Herzog

Germany had its herzogs and landgrafs, each of whom had his territories, where he ruled, “monarch of all he surveyed.”

He was a herzog, going to meet the Queen of England; stopped for the slightest possible refreshment—a glass of Rhenish and a biscuit—and going on at once.

You may luxuriate through the smoke on apparitions of dainty German damsels; or, if you are of a chivalrous temperament, on brightly-tinted herzogs and burgraves, performing noble feats of arms; or, if your taste leads you further back to the antique, the gods of peace are not wanting to consecrate the pipe of peace.

Feudal nobles divided Europe into numerous principalities: Spain had some twenty or more little princedoms; Germany no small number of herzogs and landgraves; Portugal her nobility; England, though more consolidated than any other state yet mentioned, yet had many Earls, Dukes and Counts, who bore an almost kingly rule over their narrow possessions.

It therefore follows that only those families of the high nobility abroad, viz., the herzogs and a few landgraves in Germany, and in France the dukes and two or three of the feudatory comtes, can claim our peerage (dukes to barons) as equals, while the marquesses in France and the margraves and grafs of the Empire in Germany—if the latter are the titular chiefs of their families—are equal to our rank of baronet, the next rank (but without parliamentary seat) in England below the peerage; […]

The herzogs and the bishops hampered political independence, and the attempts of some German Carolingians to restore the empire fell through.