The Otakars (or von Traungaus, or Traungauer) were a medieval dynasty ruling the Imperial

March of Styria The March of Styria (; ; ) was a southeastern March (territorial entity), frontier march of the Holy Roman Empire, encompassing various regions around the river Mur (river), Mur. Created sometime before 970, it was broken off the larger March of ...

(later the

Duchy of Styria The Duchy of Styria (; ; ) was a duchy located in modern-day southern Austria and northern Slovenia. It was a part of the Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806 and a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary until its dissolution i ...

) from 1056 to 1192.

History

The dynasty began with Otakar I, probably a son or son-in-law of Aribo (c. 850909), margrave in

Pannonia Pannonia (, ) was a Roman province, province of the Roman Empire bounded on the north and east by the Danube, on the west by Noricum and upper Roman Italy, Italy, and on the southward by Dalmatia (Roman province), Dalmatia and upper Moesia. It ...

under King

Arnulf Arnulf is a masculine German given name. It is composed of the Germanic elements ''arn'' "eagle" and ''ulf'' "wolf". The ''-ulf, -olf'' suffix was an extremely frequent element in Germanic onomastics and from an early time was perceived as a mere ...

. Otakar was Count of

Steyr Steyr (; ) is a statutory city (Austria), statutory city, located in the Austrian federal state of Upper Austria. It is the administrative capital, though not part of Steyr-Land District. Steyr is Austria's 12th most populated town and the 3rd lar ...

in the Traungau, in what is today

Upper Austria Upper Austria ( ; ; ) is one of the nine States of Austria, states of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, and Salzburg (state), Salzbur ...

. Together with Margrave Luitpold, he may have been killed at the 907

Battle of Pressburg The Battle of Pressburg (), or Battle of Pozsony (), or Battle of Bratislava () was a three-day-long battle fought between 4 and 6 July 907, during which the East Francian army, consisting mainly of Bavarian troops led by Margrave Luitpold, was ...

. His descendant Ottokar I (died 1064), Count in the

Chiemgau Chiemgau () is the common name of a geographic area in Upper Bavaria. It refers to the foothills of the Alps between the rivers Inn and Traun, with the Chiemsee at its center. The political districts that contain the Chiemgau are Rosenheim and ...

, became ruler of the

Carantania Carantania, also known as Carentania (, , in Old Slavic '), was a Slavic principality that emerged in the second half of the 7th century, in the territory of present-day southern Austria and north-eastern Slovenia. Since the middle of the ...

n march in 1056. The Carantanian march, then subject to the

Duchy of Carinthia The Duchy of Carinthia (; ; ) was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and was the first newly created Imperial State after the original German stem duchies. Car ...

, was subsequently named

() after the dynasty's original seat at Steyr. In 1180 Margrave Ottokar IV gained the ducal title from Emperor

Frederick I Barbarossa Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (; ), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death in 1190. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aa ...

, thereby establishing the

. The reign of the Otakars however ended with the extinction of the line upon Duke Ottokar's death in 1192. In the

Georgenberg Pact The Georgenberg Pact (also called the Georgenberg Compact, ) was a treaty signed between Duke Leopold V of Austria and Duke Ottokar IV of Styria on 17 August 1186 at Enns Castle on the Georgenberg mountain. The treaty consisted of two parts. ...

of 1186 he had agreed that his lands should pass to Leopold V, the

Babenberg The House of Babenberg was a noble dynasty of Austrian Dukes and Margraves. Descending from the Popponids and originally from Bamberg in the Duchy of Franconia (present-day Bavaria), the Babenbergs ruled the imperial Margraviate of Austria fr ...

duke of

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

References

Margraves of Styria Noble families of the Holy Roman Empire 12th-century people from the Holy Roman Empire {{Europe-hist-stub

History

See also

References