Vogt (redirected from Vögte)

Vogt 

in the Frankish kingdom of the Carolingians and later in medieval Germany and France, a lay official of the church who carried out judicial, police, and fiscal functions on his immune territory. As royal power weakened, the Vögte acquired greater independence, and the areas under their jurisdiction became fiefs; the Vögte thus acquired the right to receive part of the income from church holdings. In Germany, in addition to official Vögte there were Vögte who founded monasteries and had hereditary rights to church lands and judicial revenues; these large landowners concentrated the official powers of the Vögte in their own hands and used the powers to create principalities.