Count palatine

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The word palatine has more meanings as a noun (and also an adjective), including other titles derived from the Latin Palatinus 'palatial'

Count Palatine is a noble title, used to render several comital styles, in some cases also shortened to Palatine.

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Comes palatinus

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'.

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 palalinus, 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. The word paladin, used to describe the followers of Charlemagne, is a variant of palatine. 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.

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Palsgrave

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', and means scribe, 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), of which there were dozens throughout the Empire.

The Monarch and a large court retinue would continually travel, especially between these palatial domains (and battle fields), without having a real capital; such practice of was not uncommon in the early feudal times, e.g. 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 required because of military considerations anyhow.

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 (notably the last three were Prince-Electors and potential rivals for the reigning dynasty) 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 (e.g. to suppress rebelling counts or dukes, to settle frontier disputes with the Hungarian and the French kingdom and to lead imperial campaings).

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.

  • Ironically the term was not used for the closest equivalent 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.
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Hofpfalzgraf

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. They were called comites palatini caesarii, or comites sacri palatii; in German, Hofpfalzgrafen.

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See also

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Sources and References

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sv:Pfalzgreve

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