Marches
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{{otheruses|March (disambiguation)}}
'''Mark''' from the [[Old English]] ''mearc'' and '''march''' (or various plural forms of these words) derived from the [[Old Frankish|Frankish]] word ''marka'' ("boundary")<ref name=mark>http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mark</ref>, refer to a border region, e.g. the borderland between England and Wales, similar to a [[frontier]]. During the Frankish [[Carolingian Dynasty]], the word spread throughout Europe. In contrast to a [[buffer zone]], a march could be dominated by a country, and rather than being [[Demilitarized zone|demilitarized]], it could be fortified for defense against the neighbouring country.
Although a march generally circumscribed the same or similar land area as a [[county]], it held its distinction from a normal [[county]] due to its more important position at the border of the [[state]]. A march was ruled over by a [[Marquess]] ([[English language|English]] pronunciation) or a [[Marquis]] ([[French language|French]] or [[Scottish language|Scottish]] pronunciation), or nobles with corresponding titles in the other [[Europe]]an states. (The equivalent feminine titles of ''marchioness'' and ''marquise'' respectively may be used by the wife of a titleholder or by a woman holding the rank in her own right.) In comparison, regular counties were ruled over by [[counts]].
The name of [[Denmark]] preserves the memory of the Old Norse cognates ''merki'' ("boundary") ''mörk'' ("wood", "forest"), up to the present.
A sense of the dangerous "otherness" of the marches, where the king's writ did not run, as seen from the secure cultural homeground in [[Hall|feasting hall]] or [[palace]], is suggested in ''[[Beowulf]]'' by the lakeside marsh of the monstrous [[Grendel]]: "the fell and fen his fastness was, the march his haunt".
See also: [[List of marches]]
==Etymology==
The Frankish word ''marka'' and the Old English word ''mearc'' both come from [[Proto-Germanic]] ''*marko''<ref name=mark/>, which itself comes from the [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] root *''mereg-'', meaning "edge, boundary". The root *''mereg-'' gave [[Armenian language|Armenian]] ''marz'' ("border, land"), [[Latin]] ''margo'' ("margin"), [[Old Irish]] ''mruig'' ("borderland"), [[Persian language|Persian]] ''marz'' ("border, land") and [[Norse language|Norse]] ''mörk'' ("borderland, forest"). It seems in [[Old English language|Old English]] "mark" meant "boundary", or "sign of a boundary", and the meaning later evolved into "sign in general", "impression or trace forming a sign". The word "march" in the sense of borderland was borrowed from [[French language|French]] ''marche'', which had borrowed it from Frankish. The word "mark" in the sense of borderland is a modern borrowing{{Fact|date=April 2008}} from [[German language|German]] ''Mark'', though in some cases it is simply short for [[Markgraf]]schaft.
==By region==
===[[Armenia]]===
The specific [[subdivisions of Armenia]] are each called ''Marz'', possibly a loanword from Persian into Armenian or an Armenian loanword into Persian.
===[[Azerbaijan]]===
The national anthem of Azerbaijan is "The March of Azerbaijan." The land belonging to today's nation was in the 19th century [[Russia]]'s march bordering [[Iran]], the nation which remains the ruler of two-thirds of the Azeri population.
===The [[Balkans]]===
See [[Krajina]] and [[Military Frontier]].
===[[Spain]]===
* See [[Marca Hispanica]] also known as the "Hispanic Marches"
Beyond the province of [[Septimania]], after some early setbacks, [[Charlemagne]]'s son [[Louis the Pious|Louis]] took Barcelona from the [[Moors|Moorish]] emir in 801. Thus he established a foothold in the borderland between the Franks and the Moors. The Carolingian "Hispanic Marches" (''[[Marca Hispanica|Marca Hispánica]]'') became a buffer zone ruled by the [[Count of Barcelona]], with its own outlying small separate territories, each ruled by a lesser ''miles'' with armed retainers, who theoretically owed allegiance through the Count to the Emperor, or with less fealty to his Carolingian and Ottonian successors. Each was the ''catlá'' ("castellan" or lord of the castle) in an area largely defined by a day's ride, the region dotted with strongholds becoming known by them, like Castile at a later date, as "Catalunya." Counties in the [[Pyrenees]] that appeared in the 9th century as [[appanage]]s of the counts of Barcelona included [[Cerdanya]], [[Girona]] and [[Urgell]].
In the early [[9th century]], Charlemagne issued his new kind of land grant the ''aprisio'', which redisposed land belonging to the Imperial ''[[fisc]]'' in deserted areas, and included special rights and immunities that resulted in a range of independence of action. Historians interpret the ''aprisio'' both as the basis of [[feudalism]] and in economic and military terms as a mechanism to entice settlers to a depopulated border region. Such self-sufficient landholders would aid the counts in providing armed men in defense of the Frankish [[frontier]]. ''Aprisio'' grants (the first ones were in [[Septimania]]) emanated directly from the Carolingian king, and they reinforced central loyalties, to counterbalance the local power exercised by powerful marcher counts.
