Margrave

Margrave is the English and French form of the German title Markgraf (from mark "march" + Graf) "count" and certain equivalent nobiliary ("princely") titles in other languages.

History

A Markgraf, or margrave, originally functioned as the military governor of a Carolingian mark, a medieval border province. A margrave had jurisdiction over a march (German Mark), which also become known, after his title, as a margraviate or margravate, strictly speaking the correct word for his office. As outlying areas tended to have great importance to the central realms of kings and princes, and they often became larger than those nearer the interior, margraves assumed quite inordinate powers over those of other counts of a realm.

Related Topics:
Governor - Carolingian - Mark - King - Prince

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Most Marks and, consequently, their margraves had their base on the Eastern border of the Carolingian and later Holy Roman Empire (the Spanish Mark on the Muslim frontier, including what is now Catalonia, is a notable exception).

Related Topics:
Holy Roman Empire - Spanish Mark - Muslim - Catalonia

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In Central Europe, the most important provinces (so-called) became the Mark Brandenburg (the nucleus of the later kingdom of Prussia) and the original territory of Austria; located mostly in modern Lower Austria, in Latin it was called Marchia Orientalis, the "eastern borderland" as Austria formed the eastern outpost of the Holy Roman Empire, on the border with the Magyars and the Slavs. During the 19th and 20th centuries the term was sometimes translated as Ostmark by some Germanophones, but medieval documents attest only the vernacular name Ostarrîchi.

Related Topics:
Central Europe - Brandenburg - Austria - Lower Austria - Latin - Holy Roman Empire - Magyars - Slavs - Ostmark - Germanophone - Ostarrîchi

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Another Mark in the south-east, Styria, still appears as Steiermark in German today. Similarly the north-west featured the "Higher March" (Hohe Mark).

Related Topics:
Styria - German - Hohe Mark

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• Later, the title of Markgraf became hereditary and as marches went out of military history, practicaly sinecures (without a principality), now ranks as the equivalent of a marquess (see that article) in the British peerage.