GRAF, the German equivalent for count (q.v.), comte, comes, and for our earl (q.v.). The etymology of the word is disputed, but the most probable conjecture seems to be that it springs from the same root with the modern German ratfen and the Anglo-Saxon reafan, to snatch or carry off hastily; and also with our words rem, Breve, and the last syllable of sheriff. If this view be correct, the graf, in all probability, was originally a fiscal officer, whose duty it was to collect the revenue of a district. The title first appears in the lex salica (compiled in the 5th c.) under the Latinized form of grafio; at a later period, the office is often designated by the Latin equivalent of comes. Charle magne divided his whole kingdom into graf-districts (grafengaue) or counties, each of which was presided ,over by a graf. The people were in the habit of appointing a representative called the to attend to their interests with the graf, and proba bly, if. necessary, to appeal from his decisions to the central government. Then there was the or stable graf; the comes stabuli, or constable of later times; the pfalz graf (comes palatit) who presided in the domestic court of the monarch, which as such was the highest court in the realm; the who was sent as an extraordinary deputy of the king to control the ordinary and lastly, the or marquis, on whom the important duty of defending the border-lands devolved. When
feudal officers became hereditary, and the.power of the princes of the empire, secular and ecclesiastical, developed itself, the graf gradually ceased to be an officer possessed of real power, and became merely a titled noble. In Germany, in modern times, there are two classes of grafs: those who are representatives of the old grafel families, who held sovereign jurisdiction immediately under the crown (londe:dolled), and who still belong to the higher nobility, their chief taking the title•Erlaucht (illustrious); and those who form the highest class of the lower nobility. The former is a very small, the latter, an extremely numerous class of persons.