Margraves - History

History

Etymologically, the word margrave (Latin: marchio ca. 1551) is the English and French form of the German noble title Markgraf (Mark “march” + Graf ("Count"), which also is semantically related to the English title Marcher Lord. As a noun and hereditary title, margrave was common to the languages of Europe, such as Spanish and Polish.

A Markgraf (Margrave) originally functioned as the military governor of a Carolingian mark, a medieval border province. Because the territorial integrity of the borders of the realm of a king or emperor was most important to the nation's security, the vassal, whether count or lord, whose lands were on the "march" of the kingdom or empire was apt to be appointed margrave, given greater responsibility for securing the border.

The greater exposure of a border province to military invasion mandated that the margrave be provided with military forces and autonomy of action (political, strategic, tactical) greater than was accorded other lords of the realm. As a military governor, the margrave's authority often extended over a territory larger than the province proper, because of border expansion subsequent to royal wars.

The margrave thus usually came to exercise commensurately greater politico-military power than other nobles (counts). The margrave maintained the greater armed forces and fortifications required for repelling invasion, which increased his political strength and independence relative to the monarch. Moreover, a margrave might expand his sovereign's realm by conquering additional territory, sometimes more than he might retain as a personal domain, thus allowing him to endow his own vassals with lands and resources in return for loyalty; the consequent wealth and power might allow the establishment of a de facto independent princedom.

Most marks, and their margraves, sprung up along the Eastern border of the Carolingian Empire, and later that of the Holy Roman Empire. The Breton Mark on the Atlantic Ocean and on the border of peninsular Brittany, and the Marca Hispanica on the Muslim frontier (including Catalonia) are notable exceptions. The Spanish Mark was most important during the early stages of the peninsular Reconquista of Iberia: Ambitious margraves based in the Pyrenees took advantage of the Muslim Al-Andalus disarray to extend their territories southwards, which led to the establishment of the Christian kingdoms that would become Spain in the 11th century.

In the late Middle Ages, as territorial borders stabilised marches began to lose their primary military importance, but the entrenched families which held the office of margrave gradually converted them into hereditary fiefs, comparable in all but name to duchies. These margraves became substantially independent rulers of states under the nominal jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Emperor, similar to the evolution of dukes, landgraves, counts palatine and Fürsten (princes).

The Golden Bull of 1356 was issued by Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, recognizing the Margrave of Brandenburg as an elector of the Empire. Possession of an electorate carried membership in the highest "college" within the Imperial Diet, the main prerogative of which was the right to elect, along with a few other powerful princes and prelates, the non-hereditary Emperor whenever death or abdication created a vacancy on the Imperial throne. The Mark Brandenburg became the nucleus of the House of Hohenzollern's later Kingdom of Prussia and the springboard to their eventual accession as German Emperors in 1866.

Another original march also developed into one of the most powerful states in Central Europe: the Margraviate of Austria whose rulers, the House of Habsburg, rose to obtain a de facto monopoly on election to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. They also inherited several, mainly Eastern European and Burgundian, principalities. Austria was originally called Marchia Orientalis in Latin, the "eastern borderland", as (originally roughly the present Lower-) 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 to the vernacular name Ostarrîchi. Another Mark in the south-east, Styria, still appears as Steiermark in German today.

The Margraves of Brandenburg and the Margraves of Meissen eventually became, respectively, the Kings of Prussia and of Saxony.