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Count

Nobility title in European countries

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Count
Johan Erik Lindh · Public domain

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The title of count is typically not used in England or English-speaking countries, with the equivalent title earl used instead. As a feminine form of earl never developed, the female equivalent countess is retained.

Origin of the term

The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative form comitem. In Latin, which continued to be used throughout the Middle Ages, the word literally meant "companion" or "attendant", and as a title it indicated that someone was delegated to represent the ruler.

In the late Roman Empire, the Latin title comes denoted the high rank of various courtiers and provincial officials, either military or administrative. Before Anthemius became emperor in the West in 467, he was a military comes charged with strengthening defenses on the Danube frontier.

In the Western Roman Empire, "count" came to indicate generically a military commander but was not a specific rank. In the Eastern Roman Empire, from about the seventh century, "count" was a specific rank indicating the commander of two centuriae (i.e., 200 men).

The medieval title of comes was, as in the Roman empire, originally not hereditary. It was regarded as an administrative official dependent on the king, until the process of allodialisation during the 9th century in which such titles came to be private possessions of noble families. By virtue of their large estates, many counts could pass the title to their heirs—but not always. For instance, in Piast Poland, the position of komes was not hereditary, resembling the early Merovingian institution. The title had disappeared by the era of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the office had been replaced by others. Only after the Partitions of Poland did the title of "count" resurface in the title hrabia, derived from the German Graf.

In the Frankish kingdoms in the early Middle Ages, a count might also be a count palatine, whose authority derived directly over a royal household, a palace in its original sense of the seat of power and administration. This other kind of count had vague antecedents in Late Antiquity too: the father of Cassiodorus held positions of trust with Theodoric, as comes rerum privatarum, in charge of the imperial lands, then as comes sacrarum largitionum ("count of the sacred doles"), concerned with the finances of the realm.

Land attached to title

It is only after some time that the continental medieval title came to be strongly associated with the ownership of and jurisdiction over specific lands, which led to evolution of the term county to refer to specific regions. The English term county, used as an equivalent to the English term shire, is derived from the Old French conté or cunté which denoted the jurisdiction of a French count or viscount. The modern French is comté, and its equivalents in other languages are contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, etc. (cf. conte, comte, conde, Graf). The title of Count also continued to exist in cases which are not connected to any specific to a geographical "county".

In the United Kingdom, the equivalent "Earl" can also be used as a courtesy title for the eldest son of a duke or marquess. In the Italian states, by contrast, all the sons of certain counts were little counts (contini). In Sweden there is a distinction between counts (Swedish: greve) created before and after 1809. All children in comital families elevated before 1809 were called count/countess. In families elevated after 1809, only the head of the family was called count, the rest have a status similar to barons and were called by the equivalent of "Mr/Ms/Mrs", before the recognition of titles of nobility was abolished.

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