Styria, March of
State | Defunct
969 CE to 1129 CE
The March of Styria (German: Steiermark) is originally broken off the Duchy of Carinthia before 970 as a buffer zone against the Magyars.
Originally it is known as the Carantanian march (marchia Carantana), after the former Slavic principality of Carantania, a predecessor of the Carinthian duchy.
During the 11th century it evolvei to be called Styria, so named for the town of Steyr, the residence of the margraves.The area is formerly part of the larger March of Carinthia, itself a frontier march of the Duchy of Bavaria.
In 976 Emperor Otto II separates Carinthia from the Bavarian stem duchy and raises it to the status of a duchy in its own right.
The adjacent territory in the east up to the Mur, Mürz and Enns rivers, that had been annexed by King Otto I after the 955 Battle of Lechfeld, is similarly converted into the marchia Carantana of the new Carinthian duchy.The first margraves of Styria appear in the early 11th century.
The dynasty ruling from 1056 is called the Otakars.
Margrave Leopold the Strong (1122–1129) and his son Ottokar III (1129–1164) acquire large territories along the Savinja river down to the Windic March and move their residence to Graz.
In 1180, the march is converted into the Duchy of Styria.
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The lands in which Slovene speakers live had been assigned to the German kingdom after the partitioning of the Frankish empire.
As part of the defense of this kingdom against Magyar invaders, they had been divided among the marks, or border marches, of Carinthia, …
…Carniola, and Styria.
German lay and clerical lords arrive in the Slovenian lands, along with dependent peasants, and enserf the Slovenes, whom they call Wends or Winds.
The March of Carinthia is raised to a Duchy in 976, and a new Carinthian march (that is, a march defending the Carinthian duchy) is created from the adjacent territory in the east up to the Mur, Mürz and Enns rivers, which had in 955 been annexed by King Otto I after the Battle of Lechfeld.
It will become the later March of Styria, so named for the town of Steyr, the residence of the margraves in the eleventh century.
Ottokar I, Count of Steyr, is the founder of the dynasty of the Otakars.
From 1056, he is margrave of the Carantanian March, later to be known as Styria (named Steiermark in German after the town of Steyr, where Ottokar is count).
The future margraves Adalbero and Ottokar II are his sons.
He ends the war against Hungary.
The territories that constitute modern Austria under the Holy Roman Empire are a complex feudal patchwork under the sway of numerous secular and ecclesiastical lords.
Most of the territories originally fall within the boundaries of the Duchy of Bavaria.
Over the years, various territories have been effectively detached from Bavaria, either becoming part of the newly established duchies of Carinthia (976) and Styria (1180) or, like Salzburg and Tirol, falling under the jurisdiction of powerful bishops.
In the final years of the reign of Emperor Otto the Great (r. 936-73), a small margravate roughly corresponding to the present-day province of Lower Austria had formed within Bavaria.
This margravate becomes known as Ostarrichi (literally, Eastern Realm), from which the modern name Austria (Osterreich) ultimately derives.
The Margravate of Austria is detached from Bavaria and becomes a separate duchy in 1156.