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Graf was a 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 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 gentis Langobardorum, V.xxxvi); this may be read to make the term a Germanic one, but by then using Latin terms was quite common.
Today, Graf is considered part of the name, and no longer to be considered as a title. [1]
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.
A Reichsgraf is a count (Graf) who is the owner of an imperial estate of the Holy Roman Empire, i.e., he has a vote in the Reichstag and is directly subject to the king. A count who is not a Reichsgraf has only a secondary fief (Afterlehen) — he is subject to a prince of the empire, such as a duke.
A gefürsteter Graf ("count made prince") 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 much greater than that of a simple 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 landgravine.
Examples: Landgrave of Thuringia, Landgrave of Hesse, 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 (), in origin also a deputy of a Count, as the burgrave usually in a castle or fortified town. Soon many became hereditary and almost-a-Count, ranking just below the 'real' 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, the titles of Rhinegrave, Wildgrave, Raugrave, and Altgrave are not generic titles. Instead, each is linked to one specific county. By rank, these unusually named counts are equivalent to other counts.
"Rhinegrave" (German Rheingraf) was the title of the count of the Rheingau, a county located between Wiesbaden and Lorch on the right side of the Rhine. Their castle was known as the Rheingrafenstein. After the Rhinegraves inherited the Wildgraviate (see below) and parts of the County of Salm, they called themselves Wild- and Rhinegraves of Salm. [2]
When the Nahegau (a county) split into two parts in 1113, the counts of the two parts called themselves Wildgraves and Raugraves, respectively. They were named after the geographic properties of their territories: Wildgrave (Wildgraf), in Latin comes sylvanus, after Wald ("forest"), Raugrave (Raugraf), in Latin comes hirsutus, after the rough (i.e., mountainous) terrain. [3]
The first Raugrave was Count Emich I (died 1172). The dynasty died out in the 18th century. The title was taken over after Elector Palatine Karl Ludwig I had purchased the estates, and after 1667 owned by the children from the Elector's bigamous (morganatic) second marriage and Karl's wife, Marie Louise von Degenfeld. [4]
Altgrave (German Altgraf, "old count") was a title used by the counts of Lower Salm, to distinguish themselves from the Wild- and Rhinegraves of Upper Salm, since Lower Salm was the senior branch of the family.
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