Landgrave

Landgrave (German: Landgraf, Dutch: landgraaf, Swedish: lantgreve, French: landgrave; Latin: comes magnus, comes patriae, comes provinciae, comes terrae, comes principalis, lantgravius) was a rank of nobility used in the Holy Roman Empire, and its former territories. The German titles of Landgraf, Markgraf ("margrave"), and Pfalzgraf ("count palatine") are of roughly equal rank, subordinate to Herzog ("duke"), and superior to the rank of a Graf ("count").

Heraldic crown of a landgrave

Etymology

The English word landgrave is the equivalent of the German Landgraf, a compound of the words Land and Graf (German: Count).

Description

The title referred originally to a count who possessed imperial immediacy, or a feudal duty owed directly to the Holy Roman Emperor. His jurisdiction stretched over a sometimes quite considerable territory, which was not subservient to an intermediate power, such as a duke, a bishop or count palatine. The title originated within the Holy Roman Empire (first recorded in Lower Lotharingia from 1086: Henry III, Count of Louvain, as landgrave of Brabant). By definition, a landgrave exercised sovereign rights. His decision-making power was comparable to that of a Duke.

Landgrave occasionally continued in use as the subsidiary title of such noblemen 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 II.

The jurisdiction of a landgrave was a landgraviate (German: Landgrafschaft), and the wife of a landgrave or a female landgrave was known as a landgravine (from the German Landgräfin, Gräfin being the feminine form of Graf)

The term was also used in the Carolinas (what is now North and South Carolina in the United States) during British rule. A "landgrave" was "a county nobleman in the British, privately held North American colony Carolina, ranking just below the proprietary (chartered equivalent of a royal vassal)."

Examples

Examples include:

• Landgraves of Thuringia
  • Landgraves of Hesse and its subsequent divisions (Hesse-Kassel, -Darmstadt, -Rotenburg, -Philippsthal(-Barchfeld), -Rheinfels, -Homburg(-Bingenheim), -Marburg).
• Landgraves of Leuchtenberg, situated around a Bavarian castle (later raised into a duchy)
• Landgraves of Stühlingen
• Landgraves of Klettgau
• Fürstenberg-Weitra
• Fürstenberg-Taikowitz
• Landgraviate of Alsace
  • Upper Alsace
  • Lower Alsace

Related terms

• Landgraviate – the rank, office, or territory held by a landgrave
• Landgravine (German: Landgräfin) – the wife of a landgrave or one who exercises the office or holds the rank in her own right.

Further reading

• Mayer, Theodor, "Über Entstehung und Bedeutung der älteren deutschen Landgrafschaften", in Mitteralterliche Studien – Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. F. Knapp (Sigmaringen 1958) 187–201. Also published in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanische Abteilung 58 (1938) 210–288.
• Mayer, Theodor, 'Herzogtum und Landeshoheit', Fürsten und Staat. Studien zur Verfassungsgeschichte des deutschen Mittelalters (Weimar 1950) 276–301.
• Eichenberger, T., Patria: Studien zur Bedeutung des Wortes im Mittelalter (6.-12. Jahrhundert), Nationes – Historische und philologische Untersuchungen zur Entstehung der europäischen Nationen im Mittelalter 9 (Sigmaringen 1991).
• Van Droogenbroeck, Frans J., 'De betekenis van paltsgraaf Herman II (1064-1085) voor het graafschap Brabant', Eigen Schoon en De Brabander, 87 (2004), 1-166.
• Van Droogenbroeck, Frans J., Het landgraafschap Brabant (1085-1183) en zijn paltsgrafelijke voorgeschiedenis. De territoriale en institutionele aanloop tot het ontstaan van het hertogdom Brabant (2004)

External links

• The dictionary definition of landgrave at Wiktionary