Duchy Of Austria

The Duchy of Austria (german: Herzogtum Österreich) was a medieval principality of the Holy Roman Empire, established in 1156 by the ''Privilegium Minus'', when the Margraviate of Austria (''Ostarrîchi'') was detached from Bavaria and elevated to a duchy in its own right. After the ruling dukes of the House of Babenberg became extinct in male line, there was as much as three decades of rivalry on inheritance and rulership, until the German king Rudolf I took over the dominion as the first monarch of the Habsburg dynasty in 1276. Thereafter, Austria became the patrimony and ancestral homeland of the dynasty and the nucleus of the Habsburg monarchy. In 1453, the archducal title of the Austrian rulers, invented by Duke Rudolf IV in the forged ''Privilegium Maius'' of 1359, was officially acknowledged by the Habsburg emperor Frederick III.

Geography

Initially, the duchy was comparatively small in area, roughly comprising the modern-day Austrian state of Lower Austria. As a former border march, it was located on the eastern periphery of the Empire, on the northern and southern shores of the Danube River, east of ("below") the Enns tributary.

Drosendorf, Raabs, Laa and other fortifications along the Thaya River, north of the historic Waldviertel and Weinviertel regions and separated by the Manhartsberg range, marked the border with the Duchy of Bohemia (elevated to a Kingdom in 1198) and the Moravian lands, both of which were held by the Czech Přemyslid dynasty. In the east, the Imperial border with the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Slovakia) had gradually shifted towards the plains of the Morava River and the eastern rim of the Vienna Basin. On the right shore of the Danube, the lower Leitha River marked the Imperial–Hungarian border for centuries. In the south, Austria bordered the Styrian lands which were likewise elevated to a duchy, and unified with Austria in 1192.

History

The territory originally inhabited by Celts was for centuries crossed in transit by several Germanic tribes and from the 6th century onwards settled by Avars as well as by Slavic tribes, who about 600 founded the independent principality of Carantania in the south. The Avar Khaganate established in 567 comprised most of the later Austrian march up to the Enns river, where it bordered on the German stem duchy of Bavaria. Temporarily part of Samo's Empire from 631 to 658, the territory was under constant attack by the Carolingian forces of Charlemagne from 791 onwards.

About 800 Charlemagne, having won several victories against the Avars, established a frontier march in the region between the Enns and Raab rivers, called the Avar March, part of the ''marcha orientalis''. The East Frankish margraviate was again lost to the invading Magyars at the 907 Battle of Pressburg, and re-established as the Bavarian March of Austria after King Otto I of Germany's victory at the 955 Battle of Lechfeld. In 976 Emperor Otto II enfeoffed the Babenberg count Leopold the Illustrious with the Austrian margraviate. A large-scale German settlement ('' Ostsiedlung'') along the Danube down to the border with Hungary followed, which ultimately disrupted the Slavic continuity between the West Slavic ( Slovak) and South Slavic ( Slovene) lands.

House of Babenberg

Although today closely associated with the Habsburg dynasty, Austria was, until 1246, a feudal possession of the younger House of Babenberg. Margrave Leopold the Generous (1136–1141) was a loyal vassal of the imperial House of Hohenstaufen in the struggle against the Bavarian Welf dynasty. In 1139, after King Conrad III of Germany deposed the Welf duke Henry the Proud, he gave the Bavarian duchy to his half-brother Margrave Leopold. Leopold's brother and successor Henry Jasomirgott was enfeoffed with Bavaria in 1141. In 1156 the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick Barbarossa approached a settlement with the Welfs. At the 1156 Imperial Diet in Regensburg, Henry Jasomirgott had to renounce the Bavarian duchy in favour of Henry the Lion. In compensation, the Babenberg margraviate was elevated to an equal duchy, confirmed by numerous privileges granted by the ''Privilegium Minus'' on 17 September.

The new Austrian duke took his residence at Vienna at the site of the later Hofburg Palace. He also founded Schottenstift Abbey as the Babenberg proprietary church