In the German nobility, margrave was a rank equivalent to marquess. It originated as the medieval title for the military commander assigned to maintain the defence of one of the border provinces of the Holy Roman Empire or a kingdom. That position became hereditary in certain feudal families in the Empire and the title came to be borne by rulers of some Imperial principalities until the abolition of the Empire in 1806 (e.g., Margrave of Brandenburg, Margrave of Baden). Thereafter, those domains (originally known as marks or marches, later as margraviates or margravates) were absorbed into larger realms or the titleholders adopted titles indicative of full sovereignty.
History
thumb|[[Seal (document)|Seal of Leopold III, Margrave of Austria (), with legend <small>LEVPOLDVS MARCHIO</small>.]]
Etymologically, the word margrave (, ) is the English and French form of the German noble title (;, meaning "march" or "mark", that is, borderland, added to , meaning "Count"); it is related semantically to the English title "Marcher Lord". As a noun and hereditary title, "margrave" was common among the languages of Europe, such as Spanish and Polish.
A (margrave) originally functioned as the military governor of a Carolingian march, a medieval border province. Among these were ruling dynasties like the Marquis of Mantua, Marquis of Montferrat, Marquis of Saluzzo, Marquis of Fosdinovo, as well as the rulers of the March of Genoa, who exercised de facto sovereignty. Their authority was equivalent to that of a territorial prince. Among them were the Pallavicini, a family descending from the Obertenghi margraves who ruled over a number of fiefs in Lombardy and Liguria. In contrast, other noble families such as the Burgau or Piatti held margravial titles without exercising territorial sovereignty.
Usage
By the 19th century, the sovereigns in Germany, Italy and Austria had all adopted "higher" titles, and not a single sovereign margraviate remained. Although the title remained part of the official style of such monarchs as the German Emperors, Kings of Saxony, and Grand Dukes of Baden, it fell into desuetude as the primary title of members of any reigning family.
The children of Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden by his second, morganatic wife, Luise Karoline Geyer von Geyersberg, only legally shared their mother's title of Imperial Count von Hochberg from 1796, and were not officially elevated to the title of margrave until 1817 when they were publicly de-morganitised. But their father had allowed its use for his morganatic children at his own court in Karlsruhe from his assumption of the grand ducal crown in 1806, simultaneously according to the princely title to the dynastic sons of his first marriage.
In 1914, the Imperial German Navy commissioned the dreadnought battleship SMS Markgraf, whose name commemorated this title. She fought in World War I and was interned and scuttled at Scapa Flow after the war.
Translations
The etymological heir of the margrave in Europe's nobilities is the marquis, also introduced in countries that never had any margraviates, such as the British marquess; their languages may use one or two words, e.g. French or . The margrave/marquis ranked below its nation's equivalent of "duke" (Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Scandinavia, Spain) or of "prince" (Belgium, Italy), but above "count" or "earl".
The wife of a margrave is a margravine ( in German, but in French). In Germany and Austria, where titles were borne by all descendants in the male line of the original grantee, men and women alike, each daughter was a as each son was a .
The title of margrave is translated below in languages which distinguish margrave from marquis, the latter being the English term for a Continental noble of rank equivalent to a British marquess. In languages which sometimes use marquis to translate margrave, that fact is indicated below in parentheses):
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Language !! Equivalent of margrave !! Equivalent of margravine
|-
| Afrikaans || / || /
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| Arabic || || –
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| Armenian || () || –
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| Catalan || / || /
|-
| Chinese || ||
|-
| Croatian || / || /
|-
| Czech || / || /
|-
| Danish || ||
|-
| Dutch || / || /
|-
| English || margrave / marquess || margravine / marchioness
|-
| Esperanto || / || /
|-
| Estonian || ||
|-
| Finnish || / || /
|-
| French || ||
|-
| German || ||
|-
| Greek || () /<br/> () || ()
|-
| Hungarian || / || /
|-
| Icelandic || ||
|-
| Irish || ||
|-
| Italian || / || /
|-
| Japanese || () || () /<br/> ()
|-
| Korean || () || ()
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| Latin || ||
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| Latvian || / || /
|-
| Lithuanian || / || /
|-
| Macedonian || () || ()
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| Norwegian || / || /
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| Persian || ( or ) || –
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| Polish || / || /
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| Portuguese || / || /
|-
| Romanian || || –
|-
| Serbian || () || ()
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| Slovak || ||
|-
| Slovene || / || /
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| Spanish || / || /
|-
| Swedish || / || /
|-
| Vietnamese || || –
|-
|}
Variations
- Several states have had analogous institutions, sometimes also rendered in English as margrave. For example, on England's Celtic borders (Welsh Marches and Scottish Marches), Marcher Lords were vassals of the King of England, expected to help him defend and expand his realm. Such a lord's demesne was called a march (compare the English county palatine). The Marcher Lords were a conspicuous exception to the general structure of English feudalism as set up by William the Conqueror,