page_title: House of Gorizia
section_title: Decline
hierarchical_section_title: House of Gorizia / History / Decline
caption_attribution_description: Scheibler'sches Wappenbuch , älterer Teil; Seite 433 Vom Graben Steyrer Deutsch: Wappen der Graben von Stein.
context_page_description: The Counts of Gorizia, or Meinhardiner, were a comital and ducal dynasty in the Holy Roman Empire. Named after the Gorizia Castle, they were originally advocates in the Patriarchate of Aquileia who ruled the County of Gorizia from the early 12th century until the year 1500. Staunch supporters of the Emperors against the papacy, they reached the height of their power in the aftermath of the battle of Marchfeld between the 1280s and 1310s, when they controlled most of contemporary Slovenia, western and south-western Austria and north-eastern Italy. After 1335, they began a steady decline until their territories shrunk back to the original County of Gorizia by the mid 1370s. Their remaining lands were inherited by the Habsburg ruler Maximilian I.
  From 1253, the dynasty ruled the County of Tyrol. In 1271, their vast possessions were split. The main branch kept the recently acquired Tyrol and became known as Counts of Gorizia-Tyrol or the Meinhardiner Line after Meinhard, Duke of Carinthia.
context_section_description: As Henry himself left no male heirs upon his death in 1335, the Austrian House of Habsburg inherited Carinthia and Carniola from the Gorizia-Tyrol branch.  The Habsburgs held these lands until 1918. Henry's only surviving daughter Margaret "Maultasch" and her husband John Henry of Luxembourg were able to retain the County of Tyrol. In 1363 she ceded the county to the Habsburg duke Rudolph IV of Austria after her only son with her second husband Duke Louis V of Bavaria, Count Meinhard III of Gorizia-Tyrol had died in the same year.
  The Counts of Gorizia were moreover the Bailiffs of Aquileja. They are famous in numismatics as publishers of the first German golden coin, the "Zwainziger". The renowned diplomat and minnesinger Oswald von Wolkenstein was a subject of the Counts of Gorizia. The Gorizia branch of the dynasty became extinct in the year 1500, when the last male family member Count Leonhard of Gorizia died without issue. One apparent or illegitimate branch of the Meinhardiner was the Graben von Stein family. After Leonhards of Gorizia's death they became his successor as stadtholders of Lienz in East Tyrol. The Netherlands family of De Graeff claim descent from the Graben von Stein.
caption: Coat of arms Graben von Stein
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