This situation presented the Hanau family with a dilemma: The debate over the division of the county is relatively well documented.

He supported the interests of his daughter Margaret, the widow of Reinhard III and the mother of Philipp the Younger.

She held that the danger of the House of Hanau dying out could be reduced by allowing Philipp the Elder to marry, since he had already proven his ability to procreate.

Relatives of the Count and the most important organizations among their subjects — in particular the four cities in the county, Hanau, Windecken, Babenhausen and Steinau, and the associations of the Burgmannen of Babenhausen Castle and the imperial castle of Gelnhausen — as well as the vassals of the Counts of Hanau, all wrote to Otto I and requested that Philipp the Elder be allowed to marry.

When his daughter Margaret died in 1457, Count Palatine Otto I no longer had a reason to oppose the division.

Philipp the Elder received the part of the county south of the river Main, that is the district of Babenhausen and the Hanau share of Umstadt.

In the literature, the names Hanau-Lichterberg and Hanau-Münzenberg are used to distinguish the parts before these dates, even though, strictly speaking, that is an anachronism.

Militarily, he fought on the side of Emperor Friedrich in a conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and France over Burgundy and in a military campaign against the Turks.

The other half was inherited by Anna's sister, Elisabeth, who was married to Count Simon Wecker of Zweibrücken-Bitsch.

By this inheritance, Philipp gained a substantial amount of territory, much of it in the Alsace, making the previously rather small Hanau-Lichtenberg almost as large as Hanau-Münzenberg.

[3] Philipp the Elder died on 10 May 1480, just one day after the partition agreement over the inheritance with Count Simon Wecker of Zweibrücken-Bitsch had been signed.