Landgrave (German: Landgraf, Dutch; Flemish: landgraaf, Swedish: lantgreve, French: landgrave; Latin: comes magnus, Latin: comes patriae, Latin: comes provinciae, Latin: comes terrae, Latin: comes principalis, Latin: lantgravius) was a rank of nobility used in the Holy Roman Empire, and its former territories. The German titles of German: Landgraf, German: Markgraf ("margrave"), and German: Pfalzgraf ("count palatine") are of roughly equal rank, subordinate to German: [[Herzog]] ("duke"), and superior to the rank of a German: [[Graf]] ("count").
The English word landgrave is the equivalent of the German Landgraf, a compound of the words Land and Graf (German: Count).
The title referred originally to a count who possessed imperial immediacy, or a feudal duty owed directly to the Holy Roman Emperor. His jurisdiction stretched over a sometimes quite considerable territory, which was not subservient to an intermediate power, such as a duke, a bishop or count palatine. The title originated within the Holy Roman Empire (first recorded in Lower Lotharingia from 1086: Henry III, Count of Louvain, as landgrave of Brabant). By definition, a landgrave exercised sovereign rights. His decision-making power was comparable to that of a Duke.
Landgrave occasionally continued in use as the subsidiary title of such noblemen as the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who functioned as the Landgrave of Thuringia in the first decade of the 20th century, but the title fell into disuse after World War II.
The jurisdiction of a landgrave was a landgraviate (German: Landgrafschaft|links=no), and the wife of a landgrave or a female landgrave was known as a landgravine (from the German German: Landgräfin, German: Gräfin being the feminine form of German: Graf)
The term was also used in the Carolinas (what is now North and South Carolina in the United States) during British rule. A "landgrave" was "a county nobleman in the British, privately held North American colony Carolina, ranking just below the proprietary (chartered equivalent of a royal vassal)."[1]
Examples include: