The Berenberg family was a Flemish-origined Hanseatic family of merchants, bankers and senators in Hamburg, with branches in London, Livorno and other European cities. The family was descended from the brothers Hans and Paul Berenberg from Antwerp, who came as Protestant refugees to the city-republic of Hamburg following the Fall of Antwerp in 1585 and who established what is now Berenberg Bank in Hamburg in 1590. The Berenbergs were originally cloth merchants and became involved in merchant banking in the 17th century. Having existed continuously since 1590, Berenberg Bank is the world's oldest surviving merchant bank.
Coat of arms of the Berenberg family. Detail from a 1710 painting of Cornelius Berenberg (1634–1711).
Berenberg-Gossler coat of arms on a grave at Niendorfer Cemetery, Hamburg
Antwerp in modern Belgium in 1572
Hamburg ca. 1600
The Hanseaten is a collective term for the hierarchy group consisting of elite individuals and families of prestigious rank who constituted the ruling class of the free imperial city of Hamburg, conjointly with the equal First Families of the free imperial cities of Bremen and Lübeck. The members of these First Families were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership of these cities, including the mayors, the senators, joint diplomats and the senior pastors. Hanseaten refers specifically to the ruling families of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, but more broadly, this group is also referred to as patricians along with similar social groups elsewhere in continental Europe.
Reliefs of coats of arms of the three Hanseatic (sister) cities
Johann Hinrich Gossler of the Hanseatic Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty, who married Elisabeth Berenberg and became owner of Berenberg Bank
First Mayor Johann Heinrich Burchard
Christian Adolph Overbeck, mayor of the Free Imperial and Hanseatic City of Lübeck, son of Eleonora Maria Jauch (drawing by Johann Friedrich Overbeck)