Margrave - 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. Moreover, as a noun and as the aristocratic 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 greather responsibility for securing the border and usually exercising commensurately greater politico-military power than other nobles (counts) of the monarchy. The margrave maintained the greater armed forces and fortifications required for repelling invasion, which increased his political strength and independence relative to the sovereign. 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 an independent princedom, e.g. the Margraves of Brandenburg and the Margraves of Meissen who would later become, respectively, the Kings of Prussia and of Saxony.

Most marks, and their margraves, were based upon the Eastern border of the Carolingian Empire, and later upon the Holy Roman Empire. The Breton Mark on the Atlantic Ocean and the border of peninsular Brittany, and the Spanish Mark 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 lead to the establishment of the Christian Kingdoms that would become Spain in the 11th century.

In the modern Holy Roman Empire, two original marches developed into the two most powerful states in Central Europe: the Mark Brandenburg (the nucleus of the later Kingdom of Prussia) and Austria (which became heir to various, mainly 'Hungarian' 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 the vernacular name Ostarrîchi. Another Mark in the south-east, Styria, still appears as Steiermark in German today.

In the late Middle Ages, as marches lost their military importance, margraviates developed into hereditary monarchies, comparable in all but name to duchies. A unique case was the Golden Bull of 1356 (issued by Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia), recognizing the Margrave of Brandenburg as an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, membership of the highest college within the Imperial diet carrying the politically significant privilege of being the sole electors of the non-hereditary Emperor, which was previously de facto restricted to dukes and three prince-archbishops (Cologne, Mainz and Trier); other non-ducal lay members would be the King of Bohemia and the Palatine of the Rhenish Electorate of the Palatinate. The King of Bohemia himself ruled over the Margravate of Moravia or appointed a margrave to that post.

As the title of margrave lost its military connotation, it became more and more used as a simple noble rank, higher than Graf (count), and equivalent to its associated compound titles such as Landgrave, Burgrave, Wildgrave, Gefürsteter Graf, but lower than Herzog (duke). By the 19th century, the sovereigns in Germany, Italy and Austria had all adopted "higher" titles, and not a single independent margraviate remained.

The etymological heir of the margrave is the marquis, also introduced in countries that never had any margraviates, such as the British marquess (see that article; their languages may use one or two words, e.g. French margrave or marquis), still ranks in the British peerage between duke and earl.

The wife of a margrave is called a margravine in English, Markgräfin in Germany, but margrave in French.