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From: John Yohalem < >
Subject: Re: What is Margrave ? and Margravines ?
Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 02:41:01 -0500


The word had
decidedly different connotations in Germany, Italy, France and Britain,
though they have come to be similar, and their origins are exactly as WAR
has stated them.

(The suffix "graf" of course, means "count" -- a Margraf ruled a mark, a
Landgraf a land, and a Pfalzgraf a palatinate -- all three originally
appointive, not hereditary, postions. There were also Rheingraf and
Wildgraf and Raugraf, but you get the idea.)

The "mark" in Germany was a fronteir area sufficiently unsettled to require
an appointed ruler from the Emperor/King himself. Of course, they became
hereditary sooner than later, if they had eligible sons. The only margrave
in the west of Germany was Baden, which appears to have been a reference
originally to other Zahringen territories -- they kept the title when they
remained in the west. (Another branch of the family pulled the same stunt
with "Duke", at the time a very rare, semi-regal title.)
In the unsettled east, the most famous Marks ruled by Margraves were
Austria, Styria, Bohemia (all promoted to Dukedoms in the 12th century),
Meissen or Misnia (Saxon Thuringia) and, of course, Brandenburg.

In Britain, the "marches" were, again, fronteir areas where the feudal
ruler required special powers -- but the rulers of these areas were seldom
made Marquesses. The chief of them, indeed, were the Earls of March,
Chester, Hereford and Pembroke, none of whom ever became a Marquess. The
title was devised in England by Richard II, who wasn't quite ready to give
out the semi-royal status of Duke to every Johnny-come-lately, but wanted a
new title to outrank Earl. It was not popular then, and did not become so
until the Restoration of Charles II.

In France, it seems never to have had the fronteir connotation -- in the
early Middle Ages, Marquis was used of a powerful Comte, usually one with
more than one county to his credit, and was seldom bequeathed. Only after
dukedoms were created by French kings -- which is to say, in the time of
the later Valois -- did Marquis come into its own, and then it was merely a
"distinction without difference" -- it was a joke at the court of Louis XIV
that he would give it to anyone he didn't like enough to make a Duc. (Two
of his most famous mistresses were Marquises; only Louise de la Valliere,
the one who cared nothing for titles, was made a Duchesse; in England, his
cousin Charles II could never persuade any of his girlfriends to settle for
anything less than Duchess -- Anne Boleyn is the only royal mistress in
British history to have been made a Marchioness). Mme de Pompadour *liked*
being a Marquise -- even after Louis XV made her a Duchesse, she was
referred to as the Marquise by him and everyone else.

As was usual in the matter of titles, Scotland imitated England (there was
an Earl of March in the Stewart family too), Spain and Portugal imitated
France, and Scandinavia went its own way -- there have been no Marquises up
north.

In Italy in Carolingian times, since "Duke" had the semi-royal and
semi-independent air left over from the peers of the Lombard kingdom (all
of the dukes of which were equal, more or less, to the king -- one reason
Lombardy could not defend itself against Frankish invasions), the
Carolingian kings created merely "Marchesi", who ruled former Lombard
duchies (Friuli, Ivrea, Spoleto, Benevento, etc.) but were supposedly
appointive positions. Of course, the collapse of an effective central
monarchy made these titles hereditary and their families mighty --
intermarriage with the royal house didn't hurt either. Mathilda of Tuscany,
whose father and stepfather had ruled her lands as "Marquis", took no title
higher than "Countess", though she was quite as mighty as they had been.
"Marquis" meant "Powerful Count" and was a matter of opinion.

After the collapse of imperial power in Italy (13th century), new titles
were infrequent. Those dynasties who seized power in a community adopted
such titles as "Signor" or "Podesta" or "Capitano del Popolo", to calm
their subjects' inhibitions about monarchy. If you wanted a serious title,
you had to get it from the Emperor or the Pope. As both were usually
strapped for cash, this was not difficult. The Gonzaga, for example, were
"Capitani" of Mantua from 1328; a hundred years later, the fifth hereditary
Captain of the People got himself made hereditary "Marquis" by the Emperor
Sigismund. This sounded good when they made marriage alliances to old
feudal and royal houses north of the Alps, but it didn't imply much about
their noble status -- except that imperial troops would back them if anyone
proclaimed a republic in Mantua. (No one ever did.) The widow of the fourth
Marquis, the remarkable Isabella d'Este, nagged Emperor Charles V until he
agreed to promote her son to a dukedom. She was jealous because her brother
was Duke of Ferrara and her sister had been Duchess of Milan. Two of her
grandsons married archduchesses, and three of her descendants married
Emperors, but otherwise it does not seem to have changed their position in
Mantua or in Italy.

The Counts of Este and Savoy were notoriously the oldest and most
aristocratic families in northern Italy, but the upstart Visconti of Milan
beat them to Duke-ship. The Savoys skipped marquessate for the realer
Dukedom in the next century; the Este, whose lands straddled the
theoretical border of the Donation of Constantine, acquired Dukeship in
Modena and Reggio from Emperor Frederick III and Dukeship in Ferrara from
the Pope at about the same time. They had been Marquis of all three cities
since 1328, and the new title made little difference in their pretensions
or the brilliance of their court.

Trivia forever.

Jean Coeur de Lapin


----------
> From: Tutankhamon < >
> To:
> Subject: What is Margrave ? and Margravines ?
> Date: Tuesday, October 29, 1996 11:19 AM
>
> Hi friends.
>
> Can any of you enlighten me abou what's a Margravine ?
> And what is Margrave ?
> In my own GEDCOM those names are listed but still I didn't figure it out.
>
> Thanks for any reply,
>
> Carlos Moreira __o
> -\<,
> Aveiro, Portugal (_)/(_)

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