Burgrave

A burgrave is a count of a castle or fortified town. The English form is derived through the French from the German "Burggraf" and Dutch) "burg-" or "burch-graeve" (Mediaeval Latin language "burcgravius" or "burgicomes").

*The title is originally equivalent to that of castellan ( _la. castellanus) or "châtelain", meaning keeper of a castle and/or fortified town (both can be called Burg in German, burg in Dutch).
*In Germany, owing to the peculiar conditions of the Holy Roman Empire, though the office of burgrave had become a sinecure by the end of the 13th century, the title, as borne by feudal nobles having the status of Reichsfürst (Prince of the Empire), obtained a quasi-princely significance.

It was still included among the subsidiary titles of several German (semi-)sovereign princes; and the king of Prussia, whose ancestors were burgraves of Nuremberg for over 200 years, maintained the additional style of "Burggraf von Nürnberg".
* In the Low countries, the rank of "burggraaf" developed into the nobiliary equivalent of a viscount (see that article).
*In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1795), the office was of senatorial rank (i.e. entitled to a seat in the upper chamber of the "sejm" or diet); with the exception of their primus, the "burgrabia" of the former capital Cracow, the castellans were deputies of the (equally senatorial) provincial "voivode".

References

(incomplete)
*1911