Adalbero was the son of the
Bavarian count Markward of
Eppenstein, who around 970 had married Hadmud, a daughter of Count Adalbero of
Ebersberg and ruled as
Margrave of Styria. About 1000 Adalbero succeeded his father as Styrian margrave. He was married to Beatrix, probably a daughter of Duke
Herman II of Swabia from the
Conradine dynasty and sister-in-law of the later
Salian emperor
Conrad II. Upon the death of the Salian duke
Conrad I in 1011, the German king
Henry II enfeoffed Adalbero with Carinthia. Adalbero's Carinthian dominions then included the
March of Carniola, the
Windic March and the rule over the vast
March of Verona stretching from the
Trentino up to the
Isonzo River. Late Duke Conrad's son and heir,
Conrad the Younger was a minor when his father died and therefore was not taken into account, becoming a bitter rival. The tide began to turn when the
Ottonian dynasty became extinct with the death of Emperor Henry II in 1024 and the Salian
scion Conrad II was
elected his successor. Initially Adalbero sought a good relationship, he even acted as the emperor's swordsman at a 1027
synod in
Frankfurt and during the coronation of Conrad's son
Henry III as
King of the Romans in
Aachen at Easter 1028. However, after the court diet on 18 May 1035 Duke Adalbero was forced to renounce all his offices and fiefdoms. Nevertheless, the
Freising bishop
Egilbert, a councillor to Conrad's son King Henry III, advised the
Princes and Henry himself to not recognise the deposition. Despite this, Adalbert lost his duchy and the march of Carantania, though the duchy would remain vacant until 2 February 1036. Furious, he began a bloody revenge campaign against the Salian liensmen in Carinthia, thereby killing Count William of
Friesach, the husband of Saint
Hemma of Gurk. Finally he had to retire to the Bavarian estates of his mother in Ebersberg, where he died in 1039. The large Eppenstein estates in Carinthia were held by his eldest son Markward IV, whose sons
Liutold and
Henry went on to rule over the duchy from 1077 to 1122. ==Marriage and children==