March of Austria - History

History

The first marches covering approximately the territory that would become Austria and Slovenia were the Avar March and the adjacent March of Carantania (the later March of Carinthia) in the south. Both were established in the late 8th century by Charlemagne upon the incorporation of the territory of the Agilolfing dukes of Bavaria against the invasions of the Avars. When the Avars disappeared in the 820s, they were replaced largely by West Slavs, who settled here within the state of Great Moravia. The March of Pannonia was set apart from the Duchy of Friuli in 828 and set up as a march against Moravia within the East Frankish regnum of Bavaria. These march, already called marcha orientalis, corresponded to a frontier along the Danube from the Traungau to Szombathely and the Rába river including the Vienna basin. By the 890s, the Pannonian march seems to have disappeared, along with the threat from Great Moravia, during the Hungarian invasions of Europe. Upon the defeat of Margrave Luitpold of Bavaria at the 907 Battle of Pressburg, all East Frankish lands beyond the Enns river were lost.

In 955 King Otto I of Germany had started the reconquest with his victory at the 955 Battle of Lechfeld. The obscurity of the period from circa 900 until 976 leads some to posit that a Pannonian or Austrian march existed against the Magyars, alongside the other marches which had been incorporated into Bavaria by 952 (Carniola, Carinthia, Istria, and Verona). However, much of (Lower) Pannonia was still conquered by the Magyars. In 976, during a general restructuring of Bavaria upon the insurrection of Duke Henry II the Wrangler, Otto's son and successor Emperor Otto II had a new marcha orientalis erected on the territory of the former Pannonian march. He appointed the Babenberg count Leopold the Illustrious from the House of Babenberg margrave in turn for his support. Leopold replaced one Burchard, whose status is not well known but may represent a continual margravial authority in the region during the interval 900–976.

Margravial Austria reached its greatest height under Leopold III, a great friend of the church and founder of abbeys. He patronised towns and developed a great level of territorial independence. In 1139, Leopold IV inherited Bavaria. When his successor, the last margrave, Henry Jasomirgott, was deprived of Bavaria in 1156, Austria was elevated to a duchy independent from Bavaria by the Privilegium Minus of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. From 1192 the House of Babenberg also ruled over the neighbouring Duchy of Styria. The line became extinct with the death of Duke Frederick II of Austria at the 1246 Battle of the Leitha River. The heritage was finally asserted by the German king Rudolph of Habsburg against King Ottokar II of Bohemia in the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld.