A was originally the name given to the administrative area in the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

over which a count, or , presided as

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

. It is often, therefore, translated as 'county'. The term has survived as a placename in German-speaking countries, for example, in Germany and in Switzerland. According to the early Saxon legal document, the which dates to around 1230, the or count is a special judge () who, in the name of the king may preside at a juridical court, in certain cases, under the

king's ban ''Königsbann'', literally king's ban ({{langx, la, bannus, more rarely ''bannum'', from the OHG: ''ban''), was the exercise of royal jurisdiction in the Holy Roman Empire. A specific ban (German: ''Bann'') identified: * the actual order or prohi ...

, i.e. king's authority. The type of 'ban' cases derived from the nature of the kingdom: From that followed the exclusive responsibility of the king – and thus the count – to deal with allegations against the nobility. As part of the court "under the king's ban" there was a bench of jurors made up of the nobility, the . The area of the county was roughly that of modern rural German districts or counties (). On the emergence of states in the

Late Middle Ages The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the Periodization, period of History of Europe, European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period ( ...

, the acquisition and thus

mediatisation Mediatization or mediatisation may refer to: * German mediatisation, German historical territorial restructuring * Mediatization (media) Mediatization (or medialization) is a method whereby the mass media influence other sectors of society, inclu ...

of the counties by the

territorial prince A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, belonging or connected to a particular country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually a geographic area which has not been granted the powers of self-government, ...

s played an important role. The beginning of the late medieval trend towards large

territorial lordship A territorial lord () was a ruler in the period beginning with the Early Middle Ages who, stemming from his status as being immediate (''unmittelbar''), held a form of authority over a territory known as ''Landeshoheit''. This authority gave him ...

s in the 14th century was simultaneously the end of the of the late and high Middle Ages. In 1521 there were 144 imperially immediate () in the

, the so-called

imperial count Imperial Count (, ) was a title in the Holy Roman Empire. During the medieval era, it was used exclusively to designate the holder of an imperial county, that is, a fief held directly ( immediately) from the emperor, rather than from a prince wh ...

ies or . Several rural in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

, whose territorial history goes back to the , bear this title in their official names; after the municipal reforms at the end of the 1970s, only the county of retains the name. Not to be confused with are the ("margraviates"), ("counties palatine" or "palatinates") or ("landgraviates"), which had the same status as

duchies A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a country, territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or queen in Western European tradition. There once existed an important difference between "sovereign ...

. The present-day German federal states of

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

and

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

were once margraviates;

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

and

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

were landgraviates. The ("burggraves" or "burgraves"), who ruled ("burggraviates" or "burgraviates"), were of equivalent rank to a but tended to rule much smaller territories centred on a castle (), although some ruled much larger areas (e.g. the

Burgraviate of Nuremberg The Burgraviate of Nuremberg () was a state of the Holy Roman Empire from the early 12th to the late 15th centuries. As a burgraviate, it was a county seated in the town of Nuremberg; almost two centuries passed before the burgraviate lost ...

External links

* {{Authority control

See also

External links