But communications were arduous, and the power center was far away. Primitive [[feudal]] entities developed, self-sufficient and agrarian, each ruled by a small hereditary military elite. The sequence in Catalonia exhibits a pattern that emerges similarly in marches everywhere. The Count is appointed by the king (from 802), the appointment settles on the heirs of a strong count (Sunifred) and the appointment becomes a formality, until the position is declared hereditary (897) and then the County declares itself independent (by Borrell II in 985). At each stage the ''de facto'' situation precedes the ''de jure'' assertion, which merely regularizes an existing fact of life. This is [[feudalism]] in the larger landscape.
Certain of the Counts aspired to the characteristically Frankish (Germanic) title "[[Margrave]] of the Hispanic March, a "margrave" being a ''graf'' ("count") of the march.
The early [[History of Andorra]] provides a fairly typical career of another such buffer state, the only modern survivor in the Pyrenees of the Hispanic Marches. There the
*[http://libro.uca.edu/lewis/sfc5.htm Archibald R. Lewis, "The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718-1050"]
===[[Denmark]]===
* The march of the [[Danish people|Danes]].
===[[France]]===
The [[province of France]] called [[County of Marche|'''Marche''']] ([[Occitan]]: ''la Marcha''), sometimes ''Marche Limousine'', was originally a small border district partly of [[Limousin (province)|Limousin]] and partly of [[Poitou]].
Its area was increased during the [[13th century]] and remained the same until the [[French Revolution]]. Marche was bounded on the north by [[Berry (province)|Berry]], on the east by [[Bourbonnais]] and [[Auvergne (province)|Auvergne]]; on the south by Limousin itself and on the west by Poitou. It embraced the greater part of the modern ''[[département]]'' of [[Creuse]], a considerable part of the northern [[Haute-Vienne]], and a fragment of [[Indre]], up to [[Saint-Benoît-du-Sault]]. Its area was about 1900 m².; its capital was [[Charroux]] and later [[Guéret]], and among its other principal towns were [[Dorat]], [[Bellac]] and [[Confolens]].
Marche first appeared as a separate fief about the middle of the [[10th century]] when [[William III, duke of Aquitaine]], gave it to one of his vassals named [[Boso]], who took the title of [[count]]. In the [[12th century]] it passed to the family of [[Lusignan]], sometime also counts of Angouleme [[counts of Limousin]], until the death of the childless [[Count Hugh]] in [[1303]], when it was seized by King [[Philip IV of France|Philip IV]]. In [[1316]] it was made an [[appanage]] for his youngest son the Prince, afterwards King [[Charles IV of France|Charles IV]] and a few years later ([[1327]]) it passed into the hands of the [[family of Bourbon]]. The family of [[Armagnac (party)|Armagnac]] held it from [[1435]] to [[1477]], when it reverted to the Bourbons, and in [[1527]] it was seized by King [[Francis I of France|Francis I]] and became part of the domains of the French crown. It was divided into Haute-Marche (i.e. "Upper Marche") and Basse-Marche (i.e. "Lower Marche"), the estates of the former being in existence until the [[17th century]]. From [[1470]] until the Revolution the province was under the jurisdiction of the ''[[parlement]]'' of [[Paris]].
See [[County of Marche]].
{{1911}}
Several communes of France are named similarly:
* [[Marches, Drôme]] in the [[Drôme]] ''département''
* [[La Marche, Nièvre|La Marche]] in the [[Nièvre]] ''département''
===[[Germany]] and [[Austria]]===
The Germanic tribes that Romans called [[Marcomanni]], who battled the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries were simply the "men of the borderlands."
'''Marches''' were territorial organisations created as borderlands in the [[Carolingian Empire]] and had a long career as purely conventional designations under the [[Holy Roman Empire]]. In modern German, "Mark" denotes a piece of land that historically was a borderland, as in the following names:
*[[Mark (county)|Mark]], a medieval territory that is recalled in the [[Märkischer Kreis]] district (formed in 1975) of today's [[North Rhine-Westphalia]]. The northern portion (north of the [[Lippe River]]) is still called '''Hohe Mark''' ("Higher Mark"). The former "Lower Mark" (between Ruhr and Lippe rivers) is the present [[Ruhr area]] and is no longer called "Mark". The title, in the form "Count of the Mark", survived the territory as a subsidiary title of the Dukes of [[Carl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha|Saxe-Coburg and Gotha]]
*"[[Ostmark]]" a modern rendition of the term ''marchia orientalis'' used in Carolingian documents referring to the area of [[Lower Austria]] that was later a ''markgraftum'' ([[Margrave|margraviate]] or "county of the mark"): see the main article [[Ostmark]].
