The German term is "Durchlaucht", a translation of the Latin "(su)perillustris". This is usually translated into English as "Serene Highness", however, it would be more literal to translate it as "superior to, above, beyond or greater than illustrious", as it is an augmentation of "Erlaucht" ("illustrious"), which was accorded to immediate counts ("Reichsgrafen") of the Holy Roman Empire and by mediatised counts of the German Confederation and the German Empire. The 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica wryly observes that a perfectly logical English version might be "Your Transparency".