Graf (male) or Gräfin (female) is a historical 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 akin to the Viking title Jarl). A derivation ultimately from the 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 Langobardorum, V.xxxvi); this may be read to make the term a Germanic one, but by then using Latin terms was quite common.
Since August 1919, in Germany, Graf and all other titles are considered a part of the name.[1] The comital title Graf has of course also been used by German-speakers (as official or vernacular language), also in Austria and other Habsburg crown lands (mainly Slavic and Hungary), in Liechtenstein and much of Switzerland.
Contents |
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 |
| Landgraf | Landgrave | Land (country) + Graf |
| Reichsgraf | Count of the Empire | Reich i.e., (the Holy Roman) Empire + Graf |
| Gefürsteter Graf | Princely Count | German verb for "to make into a Reichsfürst" + Graf |
| Pfalzgraf | Count Palatine or Palsgrave (the latter is archaic in English) |
Pfalz (palatial estate, Palatinate) + Graf |
| Rheingraf | Rhinegrave | Rhein (river Rhine) + Graf |
| Burggraf | Burgrave | Burg (castle, burgh) + Graf |
| Altgraf | Altgrave | Alt (old) + Graf (very rare) |
| Freigraf | Free Count | Frei = free (allodial?) + Graf; both a feudal title of comital rank and a more technical office |
| Wildgraf | Wildgrave | Wild (game or wilderness) + Graf |
| Raugraf | Raugrave | Rau (raw, uninhabited, wilderness) + Graf |
| Vizegraf | Viscount | Vize = vice- (substitute) + Graf |
A Reichsgraf was a nobleman whose title of count was conferred or confirmed by the Holy Roman Emperor, and literally meant "count of the (Holy Roman) Empire". Since the feudal era any count whose territory lay within the Empire and was under the immediate jurisdiction of the Emperor with a shared vote in the Reichstag came to be considered a member of the "upper nobility" (Hochadel) in Germany, along with princes (Fürsten), dukes (Herzöge), electors, and the emperor himself.[2] A count who was not a Reichsgraf was apt to possess only a "mediate" fief (Afterlehen) — he was subject to an immediate prince of the empire, such as a duke or elector.
However, the Holy Roman Emperors also occasionally granted the title of Reichsgraf to subjects and foreigners who did not possess and were not granted immediate territories — or, sometimes, any territory at all.[2] Such titles were purely honorific. In English, Reichsgraf is usually translated simply as count and is combined with a territorial suffix (e.g. Count of Holland, Count Reuss), or a surname Count Fugger, Count von Browne. But even after the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Reichsgrafen retained precedence above other counts in Germany. Those who had been quasi-sovereign until German mediatisation retained, until 1918, status and privileges pertaining to members of reigning dynasties.
A gefürsteter Graf (in English, princely count) is a Reichsgraf who has been made Reichsgraf by an act of the king, as opposed to one whose ancestors have held this privilege since the High Middle Ages.
Notable Reichsgrafen included:
A complete list of Reichsgrafen as of 1792 can be found in the List of Reichstag participants (1792).
A Landgraf or Landgrave was a nobleman of comital rank in feudal 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 greater than those of a simple Graf (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 or landgravine.
Examples: Landgrave of Thuringia, Landgrave of Hesse (later split in Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Darmstadt), Landgrave of Leuchtenberg.
A combination of Landgraf and Gefürsteter Graf (both above). Example: Leuchtenberg, later a duchy.
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 dwelt usually in a castle or fortified town. Soon many became hereditary and almost-a-Count, ranking just below the 'full' Counts, but above a Freiherr (Baron).
It was also often used as a courtesy title by the heir to a Graf.
Unlike the other comital titles, Rhinegrave, Wildgrave (Waldgrave), Raugrave, and Altgrave are not generic titles. Rather, each is linked to one specific, historic countship. By rank, these unusually named counts were equivalent to other Counts of the Empire of Uradel status, i.e. they possessed Imperial immediacy, ranked as Hochadel, and would be mediatised upon dissolution of the Empire in 1806.[3]
The suffix -graf occurs in various office titles which did not attain nobiliary status but were either held as a sinecure by nobleman or courtiers, or functional officials such as the Deichgraf (in a polder management organism).
(incomplete)