*[[Altmark]], between [[Hamburg]] and [[Magdeburg]]
*[[Northern March|Nordmark]], the "Northern March", the [[Ottonian empire]]'s territorial organisation on the conquered areas of the [[Wends]]. In [[1134]], in the wake of a German crusade against the Wends, the German magnate [[Albert the Bear]] was granted the [[Northern March]] by the [[Holy Roman Empire|Holy Roman Emperor]] [[Lothar II, Holy Roman Emperor|Lothar II]].
*[[Margraviate of Brandenburg|Mark Brandenburg]], an area north of Berlin. Today it is used to refer to the state of [[Brandenburg]]
*[[Neumark (region)|Neumark]], a region created by Brandenburg on the border between Pomerania and Great Poland.
*[[Styria (duchy)|Steiermark (Styria)]], the [[margrave|margraviate]] ("border county") of Styria was established under Charlemagne from a part of [[Carantania]] ([[Carinthia (duchy)|Carinthia]]), erected as a border territory against the [[Eurasian Avars|Avars]] and Slavs.
===[[Hungary]]===
In medieval Hungary the system of ''gyepű'' and ''gyepűelve'', effective until the mid-[[13th century]], can be considered as marches even though in its organisation it shows major differences from Western European feudal marches. For one thing, the ''gyepű'' was not controlled by a Marquess.
The ''Gyepű'' was a strip of land that was specially fortified or made impassable, while ''gyepűelve'' was the mostly uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land beyond it. The ''gyepűelve'' is much more comparable to modern [[buffer zone]]s than traditional European marches.
The portions of the ''gyepű'' was usually guarded by tribes who joined the Hungarian nation and were granted special rights for their services at the borders, such as the [[Szeklers]], [[Pechenegs]] and [[Cumans]]. These ethnic groups merged into the Hungarian [[ethnicity]] and identity also taking up the [[Hungarian language]] at different times ranging from as before the tenth century (the [[Szeklers]]) to as late as thew seventeenth century (some [[Cumans]]).
===[[Italy]]===
{{Expand-section|date=June 2008}}
:''For the modern Italian region, see [[Marche]].''
From the Carolingian period onwards the name ''marca'' begins to appear in Italy, first the Marca Fermana for the mountainous part of [[Picenum]], the Marca Camerinese for the district farther north, including a part of [[Umbria]], and the Marca Anconitana for the former [[Pentapolis]] ([[Ancona]]). In 1080, the ''marca Anconitana'' was given in investiture to [[Robert Guiscard]] by [[pope Gregory VII]], to whom the [[Matilda of Tuscany|Countess Matilda]] ceded the marches of [[Camerino]] and [[Fermo]]. In 1105, the [[Emperor Henry IV]] invested [[Werner II of Spoleto|Werner]] with the whole territory of the three marches, under the name of the [[March of Ancona]]. It was afterwards once more recovered by the Church and governed by papal legates as part of the [[Papal States]]. The Marche became part of the [[Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)|kingdom of Italy]] in 1860.
''Marche'' were repeated on a miniature level, fringing many of the small territorial states of pre-[[Risorgimento]] Italy with a ring of smaller dependencies on their borders, which represent territorial ''marche'' on a small scale. A map of the [[Duchy of Mantua]] in 1702 (Braudel 1984, fig 26) reveals the independent, though socially and economically dependent arc of small territories from the principality of [[Castiglione]] in the northwest across the south to the duchy of [[Mirandola]] southeast of [[Mantua]]: the lords of [[Bozzolo|Bozolo]], [[Sabbioneta|Sabioneta]], [[Dosolo]], [[Guastalla]], the count of [[Novellara|Novellare]].
===[[Japan]]===
The European concept of ''marches'' applies just as well to the fief of [[Matsumae]] on the southern tip of Hokkaidō which was at Japan's northern border with the [[Ainu people]] of [[Hokkaidō]], known as [[Ezo]] at the time. In [[1590]], this land was granted to the Kakizaki clan, who took the name Matsumae from then on. The Lords of Matsumae, as they are sometimes called, were exempt from owing rice to the [[shogun]] in tribute, and from the ''[[sankin kotai]]'' system established by [[Tokugawa Ieyasu]], under which most lords (''[[daimyo]]'') had to spend half the year at court (in the capital of [[Edo]]).
By guarding the border, rather than conquering/colonizing Ezo, the Matsumae, in essence, made the majority of the island an Ainu reservation. This also meant that Ezo, and the [[Kurile Islands]] beyond, were left essentially open to Russian colonization. However, the Russians never did colonize Hokkaidō/Ezo, and the marches were officially eliminated during the [[Meiji Restoration]] in the late 19th century, when the Ainu came under Japanese control, and Ezo was renamed Hokkaidō, and annexed to Japan.
