Margraviate of Austria

It stemmed from the previous frontier structures, initially created for the defense of eastern Bavarian borders against the Avars, who were defeated and conquered during the reign of Charlemagne (d. 814). Throughout the Frankish period, the region was under jurisdiction of Eastern Frankish rulers, who held Bavaria and appointed frontier commanders (counts) in eastern regions.^[3][4]


At the beginning of the 10th century, the region was raided by Magyars. They were defeated in the Battle of Lechfeld (955) and gradual German reconquest of the region began. By about 970, newly retaken frontier regions along the river Danube were reorganized into a frontier county (margraviate) that became known as the Bavarian Eastern March (Latin: Marcha orientalis) or Ostarrichi (German: Österreich). The first known margrave was Burkhard, who is mentioned in sources since 970 several times as Margrave of Marcha orientalis.^[5]


Since 976, it was governed by margraves from the Franconian noble House of Babenberg. The margraviate was protecting the eastern borders of the Holy Roman Empire, towards neighbouring Hungary. It became an Imperial State in its own right, when the Austrian margraves were elevated to Dukes of Austria in 1156.^[6]

Geography[edit]

The march comprised the lands north and south of the Danube river, with the Enns tributary in the west forming the border with the Traungau shire of the Bavarian stem duchy. The eastern frontier with the Hungarian settlement area in the Pannonian Basin ran along the Morava (March) and Leitha rivers, with the Gyepű borderland (the present-day Burgenland region) beyond. In the north, the march bordered on the Bohemian duchy of the Přemyslids, and the lands in the south belonged to the Dukes of Carinthia, also newly instated in 976. The early march corresponded closely to the modern region of Lower Austria.


The initial Babenberger residence was probably at Pöchlarn on the former Roman limes, but maybe already Melk, where subsequent rulers resided. The original march coincided with the modern Wachau, but was shortly enlarged eastwards at least as far as the Wienerwald. Under Margrave Ernest the Brave (1055–1075), the colonisation of the northern Waldviertel up to the Thaya river and the Bohemian march of Moravia was begun,^[7] and the Hungarian March was merged into Austria. The margraves' residence later was moved down the Danube to Klosterneuburg until 1145, when Vienna became the official capital. The Babenbergs had a defense system of several castles built in the Wienerwald mountain range and along the Danube river, among them Greifenstein. The surrounding area was colonized and Christianized by the Bavarian Bishops of Passau, with ecclesiastical centres at the Benedictine abbey of Sankt Pölten, at Klosterneuburg Monastery and Heiligenkreuz Abbey.


The early margraviate was populated by a mix of Slavic and native Romano-Germanic peoples who were apparently speaking Rhaeto-Romance languages, remnants of which remain today in parts of northern Italy (Friulian and Ladin) and in Switzerland (Romansh). In the Austrian Alps some valleys retained their Rhaeto-Romance speakers until the 17th century.