Graf

Related Topics:
Graf,_Steffi :: Grafton,_Sue :: Grafham :: Grafton :: Graford :: Grafenberg_Spot :: Grafton_Township :: Graffiti :: Grafton,_Town_of :: Grafton,_Village_of

Graf is a German noble title equal in rank to a count (derived from the Latin Comes, with a history of its own) or a British earl (an Anglo-Saxon title derived from the Viking title Jarl). A derivation ultimately from Greek verb graphein 'to write' may be fanciful: Paul the Deacon wrote in Latin ca 790: "the count of the Bavarians that they call gravio who governed Bauzanum and other strongholds..." (Historia gentis Langobardorum, V.xxxvi); this may be read to make the term a Germanic one, but by then using Latin terms was quite common.

Today, Graf is considered part of the name, and no longer to be considered as a title. The Individual Article 109, sentence 2

A Graf (Count) ruled over a territory known as a Grafschaft, literally 'countship' (also rendered as 'county').

The comital titles awarded in Holy Roman Empire often related to the jurisdiction or domain of responsibility and represented special concessions of authority or rank. Only the more important titles remained in use until modern times. Many Counts were titled Graf without any additional qualification.

For a list of the titles of the rank of Count etymologically related to Graf (and for other equivalents) see article Count.

List of nobiliary titles containing the term graf

Some are approximately of comital rank, some higher, some lower. The more important ones are treated in separate articles (follow the links), a few minor, rarer ones only in sections below.

German	English	Comment/ etymology
Markgraf	Margrave (only continental) and (younger) Marquess or Marquis	Mark: march (border province) + Graf
Pfalzgraf	Count Palatine or Palsgrave (the latter is archaic in German)	Palatinate + Graf
Reichsgraf	'Count of the empire'	Reich i.e. (the Holy Roman) Empire + Graf
Landgraf	Landgrave	Land (country) + Graf
Freigraf	'Free Count'	Frei = free (allodial?) + Graf; both a feudal title of comital rank AND a more technical office
Gefürsteter Graf	Princely Count	German verb for "to make into a Reichsfürst" + Graf
Burggraf	Burgrave	Burg (castle, burgh) + Graf
Rheingraf	Rhinegrave	Rhein (river Rhine) + Graf
Altgraf	Altgrave	Alt (old) + Graf
Wildgraf	Wildgrave	Wild (game or wilderness) + Graf
Raugraf	Raugrave	Rau (raw, uninhabited, wilderness) + Graf
Vizegraf	Viscount	Vize = vice- (substitute) + Graf

Landgrave

A Landgraf, or Landgrave, was a nobleman of comital rank in Medieval Germany whose jurisdiction stretched over a sometimes quite considerable territory. The title survived from the times of the Holy Roman Empire. The status of a landgrave was often associated with sovereign rights and decision-making much greater than that of a simple Count, but carried no legal prerogatives.

Landgraf occasionally continued in use as the subsidiary title of such nobility as the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who functioned as the Landgrave of Thuringia in the first decade of the 20th century; but the title fell into disuse after World War I. The jurisdiction of a landgrave was a Landgrafschaft landgraviate and the wife of a landgrave was a Landgräfin landgravine.

Examples: Landgrave of Thuringia, Landgrave of Hesse, Landgrave of Leuchtenberg.

Burgrave / Viscount

A Burggraf, or Burgrave, was a 12th and 13th century military and civil judicial governor of a castle (compare Castellan, Custos, Keeper), of the town it dominated and of its immediate surrounding countryside. His jurisdiction was a Burggrafschaft, burgraviate.

Later the title became ennobled and hereditary with its own domain.

Example: Burgrave of Nuremberg.

It occupies the same relative rank as titles rendered in purist German by Vizegraf, in Dutch as Burggraaf or in English as Viscount (Latin Vicecomes), in origin also a deputy of a Count, as the burgrave usually in a castle or fortified town. Soon many became hereditary and almost-a-Count, ranking just below the 'real' Counts, but above a Freiherr (Baron).

It was also often used as a courtesy title, by the heir to a Graf.

Rhinegrave

A Rheingraf, or Rhinegrave, was a nobleman with the status of a count in the 12th and 13th centuries, the governor of one of the many castles or fortresses along the Rhine River in Western Germany, who had the entitlement of levying tolls for passage along the river.

Altgrave

An Altgraf, or altgrave, was a nobleman of the status of a Count who had his dominion in mountainous areas of Germany and the Alpine regions, particularly around mountain passes where he had rights and entitlements of establishing garrisons at such points, and of levying tolls for passage. Originally it was a title of veneration rather than the holding of power.

Gefürsteter Graf

A "princely count" was a Count, whose principality was called a Grafschaft (countship), but explicitly marked as a (Reichs)fürst

Notable cases were:

Henneberg, a title merged into the imperial dignity
Nassau-Weilburg since 26 September 1366 (before just Count)
Tyrol as a dominion of the Austrian crown
Stolberg-Rossla

Wildgrave

A Wildgraf, Wildgrave, or Waldgrave was originally a nobleman of the status of count who had jurisdiction over uncultivated areas, forests and uninhabited districts. His legal privileges eventually vested in him the power of a chief forester and gamekeeper of a district.

See Raugrave

Raugrave

A Raugraf, or Raugrave only held jurisdiction over waste ground and uninhabited districts.

The title was originally owned by Graf Emich I, of a minor Frankish noble dynasty from the 12th century whose sons split the dynasty into Raugrafen and Wildgrafen. The dynasty died out in the 18th century. ^*

The title was taken over after Elector Palatine Karl Ludwig (I) had purchased the estates, and after 1667 owned by the children from the Elector's bigamous (morganatic) second marriage and Karl's wife, Marie Louise von Degenfeld.

Sources and references

(incomplete)

WorldStatesmen - here Germany/Holy Roman Empire

External link

^* Lexikon article "Raugraf"

Austrian nobility | Feudalism | German language | German noble titles

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