Margraf

We may ridicule the inertness of the Turk, but how can we sufficiently express our contempt for a mighty emperor, and all the dukes and electors, princes and margrafs, kings and landgrafs of Germany?

When, therefore, the diet met on the banks of the Rhine, all the dukes, counts, and margrafs of the empire repaired thither, each at the head of a train of armed vassals who encamped on the plains, presenting the appearance of an army summoned to battle, rather than of a comitia assembled to choose a king.

Issue of these margrafs and of these knights, the Hohenzollern house owes much to both.

The margrafs Albrecht of Aschesleben (c.1170) and Otto I of Brandenburg (1170–84) are also distinguished by banners, the former receiving it from St Stephen, the patron of his Stift (monastery).