Raugraves
German noble family
The Raugraves were a German noble family, which had its center of influence in the former Nahegau. They descended from the Emichones (Counts of Nahegau).
History
First family in the 12th until 15th centuries
The family of the Raugraves (the "Rough Counts") were descended from a division of the Wildgraves (the "Wild Counts") around 1148 (heirs of the Emichones). The first Raugrave was Emich I (ca. 1128-1172), second son of the Wildgrave Emich VI and brother of Wildgrave Konrad. Perhaps on account of the rough and mountainous quality of his lordships Emich named himself Raugrave (German: Raugraf; Latin: comes hirsutus; with the first part of the term "Rau" meaning "raw," undeveloped land plus the common Germanic title -graf, with a similar connotation to Wildgrave -Waldgraf - a ruler over a "wild," - Wald, forest - densely wooded area). The second line originated from a first heritage division of the county in Nahegau in 1113 was that of the Counts of Veldenz. The family seat (Stammburg) of the Raugraves was the Baumburg near the present-day village of Altenbamberg south of Bad Münster am Stein, which was built before 1146.
The sons of Raugrave Emich II divided his possessions, thus establishing the Stolzenberger and Baumburger lines. In 1253 the New Baumburg (Neubamberg) rose as the seat of a further line and the Stolzenberg line died out with Raugrave Wilhelm in 1358.
“Raugraves” enters the record as german noble family. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Raugraves, German and noble can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q833360. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1148, 1128, 1172 and 1113.
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This entry incorporates text from “Raugraves” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.