Graf - Rhinegrave, Wildgrave, Raugrave, Altgrave

Rhinegrave, Wildgrave, Raugrave, Altgrave

Unlike the other comital titles, Rhinegrave, Wildgrave (Waldgrave), Raugrave, and Altgrave are not generic titles. Rather, each is linked to one specific, historic countship. By rank, these unusually named counts were equivalent to other Counts of the Empire of Uradel status, i.e. they possessed Imperial immediacy, ranked as Hochadel, and would be mediatised upon dissolution of the Empire in 1806.

• "Rhinegrave" (German: Rheingraf) was the title of the count of the Rheingau, a county located between Wiesbaden and Lorch on the right bank of the Rhine. Their castle was known as the Rheingrafenstein Castle. After the Rhinegraves inherited the Wildgraviate (see below) and parts of the Countship of Salm, they called themselves Wild- and Rhinegraves of Salm.
• When the Nahegau (a countship named after the river Nahe) split into two parts in 1113, the counts of the two parts, belonging to the House of Salm called themselves Wildgraves and Raugraves, respectively. They were named after the geographic properties of their territories: Wildgrave (German: Wildgraf; Latin: comes sylvanus), after Wald ("forest") and Raugrave (German: Raugraf; Latin: comes hirsutus), after the rough (i.e. mountainous) terrain.
• The first Raugrave was Count Emich I (died 1172). The dynasty died out in the 18th century. Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine purchased the estates, and after 1667 accorded the wife and children of his arguably bigamous (morganatic) second marriage to Baroness Marie Luise von Degenfeld, the title of "Raugravine/Raugrave".
• Altgrave (German: Altgraf, "old count") was a title used by the counts of Lower Salm to distinguish themselves from the Wild- and Rhinegraves of Upper Salm, since Lower Salm was the senior branch of the family.