Bavaria in the 9th Century

In 791, Charlemagne, after he had established his authority over the Bajuvarii (Bavarians) crossed the river Enns, and moved against the Avars. He followed this initial attack with several campaigns, led by his lieutenants.  By 805, the Avars were finally conquered, and their land incorporated within the Frankish empire. This victory brought the region clearly under Frankish rule.  During this time, Charlemagne erected a mark - called the East Mark - designed to defend the eastern border of his empire.  From 799 to 907, this small region was ruled by a series of margraves, but as the Frankish empire grew weaker, the mark suffered more and more from the ravages of its eastern neighbours.  During the 9th century, the Frankish supremacy gradually vanished, and the mark was overrun by the Moravians, and later by the Magyars, who destroyed the few remaining traces of Frankish influence (Steed Short History).

The gradual eastward extension of the Carolingian Empire was stopped by the arrival of the Magyars - a Finno-Ugric people who form the ethnic core of the Hungarian nation - in the Danubian region in 862.  Within fifty years, the Magyars had seized the Hungarian plain, conquered Moravia and the eastern Danubian marches of the Carolingian Empire, and penetrated deep into Frankish territory.  A reorganization of the German portion of the Carolingian Empire in the first half of the tenth century enabled the Germans to rally their forces and defeat a Magyar invasion force at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955.  This new and essentially German empire became known as the Holy Roman Empire and eventually regained much of the territory lost to the Magyars.  Nevertheless, the Magyars' continuing military strength and their conversion to Christianity during the reign of King Stephen (from 997-1038) enabled Hungary to become a legitimate member of Christian Europe and check German expansion to the east.

By 794, Bavaria had become a Frankish province ruled by representatives of the Frankish king.  It came into greater prominence when Louis the German, who had received the eastern part of the Frankish kingdom by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, made his residence in Bavaria.  His grandson Arnulf, Duke of Carinthia, was crowned emperor in 896.  One of his relatives, Margrave Leopold, who fell in a battle in 906 against the Magyars, is regarded as the first of the line of Seheyren-Wittelsbach (Wittmann "Bavaria").

 

Bavaria in the 10th Century

Upon the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty, Arnulf, son of Leopold, claimed the position of a sovereign prince.  This involved him in war with Henry I the Saxon, King of Germany, whose partly successful attempt to conquer Arnulf was completed by Otto I.  After the deposition of Eberhard I, the elder son of Duke Arnulf, in 939, Bavaria no longer had native-born rulers.  Bavarians would be ruled but Saxons, Franconians, and members of the Welf family who ruled as vassals of the king with the title of duke.  Not until Emperor Frederick I, in 1180, rewarded Otto of Wittelsbach for his courage by granting him Bavaria did a genuine Bavarian ascend the throne of his fathers.  Otto and his energetic successors laid the foundation of the future importance of Bavaria (Wittmann "Bavaria").

After Otto the Great was elected German king in 936, a new era in the development of present-day Austria began.  Many historians believe that in is Otto rather than Charlemagne who must be regarded as the real "founder" of Austria.  In August 955, he achieved a great victory over the Magyars on the Lechfeld, freed Bavaria from their presence, and refounded the East Mark for the defense of his kingdom.  By 976, his son, the emperor Otto II, entrusted the government of this mark to Leopold, a member of the family of Babenberg.  Under the Babenbergs, its administration was conducted with vigour and success.  Leopold and his descendants ruled Austria until the extinction of the family in 1246.  By their skill and foresight, they raised the mark to an important place among the German states.

 
The House of Babenberg
(976 to 1246)

Between 976 and 1246, the Duchy of Austria was one of extensive feudal possessions of the Babenberg family - possibly descended from, or succeeded, a powerful Franconian family of the 9th century, from whose castle the city of Bamberg probably took its name.  Through their ties of blood and marriage to two successive German imperial dynasties, the Babenbergs gradually acquired lands roughly corresponding to the modern provinces of Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Styria, and Carinthia.  When the Babenberg line died out in 1246, their lands passed to the ambitious king of Bohemia, Ottocar II.  As king of Bohemia, Ottocar was one of the small circle of "elector-princes" who were entitled to participate in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor.  When Ottocar failed to be elected emperor in 1273, he contested the election of the new emperor, Rudolf von Habsburg.  The Bohemian king met his defeat and death in battle in 1278, and the former Babenberg lands passed to the Habsburgs, who added them to their already extensive lands in present-day Switzerland, southwestern Germany, and eastern France.

