A Grafschaft was originally the name given to the administrative area in the Holy Roman Empire over which a count, or Graf, presided as judge.
As part of the court "under the king's ban" there was a bench of jurors made up of the nobility, the Schöffenbarfreien.
On the emergence of states in the Late Middle Ages, the acquisition and thus mediatisation of the counties by the territorial princes played an important role.
Not to be confused with Grafschaften are the Markgrafschaften ("margraviates"), Pfalzgrafschaften ("counties palatine") or Landgrafschaften ("landgraviates"), which had the same status as duchies.
The present-day German federal states of Brandenburg and Saxony were once margraviates; Thuringia and Hesse were landgraviates.