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Mainz City (Germany)

Stadt Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz

2:3 image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023
2:3 image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023
2:3 image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023

Mainz City

Mainz Flags
Mainz Banners
Mainz Coat of Arms
Laubenheim Borough

Laubenheim Flag
Laubenheim Banner
Laubenheim Coat of Arms

See also:

Mainz-Bingen County
Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany)
Archbishopric of Mainz 14th century - 1797
Germany

Mainz City

Mainz Flags

I can only display a selection of the city flags in use. Flag and banner are basically banners of arms, which have never been approved officially, and thus are often differing in detail. The shape of the crosslet between the wheels is different. The wheels are depicted with and without nails fixing the spokes. The wheels are either depicted in bend, which matches the current arms, or in pale, which matches an older pattern of the arms. New flags and banners are stylised, displaying the charges without lining. The charges of the arms are either shifted to top or hoist and sometimes centred. On flags I only found the wheels ordered per bend. In my selection the charges are centred (see left image above), shifted to hoist (see central image above) or stylised and centred (see right image above).
Source:

Mainz Banners

5:2 image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023
image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023
5:2 image by Stefan Schwoon, 28 Feb 2001

In my selection the charges are shifted to top (see left image above), stylised centred and ordered per pale (see central image above) or centred and ordered per pale (see right image above).
Image sources of flags and banners:

German WIKIPEDIA

Mainz Coat of Arms

Shield Gules two 6-spoke wheels Argent in bend connected by a crosslet of the same.
Meaning:
City seals existed since 1150. They displayed St. Martin, patron saint of the namesake archbishopric, first as a bishop on a throne, afterwards in the so called dream scene and finally mounted on a horse with the beggar. The arms with the two wheels combined with a cross, appeared already at the end of the 13th century in the seal of Archishop Siegfried III. The city started to use the two wheels about 50 years later. The arms of the archbishopric displayed only one wheel. The city arms were depicted in the local church dedicated to St. Emmeram and on public buildings, since 1420 also on local coins. The two wheels are basically a variant of the arms of the archbishops, who had been local rulers, until the archbishopric was secularised in 1803.
Mainz became seat of a bishopric in 550 and of an an archbishopric around 800. The (arch)bishops of Mainz also played a major role in the appointment of the new emperor as one of the seven electors. They also owned large possessions in the present states of Rheinland-Pflaz, Hessen and Bayern. The city was also the capital of the archbishopric. Originally the two wheels were ordered per pale, since the 16th century per bend. Emperor Napoleon I of France placed the arms onto a French shield in counterchanged tinctures, i.e. a silver (=white) shield with red wheels and cross, with an additional red chief, charged with three golden bees in fess, which symbolised the status of a city of 1st rank. The bees were removed in 1811. That pattern was also displayed by Otto Hupp around 1925, but the original pattern had been restored already in 1915.
Sources: Ralf Hartemink´s webpage, Stadler 1966, p.44 and Neubecker 1977 [Dutch edition 1988]
Santiago Dotor, 27 Dec 2001 and Klaus-Michael Schneider, 28 Mar 2023

Flag, banner and arms are traditional.
Santiago Dotor, 27 Dec 2001 and Klaus-Michael Schneider, 28 Mar 2023

Laubenheim Borough

Laubenheim Flag

2:3

image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023

It was a red-white horizontal bicolour with centred coat of arms.
Source: this online catalogue
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023

Laubenheim Banner

5:2

image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023

It was a red-white vertical bicolour with coat of arms shifted towards the top.
Source: this online catalogue
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023

Laubenheim Coat of Arms

Shield Gules, issuant from a lower demi-wheel Argent in base a tulip of the same with two leaves.
Meaning:
The wheel is a differentiation of the arms of the Archbishopric of Mainz. The leaves of the tulip are shaped like linden leaves. An older version of the arms displayed three connected linden leaves without tulip blossom. I have only speculations about their meaning. The name of the borough means "home of bowers", and thus the charges may allude to allotment gardening. The borough was incorporated into Mainz in 1969.
Source: German WIKIPEDIA
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 Mar 2023

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