Margrave
Margrave is the
English and
French form (recorded since 1551) of the
German title Markgraf (from
Mark "
march" and
Graf "
count") and certain equivalent nobiliary ("princely") titles in other languages. The wife of a margrave is called a
margravine or in German
Markgräfin.
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.
Most Marks and, consequently, their margraves had their base on the Eastern border of the Carolingian and later
Holy Roman Empire; the
Breton Mark on the Atlantic and the border of peninsular Britanny, and the
Spanish Mark on the
Muslim frontier, including what is now
Catalonia, are notable exceptions.
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.Another Mark in the south-east,
Styria, still appears as
Steiermark in German today. Similarly the north-west featured the "Higher March"
(Hohe Mark). Later, the title of
Markgraf became hereditary and as marches went out of military history, practically sinecures (without a principality), now ranks as the equivalent of a
marquess (see that article) in the British peerage.
Languages with a specific title for the Margrave (distinct from the later
Marquess, for which all have a word, if different given in parenthesis) include (but often no actual marches existed there, so it only renders foreign cases) :
*
Czech Markrabě*
Danish Markgreve*
Dutch Markgraaf (alongside
Markies)
*
Estonian Rajakrahv*
Finnish Rajakreivi (alongside
Markiisi)
*
German Markgraf*
Hungarian (Mayar) őrgróf (alongside
Marki)
*
Icelandic Markgreifi*
Italian Margravio*
Polish Margrabia*
Portuguese Margrave (alongside
Marquês)
*
Swedish Markgreve*
Spanish Márgrave*Several states have had quite analogous institutions, sometimes also rendered in English as margrave. For example, on
England's
Celtic (
Welsh and
Scottish) borders,
Marcher Lords were vassals of the
King of England in order to help him defending and expanding his realm. Such a lord's
demesne was called a
march. Compare
Count palatine.
* The
late-medieval commanders, fiefholders, of
Viipuri castle in
Finland, the bulwark of the then
Swedish realm, at the border against
Novgorod/
Russia, did in practice function as a margrave and having feudal privileges, keeping all the crown's incomes from the fief to use for the defense of the realm's eastern border. Its fiefholders were (almost always) descended from, or married to, the noble family of
Baat from
Smalandia.
*Marggrabowa is an example of a town whose name comes from a margrave. Located in the
Masurian region of
East Prussia, Marggrabowa was founded in
1560 by Duke
Albert of Prussia, Margrave of
Brandenburg. It has since been renamed to the
Polish Olecko.
*The German word "Mark" also has other meanings than the margrave's territorial border area, often with a territorial component, which occur far more numerously then margraviates; so its occurrence in composite placenames does not imply whether it was part of a 'margraviate' as such, although 'margrave', or
Markgraf, translates as the "count of the marches", originally ruling an area on the border or outlying area of a larger feudal state. Uses of "Mark" in German names are commonly more local, as in the context of a
Markgenossenschaft, which means a partially self-governing association of agricultural users of an area; the German name-component
Mark can also be a truncated form of
Markt 'market', as in the small town of Marksuhl in the
Eisenach area of
Thuringia, meaning 'market town on the river Suhl'. The non-margravial origin even applies to the
countship of Mark (near Dortmund) and the country of
Denmark (meaning 'march of the Danes', in the sense of border area, yet never under a Margrave).
