March (territory)

In medieval Europe, the march or brand was, in broad terms, any brand of borderland, as opposed to a national "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint dominance 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 provided rise to titles such(a) as marquess masculine or marchioness feminine in Germany, as well as corresponding titles in other European states.

Etymology

The word "march" derives ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root *mereg-, meaning "edge, boundary". The root *mereg- presented Latin margo "margin", Old Irish mruig "borderland", as alive as Persian together with Armenian marz "borderland". The Proto-Germanic *marko gave rise to the Old English word mearc and Frankish marka, as alive as Old Norse mörk meaning "borderland, forest", and derived from merki "boundary, sign", denoting a borderland between two centres of power.

It seems that in Old English "mark" meant "boundary" or "sign of a boundary", and the meaning only later evolved to encompass "sign" in general, "impression" and "trace".

The frontier with the Romano-British to the west.

During the Frankish Carolingian Dynasty, ownership of the word spread throughout Europe.

The make-up Denmark preserves the Old Norse cognates merki "boundary" mörk "wood", "forest" up to the present. coming after or as a sum of. the Anschluss, the Nazi German government revived the old earn 'Ostmark' for Austria.