Duchy of Austria

The Duchy of Austria 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 onward 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 onward.