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Kimswert (The Netherlands)

Wûnseradiel municipality, Fryslân province

Shipmate Flagchart : http://www.flagchart.net
adopted 19 Apr 1955; design: Kl. Sierksma

Kimswert village
Kimswert Coat of Arms

See also:

Kimswert village

Kimswert (Dutch: Kimswerd) is a village in Wûnseradiel municipality in the province of Fryslân.
Flag: Two equally wide vertical stripes yellow-blue; at the hoist the narrowed municipal flag.
adopted 1955; design: Kl. Sierksma
Arms: azure a pale or, charged with a sword gules

The sword reminds of the Frisian freedomfighter (Hollanders call him a pirate) Greate Pier fan Kimswert (? - 1520), who swayed a huge two-handed sword of 2.13 m. length ("biderhander", "Zweihänder"). He was a simple farmer; his house was burned by the Black Heap (Zwarte Hoop), Saxon freebooters, and Greate Pier gathered a lot of neighbours to form the "Arumer Zwarte Hoop", fighting on land and sea against Saxons and Burgundians (1515-1520). He fought side by side with the Geldersen on the Zuiderzee and in Holland; in 1519 he took part in a raid on Emmerich (Germany), after which he broke up with the Count of Gelre and retired as ordinary citizen in Sneek.
A couple of strangers asked a ploughing farmer where Greate Pier lived. The farmer lifted the plough with one hand and showed the house: "Dêr wennet hy, en hjir stiet hy!" (there he lives, and here he stands) he said, killing the strangers at the same time with the plough.

Kimswerd is on the track of the "Elfstedentocht" long-distance skating, and is notorious, because part of the track is over the land ("klune" = walking on skates).

Nickname: "Moudekroepers" - people creeping through dusty sand.
"Ratten" - rats (don't trade with them!)
Source: It Beaken, jrg. xxxi, # 3-4, Dec 1969
Encyclopedie van Friesland, 1958
Groot Schimpnamenboek van Nederland, by Dirk van der Heide, 1998
Jarig Bakker, 12 Apr 2005

Kimswert Coat of Arms

by Jarig Bakker, 12 Apr 2005