The Creation of Austria
Under the Holy Roman Empire, the territories that constitute modern Austria were a complex feudal patchwork under the sway of numerous secular and ecclesiastical lords.  Most of the territories originally fell within the boundaries of the Duchy of Bavaria.  Over the years, various territories were effectively detached from Bavaria, either becoming part of the newly established duchies of Carinthia in 976 and Styria in 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 (936-973), a small margravate roughly corresponding to the present-day province of Lower Austria was formed within what was then considered to be Bavaria.  In 976, Emperor Otto II installed Leopold of Bavaria as Margrave of that region (Wangermann 16).

On November 1, 996, the German Emperor Otto III transferred the title for a small stretch of land located in Neuhofen - in present-day Lower Austria - to ecclesiastical authorities.  There was nothing particularly exceptional about this transaction or the practice of imperial grants to ecclesiastical authorities per se.  The original Latin codex, however, contains a key passage: "... regione vulgari vocabulo Ostarrichi ... in loco Niuuanhova dicto ..." ("a region called Ostarrichi in the vernacular... situated in Niuuanhova [Neuhofen]...").  The importance of this passage is twofold.  First, although the term Ostarrichi - from the Old High German ostar (meaning "east") and richi (or reich, meaning "domain" or "realm" in this context) - was frequently used before 996 as a generic description for a variety of "eastern regions" on the frontiers of the Ottonian empire, this codex documents the first use of Ostarrichi as a reference to a specific place in contemporary Osterreich-Austria.  Second, after 996, the frequency of the use of this term as a reference to a territory or principality east of Bavaria in the Danube Valley increased and eventually established itself as a proper name.

The Latin designation for Osterreich - Austria - has a similar etymology and developed in a similar manner.  It is a hybrid compound from the German root word austar or ostar with the Latin suffix ending -ia commonly used for the names of countries.  And similar to Ostarrichi, Austria initially appeared in early medieval codexes as a generic term for "regions in the east."  Around the middle of the 12th century, Austria established itself as the conventional term in Latin for Austria.  The Margravate of Austria was eventually detached from Bavaria and became a separate duchy in 1156.  The document establishing the Duchy of Austria was signed on September 17, 1156, and read:

        In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity. Frederick, by favour of the divine mercy, august emperor of the Romans. Although a transfer of property may remain valid from the actual act of performing such transfer, and those things which are lawfully possessed can not be wrested away by any act of force: it is, however, the duty of our imperial authority to intervene lest there can be any doubt of the transaction. Be it known, therefore, to the present age and to future generations of our subjects, that we, aided by the grace of Him who sent peace for men from Heaven to earth, have, in the general court of Regensburg which was held on the nativity of St. Mary the Virgin, in the presence of many of the clergy and the catholic princes, terminated the struggle and controversy concerning the duchy of Bavaria, which has long been carried on between our most beloved uncle, Henry duke of Austria, and our most dear nephew, Henry duke of Saxony. And it has been done in this way: that the duke of Austria has resigned to us the duchy of Bavaria, which we have straightway granted as a fief to the duke of Saxony. But the duke of Bavaria has resigned to us the march of Austria, with all its jurisdictions and with all the fiefs which the former margrave Leopold held from the duchy of Bavaria. Moreover, lest by this act the honour and glory of our most beloved uncle may seem in any way to be diminished,-by the counsel and judgment of the princes, Vladislav, the illustrious duke of Bohemia, proclaiming the decision, and all the princes approving,-we have changed the march of Austria into a duchy, and have granted that duchy with all its jurisdictions to our aforesaid uncle Henry and his most noble wife Theodora as a fief; decreeing by a perpetual law that they and their children alike, whether sons or daughters, shall, by hereditary right, hold and possess that same duchy of Austria from the empire. But if the aforesaid duke of Austria, our uncle, and his wife should die without children, they shall have the privilege of leaving that duchy to whomever they wish. We decree, further, that no person, small or great, may presume to exercise any jurisdiction in the governing of that duchy without the consent or permission of the duke. The duke of Austria, moreover, shall not owe any other service to the empire from his duchy, except that, when he is summoned, he shall come to the courts which the emperor shall announce in Bavaria. And he shall be bound to go on no military expeclition, unless the emperor ordain one against the countries or provinces adjoining Austria. For the rest, in order that this our imperial decree may, for all ages, remain valid and unshaken, we have ordered the present charter to be written and to be sealed with the impress of our seal, suitable witnesses to be called in whose names are as follows: Pilgrim, patriarch of Aquileija, etc. etc.

For their loyalty to the king, the Babenbergs were given virtual sovereignty over their newly established duchy through a document known as Privilegium Minus.