Count

This page is about the Western style nobility; for the baseball term, see count (baseball).

Definition

A count is a nobleman in most European countries, equivalent in rank to a British earl, whose wife is still a "countess". Originally the title comes denoted the rank of a high courtier or provincial (military or administrative) official in the late Roman Empire: before Anthemius was made emperor in the West in 467, he was military comes strengthening defenses on the Danube frontier [1]. Military counts in the Late Empire and the Germanic successor kingdoms were often appointed by a dux and later by a king. From the start the count was in military charge of a locality, a county, his main rival for power being the bishop, whose diocese was often coterminous. In many Germanic and Frankish kingdoms in the early Middle Ages, the count might also be a count palatine, whose authority derived directly from the royal household, the "palace".

The position of comes was not originally a hereditary one, but by developing a local power base, a count was often able to make it a hereditary title—though not always. For instance, in Piast Poland, the position of komes was not hereditary, resembling the early Merovingian institution. The title had disappeared by the era of the Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth, and the office replaced with other institutions. Only after the Partitions_of_Poland did the title of "count" resurface in the German-derived title hrabia.

The title was was often conferred by the monarch as an honorific title for special services rendered. A count or earl is often a courtesy title for the eldest son of a duke. In Italy, all the sons of a count are counts (contini); in the United Kingdom stringent rules apply, often a future heir has a lower ranking courtesy title.

Terminology in different European languages

• In German kingdoms the title Graf was combined with the word for the jurisdiction or domain the nobleman was holding as a fief or conferred or inherited jurisdiction, such as "Landgraf" – landgrave, "Freigraf" ('free count'), "Burggraf" – burgrave (burg = castle).

• These are not to be confused with various titles also containing the word -graf (in German, -grave in French and English, -graaf in Dutch) rather in its original sense (its medieval Latin original GRAFIO stems from the Greek verb graphein, to draw or to write : a public servant, as the Carolingian counts were before they gradually managed to obtain hereditary succession) in various offices and sinecures which are not intrinsically linked to nobility of feudality, such as the Dutch titles Pluimgraaf (a court sinecure, so usually held by nobles courtiers, may even be rendered hereditary) and Dijkgraaf (to the present, in the Low Countries, a managing official in the local or regional administration of water household trough ditches, controls etcetera).

List of counts

Territory of today's France – A – West- Francia proper

• Count of Angouleme
• Count of Auvergne
• Count of Bar
• Count of Blois
• Count of Boulogne
• Count of Champagne
• Count of Foix
• Count of Montpensier
• Count of Poitiers

Territory of today's France – B – long within the German kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire

• Freigraf ('free count') of Burgundy – See County of Burgundy / Franche-Comté
• Count of Provence
• Count of Savoy
• Count of Toulouse

In other continental European countries

• Count of Barcelona
• Count of Flanders
• Count of Holland
• Count of Toggenburg
• Count of Kyburg

See also

• County
• Count von Count
• Count Dracula