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30-520: In 1751 they obtained the Imperial County of Rixingen, or Rechicourt-le-chateau, between Alsace and Lorraine. Armand Jean de Vignerot added the cardinal's surname of "du Plessis" to his own, adopted the cardinal's coat of arms and received the titles of Duke of Richelieu and Peer of France by letters patent in 1657. Two new reversions of the title occurred in 1822 and 1879. The 5th Duke of Richelieu died without an heir, but he gained permission for

60-544: A Holy Roman Emperor, from among their own number or other rulers, whenever a vacancy occurred. Those just below them in status were recognised as Imperial princes ( Reichsfürsten ) who, through the hereditary vote each wielded in the Diet's College of Princes , served as members of a loose legislature (cf. peerage ) of the Empire. As the Empire emerged from the medieval era, immediate counts were definitively excluded from possessing

90-401: A class, whose land management on behalf of the ruling princes favoured their evolution to a status above not only peasants and burghers, but above landless knights and the landed gentry. Their roles within the feudal system tended to become hereditary and were gradually integrated with those of the ruling nobility by the close of the medieval era. The possessor of a county within or subject to

120-587: A man") in the Middle Ages was the ceremony in which a feudal tenant or vassal pledged reverence and submission to his feudal lord , receiving in exchange the symbolic title to his new position ( investiture ). It was a symbolic acknowledgement to the lord that the vassal was, literally, his man ( homme ). The oath known as " fealty " implied lesser obligations than did "homage". Further, one could swear "fealty" to many different overlords with respect to different land holdings, but "homage" could only be performed to

150-412: A piece of the lord's manorial holdings. The vassal owed obedience and devotion, as well as counsel and aid in times of war, to the lord. The latter could be fulfilled by military provisions as well as presence at the lord's council. This bond of mutual obligation was in many ways modelled after the bond of son and father. There have been some conflicts about obligations of homage in history. For example,

180-507: A prerogative most reichsunmittelbar families had enjoyed prior to mediatisation . A few counties had been elevated to principalities by Napoleon. Most of these were also mediatised by the Congress of Vienna. A few of their dynasties held on to their sovereignty until 1918: Lippe , Reuß , Schwarzburg and Waldeck-Pyrmont . Those counts who received their title by letters patent from the emperor or an Imperial vicar were recognized within

210-725: A right of homage. The usual oath was therefore modified by Henry to add the qualification "for the lands I hold overseas." The implication was that no " knights service" was owed for the English lands. After King John of England was forced to surrender Normandy to Philip in 1204, English magnates with holdings on both sides of the Channel were faced with conflict. John still expected to recover his ancestral lands, and those English lords who held lands in Normandy would have to choose sides. Many were forced to abandon their continental holdings. Two of

240-561: A shared vote on a Count's bench an imperial count obtained, the "seat and vote" within the Imperial Diet which, combined with Imperial immediacy , made of his chief land holding an Imperial estate ( Reichsstand ) and conferred upon him and his family the status of Landeshoheit , i.e. the semi-sovereignty which distinguished Germany and Austria's high nobility (the Hochadel ) from the lower nobility ( Niederadel ), who had no representation in

270-431: A single liege, as one could not be "his man" (i.e., committed to military service) to more than one "liege lord". The ceremony of homage was used in many regions of Europe to symbolically bind two men together. The vassal to-be would go down on their knee and place their palms together as if praying. The lord to-be would place his hands over the hands of the vassal, while the vassal made a short declaration of belonging to

300-586: The Angevin monarchs of England were sovereign in England, i.e., they had no duty of homage regarding those holdings; but they were not sovereign regarding their French holdings. Henry II was king of England, but he was merely duke of Normandy and Aquitaine and count of Anjou and Poitou . The Capetian kings in Paris , though weaker militarily than many of their vassals until the reign of King Philip Augustus , claimed

