Mark (territory)

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In medieval Europe, a mark was a border area of ​​an empire; therefore the pleonastic term Grenzmark is occasionally found . In addition, there is the Latinized form Marchia .

etymology

The term mark in the sense of border (a loan word from the old Polish granica ) or border region can be found in many Indo-European languages .

Like the Persian marz / marč and Armenian mars as well as the Latin margo and the Old Irish mruig, the word mark goes back etymologically to the Indo-European roots * mereg-, * mrog- "edge, border". The Common Germanic * markō developed into Central German marka , Upper German marcha , Old Saxon marka , Anglo-Saxon mearc and Old Norse merki and mörk . In the Romance languages, the Latin margo is derived from the Italian margin , the Spanish margin , the Portuguese margin and the French margin . The Italian and Portuguese marca as well as the French and Italian marche , on the other hand, are borrowed from the Germanic language via the Latin marchia - just like the Polish marchia and the Russian марка .

The word actually means "limit". Today it is almost only used in compounds, derivatives and names, cf. Markstein "important, outstanding point", Marchstein "(Swiss for) boundary stone", district "total area of ​​a municipality, municipality corridor " , overmarchen "(Swiss for) crossing a border, exaggerating" and in area names, for example Mark Brandenburg (originally in the sense of "Brandenburg border area", namely on the border with the Slavs) and Styria .

Frankish Empire and Holy Roman Empire

As administrative districts in endangered border regions that are particularly important in terms of security policy, Marken gained significant importance, especially in the Franconian Empire , when Emperor Charlemagne introduced the system of Marken around the turn of the 8th to 9th century in order to close the borders of the empire, which was sometimes extended in long wars to back up. The Carolingian trademark system was retained and developed by the subsequent kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire .

The margraves held the brands as a fiefdom directly granted to them by the king or emperor and had, in comparison to other counts , special powers: they could order fortifications, were assigned a larger number of Frankish vassals for support and were able to exempt the army in their territory themselves mobilize. With the consolidation of the empire from the 12th century onwards, most of the remaining margraves became imperial principalities , and the margraves, like their equal landgraves, were among the highest secular dignitaries of the empire.

Historical stamps of the Franconian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire

Charlemagne established the following brands:

Later kings and emperors, especially Otto the Great , kept this system and set up new brands:

Later margraviates

Not every margraviate was created from a mark. The margraviate of Baden (and the margravates of Baden-Baden and Baden-Durlach that emerged from it in 1535 ) go back to Hermann I , who inherited the margraviate of Verona from his father Berthold I von Zähringen and who subsequently also acquired the title of margrave on his county rights on Upper Rhine applied. Likewise, the Margraves of Ansbach and Bayreuth did not acquire their titles as regents of an actual march, but inherited them as members of the family of the Hohenzollern Margraves of Brandenburg .

The former county of Mark was named after Mark Castle in Hamm , the ancestral seat of its founders.

Today's Italy

Italy around 1000, with the marquisates of Verona and Tuscany

Charlemagne founded the march of Verona as early as 774 after his Lombard campaign . This was lost again during the splitting up of the imperial territories under the late Carolingians of Eastern Franconia , but after the defeat of the Italian King Berengar II in 951 against Otto I , the margraviate of Verona ("Mark Verona", "Marca Veronensis et Aquileiensis", "Veronese Mark") separated from the Italian kingdom, attached to the Duchy of Bavaria and given to Duke Heinrich I as a fief.

Tuszien (Tuscany) also became a Franconian mark around 812 under Charlemagne. It existed until the death of Margravine Mathilde von Tuszien in 1115, after which it was awarded several times as a papal or imperial fief, and disappeared towards the end of the 12th century with the strengthening of the independent Tuscan city republics of Florence , Pisa , Siena , Arezzo , Pistoia and Lucca .

The Marche region in central Italy takes its name from the brands “Marca Fermana”, “Marca Camerinese” and “Marca Anconitana”, which were established there during the Carolingian period and which were combined to form the “Mark Ancona” in the 12th century.

England

The Welsh Marches (Welsh Marches) denote the borderland between England and Wales, the Scottish Marches (Scottish Marches) the borderland between England and Scotland. These areas were administered by the Marcher Lords , who had considerable privileges; they were allowed to build castles, rule according to their own law, wage wars and allow markets.

Norway

In Norway there are three provinces in whose names the mark can be found: Finnmark , Telemark and Hedmark . Finnmark ("Land of Finns"), the largest administrative district in Norway in terms of area, is located in the far north-east of the country and borders Russia in the east. Telemark in the south is the former borderland of the þelir , an old Norwegian tribe. Hedmark in the southeast of the country borders on Sweden.

Armenia

The administrative unit under the central government in Armenia is Mars .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Pfeifer : Etymological Dictionary of German. Akademie, Berlin 1989 and several new editions, each under 1 mark .