sole guardian. After he died in 1644, Count Georg Albrecht of Erbach acted as guardian, until his death in 1647. Since only a few months remained until the age of majority, no further attempt was made to establish a guardianship.
When Friedrich Casimir took office in Hanau-Münzenberg, the county was financially in a precarious situation, due to the Thirty Years' War. When he arrived in Hanau, he was greeted by Sibylle Christine of Anhalt-Dessau, the widow of Count Philipp Moritz, who had been the ruling count until 1638. She had received Steinau Castle as her widow seat. As widow of a ruling count, she could raise substantial claims against the county. To avoid this, it was decided to marry Friedrich Casimir to the widow, who was 44 years old at the time, almost 20 years older than he. An added advantage of this marriage was that the Calvinist majority in the county was suspicious that the Lutheran count might undermine their position; the marriage with the Calvinist widow laid their fears to rest. The marriage was plagued by differences. One problem was that the count was continuously in financial difficulties and he sometimes dipped into his wife's resources to alleviate his problems.
The marriage with the elderly widow remained childless. Shortly before his death, Friedrich Casimir adopted his nephews Philipp Reinhard and Johann Reinhard III as his heirs.
When Count Johann Ernst of Hanau-Münzenberg died on 12 January 1642, Friedrich Casimir was his next-of-kin. He was only a distant relative, but he was nevertheless the closest male relative and his hereditary claims were confirmed in a treaty of inheritance between Hanau-Lichtenberg and Hanau-Münzenberg dated 1610. Accepting the throne was not without its problems. Friedrich Casimir had to travel through enemy territory in disguise, accompanied by his guardian Georg II of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl and a small security detail. He arrived in Hanau on 21 January 1642.
Several liege lords of Hanau-Münzenberg, in particular the Archdiocese of Mainz, but also the Electorate of Saxony, Hesse-Darmstadt, the Bishopric of Würzburg and the Imperial Abbey of Fulda held that the family relationship between Friedrich Casimir and Johann Ernst was too distant and that Johann Ernst therefore had no male heir, so the fief was completed and should be terminated. However weak their position might have been legally, in the confused situation of the Thirty Years' War, the current power structure weighed more heavily than legal niceties. Georg of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl appreciated the situation and made sure that Hesse-Kassel would back Friedrich Casimir. Amalie Elisabeth of Hanau-Münzenberg, the widow of Landgrave Wilhelm V of Hesse-Kassel, who was regent of Hesse-Kassel for her minor son Wilhelm VI, would provide diplomatic and political support. She aimed at Hanau-Münzenberg keeping all its territories, not least because the county was heavily indebted to Hesse-Kassel. In return, Friedrich Casimir signed a treaty of inheritance, promising that if Hanau-Münzenberg were to die out in the male line, the country would fall to Hesse-Kassel. This would eventually happen in 1736. Friedrich Casimir also gave Hesse-Kassel the district of Schwarzenfels and the Winery of Naumburg (the secularized Naumburg Abbey) as collateral for the debt.
Hanau, the capital of Hanau-Münzenberg, consisted at the time of the legally separate cities: Althanau ("Old Hanau") and Neuhanau ("New Hanau"). The latter had been settled at the turn of the 16th to the 17th century by Calvinist refugees from France and the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium). Its leadership was composed of wealthy merchants and traders who took advantage of the weak position of the new count to negotiate favourable conditions, in particular, they demanded guarantees that the religious status quo would be maintained. After ten days of negotiating, Georg of Fleckenstein-Dagstuhl gave this guarantee, so that Friedrich Casimir could finally accept his inheritance.
Friedrich Casimir was a Lutheran, like the rest of the Hanau-Lichtenberg family. Hanau-Münzenberg, however, had been Calvinist since the days of count Philipp Ludwig II. Back then, Philipp Ludwig II had been able to decide the denomination for himself and his subjects under the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio, Friedrich Casimir not only had to allow the Calvinists to retain their religion; initially Friedrich Casimir could only hold Lutheran services for himself and his court in the chapel in the City Palace. It wasn't until 1658 that he was able to build the Lutheran Johann Church, with substantial contributions from foreign Lutherans, in particular Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony, after whom the church was named. Lutheran congregation were formed in many communities in the county, leading to considerable controversy.
In 1650 and 1670, the two sides in the religious dispute came to agree on a compromise. The 1670 compromise is known as the Religionshauptrezeß ("religious main recess"). The compromise puts the two Protestant denominations on an equal footing and gives each its own church administration, so that there were two established churches in the County of Hanau and the count had to waive his jus reformandi. The Religionshauptrezeß became a permanent and solid foundation for a bi-confessional county until the early 19th century. It did not, however, stop the continuing debate between the two confessions. It wasn't until 1818 that the two churches formally merged.
Under the Peace of Westphalia the county of Hanau got off lightly. The county was allowed to keep most of the territory it had held before 1618. Friedrich Casimir succeeded in re-establishing a balanced relationship with the imperial court in Vienna and was appointed as imperial councillor by Emperor Ferdinand II. Even so, the county suffered from a substantial debt, which burdened Friedrich Casimir's entire reign. This was particularly problematic because Friedrich Casimir lacked any sense of financial matters. His court was modeled on the large Baroque courts and his expenses exceeded the capacity of his county. In order to finance his expenses, such as his art collection and his wax museum, he resorted to selling off real estate, ultimately selling the district of Rodheim to Hesse-Homburg for 9000 taler.
The political landscape in which Friedrich Casimir had to operate, remained marked by uncertainty, even after the Peace of Westphalia. This was particularly true for the Hanau-Lichtenberg part of the country, which was within reach of Louis XIV and had repeatedly been occupied during the war. The part of Hanau-Lichtenberg on the left bank of the Rhine had been separated from the Holy Roman Empire by the Peace of Westphalia and were placed under the sovereignty of the French crown. After the Peace of Nijmegen of 1678 and a verdict of the Chamber of Reunion in 1681, Friedrich Casimir had to pay homage to the French king for these areas. In 1672, French troops even occupied Friedberg, Aschaffenburg and Seligenstadt. Hanau had declared itself neutral, but was completely surrounded by French troops.