===China===
''See [[Great Wall of China]] and [[Willow Palisade]]''
===[[History of Norway|Norway]]===
In Norse, "mark" meant "borderlands" and "forest", while it in present-day Norwegian has adapted the meaning "wilderness" or "forest".
The Norwegian county [[Finnmark]], "the borderlands (or, the [[forest]]s) of the [[Sami people|Sami]]" (known to the [[Norsemen|Norse]] as ''Finns''). Also, [[Hedmark]] ("the borderlands of [[heath]]") and [[Telemark]] ("the borderlands of the Þela tribe" <ref>[http://www.slekt.org/books/aars/1918tele_gren.htm] Navnet Telemark og Grenland (The name Telemark and Grenland) by Alexander Bugge, 1918</ref>).
The forests surrounding Norwegian cities are often called "marka" - the marches, e.g. the forests surrounding [[Oslo]] are called Nordmarka, Østmarka and Vestmarka - i.e. the northern, eastern and western marches.
[[Markland]] was the [[Old Norse language|Norse]] name of an area in [[North America]] discovered by Norwegian [[Viking]]s.
===Persia ([[Sassanid Empire]])===
See also مرزبان [[Marzban]].
===Roman Empire===
''See [[Limes Romanus]]''
===Russia===
''See [[Wild Fields]] and [[Cossacks]]''
===[[United Kingdom]]===
:''See [[Welsh Marches]] and [[Scottish Marches]].''
The name of the [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] kingdom in the midlands of England was [[Mercia]]. The name "Mercia" comes from the [[Old English]] for "boundary folk", and the traditional interpretation was that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the [[Welsh people|Welsh]] and the Anglo-Saxon invaders, although P. Hunter Blair has argued an alternative interpretation that they emerged along the frontier between the Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria and the inhabitants of the [[River Trent]] valley.
Latinizing the Anglo-Saxon term ''mearc'', the border areas between England and Wales were collectively known as the [[Welsh Marches]] (''marchia Wallia''), while the native Welsh lands to the west were considered Wales Proper (''pura Wallia''). The [[Normans|Norman]] lords in the Welsh Marches were to become the new [[Marcher Lord]]s.
The title '''[[Earl of March]]''' is at least two distinct [[Feudalism|feudal title]]s: one, created 1328, held by the powerful border families of [[Mortimer]] (in the [[Peerage of England]]), in the west [[Welsh Marches]] and one, [[Dunbar]], in the northern marches (in the [[Peerage of Scotland]]).
The [[Scottish Marches]] is a term for the border regions on both sides of the border between England and Scotland. From the [[Norman conquest]] of England until the reign of [[King James VI of Scotland]], who also became [[King James I of England]], border clashes were common and the monarchs of both countries relied on [[Marcher Lords]] to defend the frontier areas known as the Marches. They were hand-picked for their suitability for the challenges the responsibilities presented.
[[Patrick Dunbar, 8th Earl of Dunbar]], a descendant of the [[Earls of Northumbria]] was recognized in the end of 13th century to use the name March as his earldom in Scotland, otherwise known as Dunbar, Lothian, and Northumbrian border.
[[Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March]], [[Regent]] of England during the minority of [[Edward III of England|Edward III]] and usurper who had supplanted Edward II, was created an earl 1328. He was married to Joan of Joinville, whose mother was one of the heiresses of French Counts of La Marche and Lusignan. His family, [[Mortimer]] Lords of [[Wigmore]], had been border lords and leaders of defenders of Welsh marches for centuries. He selected ''March'' as the name of his earldom for several reasons: Welsh marches referred to several counties, whereby the title signified superiority compared to usual single county-based earldoms. Mercia was an ancient kingdom. His wife's ancestors had been Counts of March in France.
==Titles==
* [[Marquis]], Marchese and [[Margrave]] (''markgraf'') all had their origins in feudal lords who held trusted positions in the borderlands. The English title was a foreign importation from France, tested out tentatively in 1385 by [[Richard II of England|Richard II]], but not naturalized until the mid 15th century, and now more often spelled "[[marquess]]."<ref>The styling ''marquis'' or ''marquess'' is a peculiarity of each title.</ref>
==See also==
* [[List of marches]]
* [[Separation barrier]]
* [[Royal and noble ranks]]
* [[Nobility]]
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
{{Types of administrative country subdivision}}
[[Category:Administrative divisions]]
[[Category:Marquesses]]
[[de:Grenzmark]]
[[fr:Marche (juridiction)]]
[[it:Marca (circoscrizione)]]
[[nl:Mark (gebied)]]
[[pl:Marchia]]
[[pt:Marca de fronteira]]
[[ro:Marcă]]
[[ru:Марка (административно-территориальная единица)]]
[[sr:Марка (погранична област)]]