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Margrave




The wife of a margrave is called a ''margravine'' or in German ''Markgräfin''.


HISTORY

A Markgraf, or margrave, originally functioned as the military Governor of a Carolingian '' Mark '', a medieval border province. A margrave had jurisdiction over a march (German ''Mark''), which also become known, after his title, as a margraviate or '''margravate''', strictly speaking the correct word for his office. As outlying areas tended to have great importance to the central realms of King s and Prince s, and they often became larger than those nearer the interior, margraves assumed quite inordinate powers over those of other counts of a realm.

Most Marks and, consequently, their margraves had their base on the Eastern border of the Carolingian and later Holy Roman Empire ; the Spanish Mark on the Muslim frontier, including what is now Catalonia , is a notable exception.

In Central Europe , the most important provinces (so-called) became the ''Mark Brandenburg '' (the nucleus of the later Kingdom Of Prussia ) and the original territory of Austria ; located mostly in modern Lower Austria , in Latin it was called ''Marchia Orientalis'', the "eastern borderland" as 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 Germanophone s, but medieval documents attest only the vernacular name '' Ostarrîchi ''.
Another Mark in the south-east, Styria , still appears as ''Steiermark'' in German today. Similarly the north-west featured the "Higher March" ''( Hohe Mark ).''

Later, the title of ''Markgraf'' became hereditary and as marches went out of military history, practically sinecures (without a principality), now ranks as the equivalent of a Marquess (see that article) in the British peerage.


MARGRAVIAL TITLES IN VARIOUS EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

Languages with a specific title for the Margrave (distinct from the later Marquess , for which all have a word) include (but often no actual marches existed there, so it only renders foreign cases) :


FURTHERMORE



  • The German word ''Mark'' also has other meanings than the margrave's territorial border area, often with a territorial component, which occur far more numerously then margraviates; so its occurrence in composite placenames does not imply whether it was part of a 'margraviate' as such, although 'margrave', or ''Markgraf'', translates as the "count of the marches", originally ruling an area on the border or outlying area of a larger feudal state. Uses of Mark in German names are commonly more local, as in the context of a ''Markgenossenschaft'', which means a partially self-governing association of agricultural users of an area; the German name-component ''Mark'' can also be a truncated form of ''Markt'' 'market', as in the small town of Marksuhl in the Eisenach area of Thuringia , meaning 'market town on the river Suhl'. The non-margavial origin even applies to the Countship Of Mark (near Dortmund) and the country of Denmark (meaning 'march of the Danes', in the sense of border area, and yet never under a Margrave).