Count palatine

A count palatine (Latin comes palatinus), also count of the palace or palsgrave (from German Pfalzgraf), was originally an official attached to a royal or imperial palace or household and later a nobleman of a rank above that of an ordinary count. The title originated in the Late Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages especially and into modern times, it is associated with the Holy Roman Empire, especially Electoral Palatinate.

The office, jurisdiction or territory of a count palatine was a county palatine or palatinate. In England the forms earl palatine and palatine earldom are rare alternative terms.

In the Visigothic Kingdom, the Officium Palatinum consisted of a number of men with the title of count who managed the various departments of the royal household. The Comes Cubiculariorum oversaw the chamberlains, the Comes Scanciorum directed the cup-bearers, the Comes Stabulorum directed the equerries in charge of the stables, etc. The Ostrogothic Kingdom also maintained palatine counts with titles such as Comes Patrimonii, who was in charge of the patrimonial or private real estate of the king, and others.

The system was maintained by the Carolingian sovereigns (reigned 751–987), who increased the power of counts palatine through successive grants of authority. A Frankish capitulary of 882 and Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, writing about the same time, attest to the extent to which the judicial work of the Frankish Empire had passed into the hands of counts palatine. The Grand Čelnik was the highest court title of the Serbian Despotate, and the title-holders held great provinces, property, and honours, and Radič (fl. 1413–1441) was one of the most powerful ones.

Hungary in the Middle Ages: nádorispán or nádor (see Palatine of Hungary)

The term count palatine was not used in the United Kingdom. Just as count always remained reserved for continental territories, even though the equivalence of earl became clear by rendering it in Latin also as comes, earl palatine was the exclusively British title for the incumbent of a British county palatine.

Merovingian and Carolingian Counts palatine

Robertians

Chrodobertus II, was named on 2 October 678
Grimbert, probably son of Chrodobertus II, was of Neustria from 691 to 720
Robert I (also known as Rupert I; d. before 764), grandson of Chrodobertus II, was around 741/742
Anselm (d. 778 in Roncesvalles), son of Robert
Adalard of Paris, in 877
Cobbo the Younger

Counts palatine of Champagne

King Lothar of France (954–986) gave Herbert III of Omois, one of his most loyal supporters in the struggle against the Robertians, the title of count palatine. The title was later inherited by his nephews, precursors of the counts of Champagne. The title of count of the palace is therefore linked to the title of count of Champagne until its extinction in 1305.

Holy Roman Empire

Pfalzgraf (Old High German phalanzgrāvo) is the German equivalent of the title, Graf being the German term for "count" or "earl", and Pfalz being the German reflex of Latin palatium. The German title has also been rendered as palsgrave in English (recorded 1548).

Counts Palatine were the permanent representatives of the Frankish king, later of the Holy Roman Emperor, in a palatial domain of the crown. There were dozens of these royal Pfalzen throughout the early Empire, and the emperor would travel between them, as there was no imperial capital.

In the empire, the word count palatine was also used to designate the officials who assisted the emperor in exercising the rights which were reserved for his personal consideration,) began to be conferred by the pope in the 16th century. This title was merely honorary and by the 18th century had come to be conferred so widely as to be nearly without consequence.

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The origin of the title lies in the 14th century. Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor conferred the title of Comes palatini Lateranensis on one Fenzio di Albertino di Prato, on 15 August 1357, at Prague. -->

The Order of the Golden Spur began to be associated with the inheritable patent of nobility in the form of count palatinate during the Renaissance; Emperor Frederick III named Baldo Bartolini, professor of civil law at the University of Perugia, a count palatinate in 1469, entitled in turn to confer university degrees.

Pope Leo X designated all of the secretaries of the papal curia Comites aulae Lateranensis ("Counts of the Lateran court") in 1514 and bestowed upon them the rights similar to an imperial count palatine. In some cases the title was conferred by specially empowered papal legates. If an imperial count palatine possessed both an imperial and the papal appointment, he bore the title of "Comes palatine imperiali Papali et auctoritate" (Count palatine by Imperial and Papal authority).

The Order of the Golden Spur, linked with the title of count palatinate, was widely conferred after the Sack of Rome, 1527, by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor; the text of surviving diplomas conferred hereditary nobility to the recipients.

Among the recipients was Titian (1533), who had painted an equestrian portrait of Charles.

Close on the heels of the Emperor's death in 1558, its refounding in Papal hands is attributed to Pope Pius IV in 1559.

Benedict XIV (In Supremo Militantis Ecclesiæ, 1746) granted to the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre the right to use the title of Count of the Sacred Palace of Lateran.

By the mid-18th century the Order of the Golden Spur was being so indiscriminately bestowed that Casanova remarked "The Order they call the Golden Spur was so disparaged that people irritated me greatly when they asked me the details of my cross;"

The Order was granted to "those in the pontifical government, artists, and others, whom the pope should think deserving of reward. It is likewise given to strangers, no other condition being required, but that of professing the catholic religion."

<!--completely random example of the *thousands* of recipients of the title in the 18th century

The noble Khazen family of Mount Lebanon was endowed with the title by Pope Clement X, in addition to their honors from King Louis XIV, who named them consuls of France and "princes of the Maronites". They are typically referred to by the title of Cheikh, which they received for protecting princes Fakhr-al-Din II and Younès al-Maani.

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References

Sources

Etymonline.com
Titles of counts palatine of Burgundy
Titles of counts palatine of the Rhine
Westermann, Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte (has a map of known Pfalz sites)