In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a state's "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which different laws might apply. In both of these senses, marches served a political purpose, such as providing warning of military incursions or regulating cross-border trade.
Marches gave rise to the titles marquess (masculine) or marchioness (feminine).
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The Welsh Marches (Welsh: Y Mers) is an imprecisely defined area along the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods.
The English term Welsh March (in Medieval Latin Marchia Walliae) was originally used in the Middle Ages to denote the marches between England and the Principality of Wales, in which Marcher lords had specific rights, exercised to some extent independently of the king of England. In modern usage, "the Marches" is often used to describe those English counties which lie along the border with Wales, particularly Shropshire and Herefordshire, and sometimes adjoining areas of Wales. However, at one time the Marches included all of the historic counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.
Telemark (pronounced [ˈtêːləmɑrk] ) is a county and a current electoral district in Norway. Telemark borders the counties of Vestfold, Buskerud, Vestland, Rogaland and Agder. In 2020, Telemark merged with the county of Vestfold to form the county of Vestfold og Telemark. On 1 January 2024, the county of Telemark was re-established after Vestfold og Telemark was divided again.
The name Telemark means the "mark of the Thelir", the ancient North Germanic tribe that inhabited what is now known as Upper Telemark in the Migration Period and the Viking Age.
Septimania is a historical region in modern-day southern France. It referred to the western part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed to the control of the Visigoths in 462, when Septimania was ceded to their king, Theodoric II. During the Early Middle Ages, the region was variously known as Gallia Narbonensis, Gallia, or Narbonensis. The territory of Septimania roughly corresponds with the modern French former administrative region of Languedoc-Roussillon that merged into the new administrative region of Occitanie. In the Visigothic Kingdom, which became centred on Toledo by the end of the reign of Leovigild, Septimania was both an administrative province of the central royal government and an ecclesiastical province whose metropolitan was the Archbishop of Narbonne. Originally, the Goths may have maintained their hold on the Albigeois, but if so it was conquered by the time of Chilperic I. There is archaeological evidence that some enclaves of Visigothic population remained in Frankish Gaul, near the Septimanian border, after 507.
The region of Septimania was invaded by the Andalusian Muslims in 719, renamed as Arbūnah and turned into a military base for future operations by the Andalusian military commanders. It passed briefly to the Emirate of Córdoba, which had been expanding from the south during the same century, before its subsequent conquest by the Christian Franks in 759, who by the end of the 9th century renamed it as Gothia or the Gothic March (Marca Gothica). Eventually, the Christian Franks chased the Muslim Arabs and Berbers away from Septimania and conquered Narbonne in 759, and the Carolingian king Pepin the Short came up reinforced. Septimania became a march of the Carolingian Empire and then West Francia down to the 13th century, though it was culturally and politically autonomous from the northern France-based central royal government. The region was under the influence of the people from the count territories of Toulouse, Provence, and ancient County of Barcelona. It was part of the wider cultural and linguistic region comprising the southern third of France known as Occitania. This area was finally brought under effective control of the French kings in the early 13th century as a result of the Albigensian Crusade, after which it was assigned governors. From the end of the thirteenth century Septimania evolved into the royal province of Languedoc.
The terms Danish March and March of Schleswig (German: Dänische Mark or Mark Schleswig) are used to refer to a territory in modern-day Schleswig-Holstein north of the Eider and south of the Danevirke. It was established in the Early Middle Ages as a March of the Frankish Empire to defend against the Danes. The term "Danish March" is a modern designation not found in mediaeval sources. According to the Royal Frankish Annals, the Danish King led his troops "into the March" in 828 (ad marcam). In the 852 Yearbook of Fulda, there is mention of a "Guardian of the Danish Border" (custodes Danici limitis).
In Old Norse, Denmark was called Danmǫrk, viz. the marches of the Danes. The Latin name is Dania.
The Thelir or Thilir (Old Norse: Þilir; Norwegian Bokmål: teler; Norwegian Nynorsk: telar or teler) was a North Germanic tribe that inhabited the region now known as Upper Telemark in modern Norway during the Migration Period and the Viking Age. The region of Telemark, which originally only referred to Upper Telemark, was named after them, and means the "mark of the Thelir." The Thelir are mentioned in the Saga of Harald Fairhair by Snorri Sturluson, as one of the tribes who fought against Harald Fairhair in the Battle of Hafrsfjord.
Ostmark (German pronunciation: [ˈɔstmaʁk] , "Eastern March") was a name that referred historically to the Margraviate of Austria, a medieval frontier march. It was also used in Nazi propaganda from 1938 to 1942 to refer to the formerly independent Federal State of Austria after the Anschluss with Nazi Germany. From the Anschluss until 1939, the official name used was Land Österreich ("State of Austria").
Sussex in the High Middle Ages includes the history of Sussex from the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the death of John, King of England, considered by some to be the last of the Angevin kings of England, in 1216. It was during the Norman period that Sussex achieved its greatest importance in comparison with other English counties. Throughout the High Middle Ages, Sussex was on the main route between England and Normandy, and the lands of the Anglo-Norman nobility in what is now western France. The growth in Sussex's population, the importance of its ports and the increased colonisation of the Weald were all part of changes as significant to Sussex as those brought by the Neolithic period, by the Romans and the Saxons. Sussex also experienced the most radical and thorough reorganisation of land in England, as the Normans divided the county into five (later six) tracts of lands called rapes. Although Sussex may have been divided into rapes earlier in its history, under the Normans they were clearly administrative and fiscal units. Before the Norman Conquest Sussex had the greatest concentration of lands belonging to the family of Earl Godwin. To protect against rebellion or invasion, the scattered Saxon estates in Sussex were consolidated into the rapes as part of William the Conqueror's 'Channel march'.
This is a list of counts of Castile.
The County of Castile had its origin in a fortified march on the eastern frontier of the Kingdom of Asturias. The earliest counts were not hereditary, being appointed as representatives of the Asturian king. From as early as 867, with the creation of the County of Álava, Castile was subdivided into several smaller counties that were not reunited until 931. In the later 10th-century, while nominally in vassalage to the Kingdom of León, the counts grew in autonomy and played a significant role in Iberian politics. After the assassination in 1029 of Count García Sánchez of Castile, King Sancho III of Pamplona, because of his marriage to Muniadona, García's sister, governed the county although he never held the title of count: it was his son, Ferdinand Sánchez, the future King Ferdinand I of León who inherited the county from his mother.