Palatine

In the Early Middle Ages the title became attached to courts beyond the imperial one; one of the highest level of officials in the papal administration were called the judices palatini.

But its spelling slightly changed in European languages: Latin palatinus, plural palatini was still an office in Merovingian times, today referred to as the Count Palatine.

[4] The word palatinus and its derivatives also translate the titles of certain great functionaries in eastern Europe, such as the Slavic voivode, a military governor of a province.

On the same hill lived the members of the older of two schools of the ancient Salii brotherhood of God of War Mars, which had some symbolism in common with that of the imperial palace.

The most important of these was the comes palatinus, the count palatine, who in Merovingian and Carolingian times (5th through 10th century) was an official of the sovereign's household, in particular of his court of law in the imperial palaces (see kaiserpfalz).

Under the German kings of the Saxon and Salian dynasties (10th to 12th century), the function of the counts palatine corresponded to those of the missi dominici at the Carolingian Court.

They had various tasks: representatives of the king in the provinces, they were responsible for the administration of the royal domain and for protecting and guiding the legal system in certain duchies, such as Saxony and Bavaria, and, in particular, Lotharingia.

[9] And although with tongue in cheek, legal historian John Phillip Reid once asked if the Hudson's Bay Company jurisdiction of "Rupert's Land can be analogized to a county palatine".