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Kimswert (The Netherlands)

Wûnseradiel municipality, Fryslân province

Last modified: 2005-04-16 by jarig bakker
Keywords: kimswert | greate pier |
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[Kimswert village flag] Shipmate Flagchart : http://www.shipmate.nl/flags.htm
adopted 19 Apr 1955; design: Kl. Sierksma

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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 on