Burgrave, the Eng. form, derived through the Fr. from the Ger. Burggraf and Dutch (including Flem.dialects) burg- or burch-graeve (med. Lat. burcgravius or burgicomes), i.e. count of a castle or fortified town.

• The title is originally equivalent to that of castellan (Lat. castellanus) or châtelain, i.e. keeper of a castle and/or fortified town.
• In Germany, owing to the peculiar conditions of the Empire, though the office of burgrave had become a sinecure by the end of the 13th century, the title, as borne by feudal nobles having the status of princes of the Empire, obtained a quasi-royal significance.

It was still included among the subsidiary titles of several German sovereign princes; and the king of Prussia, whose ancestors were burgraves of Nuremberg for over 200 years, maintained the additional style of Burggraf von Nurnberg.

• In the Low countries, the burggraaf developed into the nobiliary equivalent of a viscount (see that article)
• in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795), the office was of senatorial rank (i.e. entitled to a seat in the upper chamber of the sejm or diet); with the exception of their primus, the burgrabia of the former capital Cracow, the castellans were deputies of the (equally senatorial) provincial voivode
• in Bohemia

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