March (territory)

March (territory)

A march or mark refers to a border region similar to a frontier, such as the Welsh Marches, the borderland between England and Wales. During the Frankish Carolingian Dynasty, usage of the word spread throughout Europe.

In contrast to a buffer zone, a march is typically dominated by a single given country and fortified for defence against the neighbouring country. A march generally circumscribed the same or similar land area as a county but was differentiated from other counties by its special position at the border of the state. In contrast to regular counties, which were ruled over by counts, marches were ruled over by a Marquess (English), a Marquis (French or Scots), a Margrave (Markgraf i.e. count of the mark) or nobles with corresponding titles (other European states). The wife of a titleholder or a woman that is herself a titleholder is addressed respectively as Marchioness, Marquise, or Margravine.

The name Denmark preserves the Old Norse cognates merki ("boundary") mörk ("wood", "forest") up to the present. Following the Anschluss, the Nazi German government revived the old name 'Ostmark' for Austria.

A sense of the dangerous "otherness" of the marches, where the king's writ did not run, as seen from the secure cultural home ground in feasting hall or palace, is suggested in Beowulf by the lakeside marsh of the monstrous Grendel: "the fell and fen his fastness was, the march his haunt".