Bismarck was created Graf von Bismarck-Schönhausen (" Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen ") in 1865 ; this comital title is borne by all his descendants in the male line.

The junior line are currently the comital branch of the family who holds the title Earl Spencer.

In 1736, the extinction of the comital line of Hanau meant the condominium share was inherited by the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, who acquired the Palatinate's share ten years later.

With the extinction of the comital line of the House of Sponheim in 1414, the lordship of Kreuznach was divided between the counts of Veldenz, the Margrave of Baden and the County Palatine of Simmern.

Independence was maintained until the extinction of the comital line in 1494, when the county was inherited by the county of Spiegelberg.

The last of this comital line was Rudolf of Rheinfelden, Duke of Swabia ( 1057 – 79 ) and German antiking ( 1077 – 80 ) during the Investiture Controversy.

The last male of the comital line was Ottokar, Count zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg ( 1911-1995 ).

The count palatine in Bavaria, an office held by the family of Wittelsbach, became duke of this land, the lower comital title being then merged into the higher ducal one.

The comital branch became extinct in 1943, as Christopher Paus did not have children.

On February 25, 1710, aged 48, he became the third Russian ever to be elevated to the comital dignity.

His first recorded act, a monastic gift in 1094, became the oldest document of the comital archive.

In the 17th century it became the general style borne by the heads of the reigning princely states of the empire ( reichsständische Fürsten ), as Erlaucht by those of the comital houses ( reichsständische Grafen, i. e. Counts of the Empire ).

King Louis XV, dissatisfied with Clement XIII's action in regard to the Duke of Parma, occupied the Papal States from 1768 to 1774 and substituted French institutions for those in force with the approval of the people of Avignon ; a French party grew up which, after the sanguinary massacres of La Glacière between the adherents of the Papacy and the Republicans ( 16 – 17 October 1791 ), carried all before it, and induced the Constituent Assembly to decree the union of Avignon and the Comtat ( comital district ) Venaissin with France on 14 September 1791.

His son Berthold II, who like his father fought against Henry IV, inherited a lot of the lands of Rudolf's son Count Berthold of Rheinfelden in 1090 ( though not his comital title, that stayed with the family von Wetter-Rheinfelden ) and in 1092 was elected Duke of Swabia against Frederick I of Hohenstaufen.

The arms are displayed with a Finnish comital coronet.

A Mormaerdom was not simply a regional lordship, it was a regional lordship with official comital rank.

It was composed exclusively of the mediatized families of comital rank recognized as belonging, since 1825, to the same historical category and sharing some of the same privileges as reigning dynasties by the various states of the German Confederation ; these families were German with a few exceptions ( e. g. Bentinck, Rechteren-Limpurg ).

While non-mediatized German and Austrian families ( e. g. Lichnowsky, Wrede ), were likewise relocated from the almanac's second to its third section, the second section's new preponderance of German families, princely and comital, which were henceforth recognized as possessing the exclusive privilege of inter-marriage with reigning dynasties was salient.

Similarly, Counts and Lords were grouped into four comital benches with a collective vote each — the Upper Rhenish Bench of Wetterau, the Swabian Bench, the Franconian Bench and the Westphalian Bench.

Though the Counts of Ortenburg-formerly Ortenberg-emerged in the 12th century as a cadet branch of the Rhenish House of Sponheim ( Spanheim ) who then ruled over the Duchy of Carinthia, an affiliation with the Carinthian Ortenburger comital family is unverifiable.

The acquisition of Nienburg led to a long-time conflict with the Bishops of Minden, who suspiciously eyed the steep rise of their comital neighbours.

Having been restituted in his comital title and invested with the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, Vieira died in 1745.

Holstein on the other hand, after the death of Adolphus IV in 1261, was split up into several countships by his sons and again by his grandsons ( 1290 ): the lines of Holstein-Kiel ( 1261 – 1390 ), Holstein-Pinneberg and Schaumburg ( 1290 – 1640 ) south of the Elbe, Holstein-Plön ( 1290 – 1350 ), Holstein-Rendsburg ( 1290 – 1459 ), and at times also Holstein-Itzehoe ( 1261 – 1290 ) and Holstein-Segeberg ( 1273 – 1315 ), and again 1397 – 1403 ), all named after the comital residential cities.

The famous missi dominici oversaw the work of comital ( counts ') and episcopal notaries, who, under Louis the Pious, were drawn specifically from the noble class.

The Lords of Sanneck Castle were elevated to comital status by Emperor Louis IV in 1341 at Munich, and received the title Cylie or Cilli derived from name of the Celje Castle in Lower Styria.

* Charles, Count of Artois, Duke of Berry ( 1757 – 1836 ), younger brother of Louis XVI, was given the duchy of Berry in 1776, but he continued to be known by his comital title.

* Gottfried ( 1361 – 1362 ), nephew, son of John of Heinsberg, married Philippa, daughter of Count William V of Jülich, also Count of Chiny and Lord of Heinsberg, sold the comital title to:

While most of Istria had gradually been annexed by Venice, Engelbert's descendant Count Albert III of Gorizia in 1374 bequested his Mitterburg estates to the Austrian House of Habsburg, who attached them to their Duchy of Carniola and gave it out in fief to various families, the last of which was the comital House of Montecuccoli from 1766.

The comital estates of Bleiburg Castle were seized by the Habsburg dukes Albert III and Leopold III in 1369, the settlement received town privileges the next year.

# Families of Swedish origin which were granted noble status and / or titles by a foreign country ( for example, members of the House of Bernadotte have been granted Luxembourgish comital titles ).

In 1877, the mediatized comital families were moved from section III to section II A, where they joined the princely mediatized families.

Although theoretically mediatized families were distinguished from Europe's other nobility by the former status of their territories as Reichsstand and their exercise within the Holy Roman Empire of " semi-sovereignty " or imperial immediacy ( Reichsunmittelbarkeit ), many Standesherr families, especially those bearing the comital title, had not been fully recognized as legally possessing immediate status within the Empire prior to its collapse in 1806.

The Flemish comital House of Dampierre had been French vassals, who held territory around the affluent cities of Bruges and Ghent, but also adjacent lands in former Lower Lorraine east of the Scheldt river (" Imperial Flanders ") including the exclave of Mechelen, which were a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, and furthermore the neighbouring French County of Artois.

There were two of these comital commanders, for the horse-viz.

He and his family were registered to the Swedish House of Knights as its sixth comital family.

Because Vasaborg was outside of Swedish dominions, and the house's comital rank and titles were granted by the Holy Roman Empire, this Swedish royal declaration had very little effect in reality.

Charles grew up at the comital court of his grandfather Robert I and uncle Robert II.

Risen as vassals of the Habsburg dynasty, at the time the comital house died out they held the rank of immediate counts ( Reichsgrafen ) and Princes of the Holy Roman Empire as well as many other titles in territories of present-day Central Europe.

Since the 11th century, the ancestral seat of the comital family had been at Schwarzburg Castle, though after 1340, for most of its existence as a polity had the capital at the larger town of Rudolstadt.

Esterházy, the scion of a comital branch of the Esterházy magnate family, is perhaps best known outside of his native country for Celestial Harmonies ( Harmonia Caelestis, 2000 ) which chronicles his forefathers ' epic rise during the Austro-Hungarian empire – when Haydn composed music at the family palace – to its dispossession under communism.

The Douglas family was introduced in the 17th century at Riddarhuset under number 19 among families of comital status.

They are listed in full for the beginning of the fifth century in the Notitia dignitatum, and a schematic map of comital military posts in English translation is available at the Friesian project.