Austria The Holy Roman Empire and the Duchy of Austria
Emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 to
1519, greatly expanded Habsburg territory.
Courtesy Austrian National Tourist Office, New York
The gradual eastward extension of the Carolingian Empire was
stopped by the arrival of the Magyars--a Finno-Ugric people who
form the ethnic core of the Hungarian nation--in the Danubian
region in 862. Within fifty years, the Magyars had seized the
Hungarian plain, conquered Moravia and the eastern Danubian
marches of the Carolingian Empire, and raided deep into Frankish
territory. A reorganization of the German portion of the
Carolingian Empire in the first half of the tenth century enabled
the Germans to rally their forces and defeat a Magyar invasion
force at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. This new and essentially
German empire became known as the Holy Roman Empire and
eventually regained much of the territory lost to the Magyars.
Nevertheless, the Magyars' continuing military strength and their
conversion to Christianity during the reign of King Stephen (r.
997-1038) enabled Hungary to become a legitimate member of
Christian Europe and check German expansion to the east.
Under the Holy Roman Empire, the territories that constitute
modern Austria were a complex feudal patchwork under the sway of
numerous secular and ecclesiastical lords. Most of the
territories originally fell within the boundaries of the Duchy of
Bavaria. Over the years, various territories were effectively
detached from Bavaria, either becoming part of the newly
established duchies of Carinthia (976) and Styria (1180) or, like
Salzburg and Tirol, falling under the jurisdiction of powerful
bishops. In the final years of the reign of Emperor Otto the
Great (r. 936-73), a small margravate roughly corresponding to
the present-day province of Lower Austria was formed within
Bavaria. This margravate became known as Ostarrichi (literally,
Eastern Realm), from which the modern name Austria
(Österreich) ultimately derives. The Margravate of Austria was
detached from Bavaria and became a separate duchy in 1156.
Between 976 and 1246, the Duchy of Austria was one of
extensive feudal possessions of the Babenberg family. Through
their ties of blood and marriage to two successive German
imperial dynasties, the Babenbergs gradually acquired lands
roughly corresponding to the modern provinces of Upper Austria,
Lower Austria, Styria, and Carinthia. When the Babenberg line
died out in 1246, their lands passed to the ambitious king of
Bohemia, Otakar II. As king of Bohemia, Otakar was one of the
small circle of "elector-princes" who were entitled to
participate in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. When
Otakar failed to be elected emperor in 1273, he contested the
election of the new emperor, Rudolf von Habsburg. The Bohemian
king met his defeat and death in battle in 1278, and the former
Babenberg lands passed to the Habsburgs, who added them to their
already extensive lands in present-day Switzerland, southwestern
Germany, and eastern France.
Data as of December 1993
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