Everything about Count Palatine totally explained
» This article gives details on the history of the Count Palatine in Mediaeval European Palatinate regions and social structure. For English counties palatine, see County palatine. For other meanings, see Palatinate or Paladin (disambiguation). For a longer history on the term and all other developments of its usage, see Paladin.
Count palatine is a noble title, used to render several comital styles, in some cases also shortened to
Palatine or
Paladin, which can have other meanings as well.
Importance of a Count Palatine in Mediaeval Europe
Comes palatinus: The origin of the "Knight Paladin"
This Latin title is the original, but also pre-feudal: it originated as a Roman
Comes, which was a non-hereditary court title of high rank, the specific part
palatinus being the adjective derived from
palatium ('palace'). (See
Paladin for details.)
But after the fall of Rome, a new, feudal type of title, also known simply as
palatinus, started developing. The Frankish kings of the
Merovingian dynasty employed a high official, the comes palatinus, who at first assisted the king in his judicial duties and at a later date discharged many of these himself. Other counts palatine were employed on military and administrative work.
The system was maintained by the
Carolingian sovereigns (see the twelve legendary
Paladines). A Frankish
capitulary of 882 and
Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, writing about the same time, testify to the extent to which the judicial work of the Frankish Empire had passed into their hands, and one grant of power was followed by another.
Instead of remaining near the person of the king, some of the counts palatine were sent to various parts of his empire to act as judges and governors, the districts ruled by them being called palatinates. Being in a special sense the representatives of the sovereign, they were entrusted with more extended power than the ordinary counts. Thus comes the later and more general use of the word palatine, its application as an adjective to persons entrusted with special powers and also to the districts over which these powers were exercised.
Related terms
Pfalzgraf is an exclusively
German title (from the above Latin
comes palatinus 'count of the palace'), rendered in English also (recorded since 1548) as
palsgrave since
medieval times for the permanent representative (
Grafio is probably from the Greek
grafein 'to write', hence 'scribe', plausibly via the Byzantine Greek
grapheus or
suggrapheus "he who calls a meeting, for example the court, together", and denoted a civil servant, rather than a feudal count) of the
Frankish king, later of the
Holy Roman Emperor, in a
palatial domain of the crown (
pfalz). There were dozens of these royal
Pfalzen throughout the Empire, and the monarch travelled between them. The empire had no real
capital; such practice of wasn't uncommon in the early feudal times, for example in England. This practice of a mobile, somewhat omnipresent king, thus also 'eating his taxes' literally wining and dining, was common in early feudal Europe. Travel was often already required because of military considerations. The count responsible for these places was thus responsible for the palace during the king's absence.
In the empire the word count palatine was also used to designate the officials who assisted the emperor to exercise the rights which were reserved for his personal consideration, like granting
arms. They were called
comites palatini caesarii, or
comites sacri palatii; in German,
Hofpfalzgrafen.
Both the Latin form
(Comes) palatinus and the French
(comte) palatin have been used as part of the full title of Dukes of Burgundy (a branch of the French royal dynasty) to render their rare German title
Freigraf, which was the style of a (later lost) bordering principality, the
allodial countship of Burgundy (
Freigrafschaft Burgund in German) which came to be known as
Franche-Comté.
In early
medieval Poland the Palatinus was next in rank to the King. As he's also the chief commander of the King's army the rank is merged with
Wojewoda, with the latter replacing the title of Palatine. During the
Fragmentation of Poland each Prince would have his own voivode. When some of these Principalities are reunited in the Kingdom of Poland the Palatines are infeudated with them as there's no local Prince anymore. Or rather on behalf of the King to whom all these princely titles returned. The Principalities are thus made Voivodships (sometimes translated as Palatinates). In the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the Voivodes sit in the Senat. Throughout its history the dignity remained non-hereditary or semi-hereditary. Today voivodes are government officials.
Mediaeval social structure and development of the Count Palatine
During the
11th century, some imperial palatine counts became a valuable political counterweight against the mighty duchies. Surviving old palatine counties were turned into new institutional pillars through which the imperial authority could be exercised. By the reigns of
Henry the Fowler and especially of
Otto the Great,
comites palatini were sent into all parts of the country to support the royal authority by checking the independent tendencies of the great tribal dukes. We hear of a count palatine in Saxony, and of others in Lorraine, in Bavaria and in Swabia, their duties being to administer the royal estates in these duchies.
Next to the Dukes of
Lotharingia,
Bavaria,
Swabia and
Saxonia, who had become dangerously powerful feudal princes, loyal supporters of the German Emperor were installed as counts palatine.
The Lotharingian palatines out of the
Ezzonian dynasty were important commanders of the imperial army and were often employed during internal and external conflicts (for example to suppress rebelling counts or dukes, to settle frontier disputes with the Hungarian and the French kingdom and to lead imperial campaigns).
Although a palatinate could be rooted for decades into one dynasty, the office of the palatine counts became hereditary only during the 12th century. During the 11th century the palatinates were still regarded as
beneficia, non-hereditary fiefs. The count palatine in Bavaria, an office held by the family of Wittelsbach, became
duke of this land, the lower comital title being then merged in the higher ducal one; and with one other exception the German territorial counts palatine soon became insignificant, although, the office having become hereditary, Pfalzgrafen were in existence until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
The exception was the
Count Palatine of the Rhine, who became one of the four
lay electors and the most important lay official of the empire. Junior branches of his family also bore this title.
The term count palatine wasn't used on the
British isles. Just as Count always remained reserved for continental territories, even though the equivalence of earl became clear by rendering it in Latin also as Comes,
earl palatine was the exclusively British title for the incumbent of a British
county palatine.
Sources and References
Further Information
Get more info on 'Count Palatine'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://count_palatine.totallyexplained.com">Count palatine Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