330-460: The 7th Duke of Richelieu and of Alice Heine (1858–1925). Alice was widowed in 1880 and remarried to Prince Albert I of Monaco in 1889. Imperial Count Imperial Count ( German : Reichsgraf ) was a title in the Holy Roman Empire . During the medieval era, it was used exclusively to designate the holder of an imperial county , that is, a fief held directly ( immediately ) from

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360-503: The Diet and usually answered to an over-lord. Thus the reichsständische imperial counts pegged their interests and status to those of the imperial princes. In 1521 there were 144 imperial counts; by 1792 only 99 were left. The decrease reflected elevations to higher title, extinction of the male line, and purchase or annexation (outright or by the subordination known as mediatisation ) by more powerful imperial princes. In 1792 there were four associations (benches) of counties contributing

390-453: The Diet. Each "bench" was entitled to exercise one collective vote ( Kuriatstimme ) in the Diet and each comital family was allowed to cast one fractional vote toward a bench's vote: A majority of fractional votes determined how that bench's vote would be cast on any issue before the Diet. Four benches were recognised (membership in each being determined by which quadrant of the Empire a count's fief lay within). By being seated and allowed to cast

420-578: The French monarchs and the Angevin kings of England continued through the 13th century. When Edward I of England was asked to provide military service to Philip III of France in his war with Aragon in 1285, Edward made preparations to provide service from Gascony (but not England – he had not done "homage", and thus owed no service to France for the English lands). Edward's Gascon subjects did not want to go to war with their southern neighbours on behalf of France, and they undoubtedly appealed to Edward that as

450-550: The French. By 1806, Napoleon 's re-organisation of the continental map squeezed not only all imperial counts but most princes out of existence as quasi-independent entities by the time of the Holy Roman Empire. Each was annexed by its largest German neighbor, although many were swapped by one sovereign to another as they sought to shape more cohesive borders or lucrative markets. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna sought to turn back

480-606: The Holy Roman Empire might owe feudal allegiance to another noble , theoretically of any rank, who might himself be a vassal of another lord or of the Holy Roman Emperor ; or the count might have no other suzerain than the Holy Roman Emperor himself, in which case he was deemed to hold directly or "immediately" ( reichsunmittelbar ) of the emperor. Nobles who inherited, purchased, were granted or successfully seized such counties, or were able to eliminate any obligation of vassalage to an intermediate suzerain (for instance, by

510-477: The clock on the French Revolution 's politics, but not on the winnowing of Germany's ruling dynasties and myriad maps. The imperial counts and princes were compensated for the loss of their rights as rulers with largely symbolic privileges, gradually eroded but not extinguished until 1918, including Ebenbürtigkeit ; the right to inter-marry with Germany's (and, by extension, Europe's) still reigning dynasties,

540-601: The emperor in his specific capacity as ruler of the Holy Roman Empire (rather than, e.g. as ruler of Austria , Bohemia , Hungary , the Spanish Netherlands , etc.) became, ipso facto , an "Imperial Count" ( Reichsgraf ), whether he reigned over an immediate county or not. In the Merovingian and Franconian Empire , a Graf ("Count") was an official who exercised the royal prerogatives in an administrative district ( Gau or "county"). A lord designated to represent

570-470: The emperor, rather than from a prince who was a vassal of the emperor or of another sovereign, such as a duke or prince-elector . These imperial counts sat on one of the four "benches" of Counts , whereat each exercised a fractional vote in the Imperial Diet until 1806. Imperial counts rank above counts elevated by lesser sovereigns. In the post–Middle Ages era, anyone granted the title of Count by

600-587: The imperial counts were grouped into "imperial comital associations" known as Grafenbänke . Early in the 16th century, such associations were formed in Wetterau and Swabia . The Franconian association was created in 1640, the Westphalian association in 1653. They participated with the emperor, electors and princes in ruling the Empire by virtue of being entitled to a seat on one of the Counts' benches ( Grafenbank ) in

630-467: The individual seat and vote ( Virilstimme ) in the Diet that belonged to electors and princes. In order, however, to further their political interests more effectively and to preserve their independence, the imperial counts organized regional associations and held Grafentage ("countly councils"). In the Imperial Diet, starting in the 16th century, and consistently from the Perpetual Diet (1663–1806),

