page_title: Duchy of Carinthia
section_title: Habsburgs
hierarchical_section_title: Duchy of Carinthia / History / Habsburgs
caption_attribution_description: English: Carinthia was part of Inner Austria, one of the Habsburg's hereditary lands. For more than 400 years, the prince-bishoprics of Salzburg and Bamberg owned vast territories in Carinthia (pink=Salzburg; yellow=Bamberg), until the Bamberg enclaves were finally acquired by Austria in 1759. Map published by Johann Baptist Homann, circa 1725.
context_page_description: The Duchy of Carinthia was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and was the first newly created Imperial State after the original German stem duchies.
  Carinthia remained a State of the Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806, though from 1335 it was ruled within the Austrian dominions of the Habsburg dynasty. A constituent part of the Habsburg Monarchy and of the Austrian Empire, it remained a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary until 1918. By the Carinthian Plebiscite in October 1920, the main area of the duchy formed the Austrian state of Carinthia.
context_section_description: Rudolf, after being elected King of the Romans and defeating King Ottokar II, at first gave Carinthia to Count Meinhard II of Gorizia-Tyrol. In 1335, after the death of Henry, the last male of this line, Emperor Louis the Bavarian gave Carinthia and the southern part of the Tyrol as an imperial fief to the Habsburg family on 2 May in Linz. The Habsburgs would continue to rule Carinthia until 1918. As with the other component parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, Carinthia remained a semi-autonomous state with its own constitutional structure for a long time. The Habsburgs divided up their territories within the family twice, according to the 1379 Treaty of Neuberg and again in 1564. Each time, the Duchy of Carinthia became part of Inner Austria and was ruled jointly with the adjacent duchies of Styria and Carniola.
  Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Joseph II attempted to create a more unitary Habsburg state, and in 1804 Carinthia was integrated into the newly established Austrian Empire under Francis II/I. According to the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn, the Upper Carinthian territories around Villach formed part of the short-lived Napoleonic Illyrian Provinces; Carinthia as a whole remained a part of the Habsburg Kingdom of Illyria until its dissolution in 1849.
  In 1867, the duchy became a crown land of Cisleithania, the western part of Austria-Hungary (see History of Austria).
  Over the centuries, the German language, which carried more prestige, expanded at the expense of Slovene, but the fact that in the 16th century the Estates of Carinthia could still point out that Carinthia was "a Windic Archduchy", i.e. a sovereign Slovene principality, shows that the Carinthian people were aware of their ancient and pre-German roots.
caption: Early 18th century map of Carinthia showing fiefs owned by Salzburg and Bamberg
exif: {}