MARGRAVE is the English and French form of the German title Markgraf (from mark 'march' + Graf) and certain equivalent nobiliary ('princely') titles in other languages. Graf (from the Latin Grafio scribe from the Greek) is 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 original Anglo-Saxon title). ...

• A Markgraf, or Margrave, originally functioned as the military governor of a Carolingian "Mark" (or March), a medieval border province. As outlying areas tended to have great importance to the central realms of kings and princes, and they often became larger than those nearer the interior, margraves assumed quite inordinate powers over those of other counts of a realm.

A margrave had jurisdiction over a mark, which also become known, after his title, as a margraviate or margravate, strictly speaking the correct word for his office. A governor is also a device that regulates the speed of a machine. ... The Carolingians (also known as the Carlovingians) were a dynasty of rulers that eventually controlled the Frankish realm and its successors from the 8th to the 10th century, officially taking over the kingdoms from the Merovingian dynasty in 751. ... Mark or march (or various plural forms of these words) are derived from the Germanic word marko (boundary) and refer to an area along a border, e. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ...

The wife of a margrave is called a margravine.

• Most Marks and, consequently, Margraves had their base on the Eastern border of the Carolingian and later, Holy Roman Empire. (The Spanish Mark on the Muslim frontier, including what is now Catalonia, forming a notable exception).

In Central Europe the most important provinces (so-called) became the "Mark Brandenburg" and the original territory of Austria (located mostly in modern Lower Austria), which in Latin had the name Marchia Orientalis, the "eastern borderland". (During the 19th and 20th centuries some Germanophones sometimes translated the term as Ostmark, but mediaeval documents attest only the vernacular name Ostarrichi.) Here one has to bear in mind that Austria formed the eastern outpost of the Holy Roman Empire, on the border with the Magyars and the Slavs. Another Mark in the south-east, Styria, still appears as Steiermark in German today. Similarly the north-west featured the "Higher March" (Hohe Mark). This page is about the Germanic empire. ... The Marca Hispanica (Spanish Mark) were a series of buffer states set up Charlemagne to keep the Muslim Moors from advancing into the Frankish Empire. ... Capital Barcelona Official languages Spanish and Catalan In Val dAran, also Aranese. ... Surrounding but excluding the national capital Berlin, Brandenburg is one of Germanys sixteen Bundesländer (federal states). ... Lower Austria (Niederösterreich) is one of the fifty federal states or Bundesländer in Austria. ... Latin is the language that was originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Ostmark (Eastern March) is a modern German term to translate the term Ostarrîchi a vernacular for marcia orientalis that appears in a single later 10th century document. ... This page is about the Germanic empire. ... Magyars are an ethnic group primarily associated with Hungary. ... The Slavic peoples are the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe. ... Styria was a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806, and a crownland of Austria-Hungary until it dissolved in 1918. ... Mark was a medieval territory in todays North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. ...

• Marggrabowa is an example of a town whose name comes from a margrave. Located in the Masurian region of East_Prussia, Marggrabowa was founded in 1560 by Duke Albert of Prussia, margrave of Brandenburg. It has since been renamed to the Polish Olecko.

• Later, the title of Markgraf became hereditary and now ranks as the equivalent of a marquess, or marquis in England and France.