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660-493: The king or emperor in a county requiring higher authority than delegated to the typical count acquired a title which indicated that distinction: a border land was held by a margrave , a fortress by a burgrave , an imperial palace or royal estate by a count palatine , a large territory by a landgrave . Originally the counts were ministeriales , appointed administrators, but under the Ottonian emperors, they came to constitute

690-624: The lord (see image). The new chief and subordinate would sometimes then kiss each other on the mouth (the osculum ) to symbolize their friendship. In this way one of the fundamental bonds of feudal society was sealed. It is likely that the ceremony of homage, as well as the institution itself, was derived in part from the ceremony of recommendation that had been in use since the early Middle Ages. The bonds of homage involved rights and obligations for both vassal and lord. The lord promised to provide protection and assistance to his vassal, as well as to provide for his upkeep, often by conceding rights over

720-443: The most powerful magnates, Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester , and William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke , negotiated an arrangement with the French king that if John had not recovered Normandy in a year-and-a-day, they would do homage to Philip. At first that seemed to satisfy John, but eventually, as a price for making peace with the French king to keep his lands, Pembroke fell out of favour with John. The conflict between

750-557: The purchase of his feudal rights from a liege lord ), were those on whom the emperor came to rely directly to raise and supply the revenues and soldiers, from their own vassals and manors, which enabled him to govern and protect the empire. Thus their Imperial immediacy tended to secure for them substantial independence within their own territories from the emperor's authority. Gradually they came also to be recognised as counselors entitled to be summoned to his Imperial Diets . A parallel process occurred among other authorities and strata in

780-421: The realm, both secular and ecclesiastical. While commoners and the lowest levels of nobles remained subject to the authority of a lord, baron or count, some knights and lords ( Reichsfreiherren ) avoided owing fealty to any but the emperor yet lacked sufficient importance to obtain consistent admission to the Diet. The most powerful nobles and bishops ( Electors ) secured the exclusive privilege of voting to choose

810-610: The ruling of the Empire, although there were exceptions. Sometimes, when a prince wished to marry a lady of lower rank and have her share his title, the Emperor might elevate her to Imperial countess or even princess (often over the objections of his other family members), but this conferred upon her neither the same title nor rank borne by dynasts , nor did it, ipso facto , prevent the marriage from being morganatic . Liege lord Homage (/ˈhɒmɪdʒ/ or / oʊ ˈ m ɑː ʒ / ) (from Medieval Latin hominaticum , lit. "pertaining to

840-610: The subsequent German Empire as retaining their titles and rank above counts elevated by lesser sovereigns, even if their family had never held imperial immediacy within the Empire. A comital or other title granted by a German sovereign conferred, in principle, rank only in that sovereign's realm, although usually recognised as a courtesy title elsewhere. Titles granted by Habsburg rulers in their capacity as Kings of Hungary, Archdukes or Emperors of Austria were not thereby Reichsgrafen , nor ranked with comparable precedence even post-1806. Titular imperial counts usually had no role in

870-407: The title of Duke of Richelieu to pass to the son of his half-sister Simplicie, wife of Antoine-Pierre Chapelle, Marquis de Jumilhac, with reversion to the descendants of his younger brother should he die without a male heir, thus effectively passing the title to his nephew. The title became extinct in 1952 upon the death of the 8th Duke of Richelieu, Marie Odet Jean Armand Chapelle de Jumilhac, son of

900-730: The votes of 99 families to the Diet's Reichsfürstenrat : By the Treaty of Lunéville of 1800, princely domains west of the Rhine River were annexed to France , including imperial counts. In the Final Recess of the Imperial Delegation of 1803 , those deemed to have resisted the French were compensated with secularized Church lands and free cities . Some of the counts, such as Aspremont-Lynden , were generously compensated. Others, such as Leyen , were denied compensation due to failure to resist

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