In the seventh century the area was part of the Slavic principality of
Carantania, which fell under the suzerainty of Duke
Odilo of Bavaria in about 743. The
Bavarian stem duchy was incorporated into the
Carolingian Empire when
Charlemagne deposed Odilo's son Duke
Tassilo III in 788. In the 843 partition by the
Treaty of Verdun, Carinthia became part of
East Francia under King
Louis the German. From 889 to 976 it was the
Carinthian March of the renewed Bavarian duchy, though in 927 the local Count
Berthold of the
Luitpolding dynasty was vested with ducal rights by the
German king
Henry the Fowler. After Berthold became Duke of Bavaria in 938, both territories were ruled by him. Upon his death in 948 the Luitpoldings, though heirs of the royal
Ottonian dynasty, were not able to retain their possessions, as King
Otto I bought the loyalty of his younger brother
Henry I with the Bavarian lands.
Establishment Duke Henry's son
Henry II "the Quarreller" from 974 onwards, revolted against his cousin Emperor
Otto II, whereupon he was deposed as Duke of Bavaria in favour of Otto's nephew Duke
Otto I of Swabia. At the same time Emperor Otto II created a sixth duchy in addition to the original
stem duchies, the new Duchy of Carinthia. He reverted the possession of the territories to the Luitpoldings, when he split Carinthia from the Bavarian lands and installed the former Duke Berthold's son
Henry the Younger as duke in 976. Over the centuries, the name 'Carinthia' (
Kärnten) gradually replaced former 'Carantania'. The realm of the Carinthian dukes initially comprised a vast territory including the marches of
Styria (
marchia Carantana),
Carniola and
Istria; they also ruled over the Italian
March of Verona in the south. Nevertheless, Henry the Younger was the first and also the last Luitpolding duke; as he chose to join the unsuccessful
War of the Three Henries against
Emperor Otto II, he lost Carinthia two years later and was succeeded by the Emperor's nephew
Otto I, a scion of the
Salian dynasty. Though Henry once again managed to regain the ducal title in 985, Carinthia upon his death in 989 fell back to the Imperial Ottonian dynasty in Bavaria.
Eppensteins and Sponheims Carinthia, however, remained a separate entity, and in 1012 Count
Adalbero I of Eppenstein, Margrave of the Carinthian March (later Styria) since about 1000, was vested with the duchy by the last Ottonian emperor
Henry II, while the Istrian march was separated and given to Count
Poppo of Weimar. Adalbero was removed from office in 1035 after he had fallen out of favour with the Salian Emperor
Conrad II. In 1039 Carinthia was inherited by Emperor
Henry III himself, who split off the Carniolan march the following year and granted it to Margrave Poppo of Istria. In 1077, the duchy was given to
Luitpold, again a member of the
Eppensteiner family, which, however, became extinct with the death of Luitpold's younger brother
Henry III of Carinthia in 1122. Upon his death the duchy was further reduced in area: a large part of the Eppenstein lands in what is today
Upper Styria passed to Margrave
Ottokar II of Styria. The remainder of Carinthia passed from Duke Henry III to his godchild Henry from the
House of Sponheim, who ruled as Henry IV, from 1122 to his early death the following year. The most outstanding of the Spanheim dukes was
Bernhard, the first Carinthian duke who was actually described and honoured in documents as "prince of the land". The raids also prompted the construction of defensive structures like fortified churches and castles (tabor). 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.
World War I and Carinthian Plebiscite During
World War I, Carinthia experienced a relatively high number of war deaths: thirty-seven for every 1,000 inhabitants. This was higher than in most other German-speaking areas of
Austria-Hungary (except
German South Moravia). Following the end of the war and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the 1919
Treaty of Saint-Germain stipulated the
Carinthian Canal Valley stretching from
Tarvisio as far as
Pontafel (187 square miles) go to
Italy and that the Slovene-speaking areas of the Meža Valley, the Drava Valley area around
Unterdrauburg, which was afterwards renamed
Dravograd, and the
Jezersko area (128 square miles of territory) be ceded to the new SHS State. The
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, however, was not satisfied with these parts of the former duchy and also occupied land north of the Karawanks mountain range, including the capital city of Klagenfurt. The
Entente powers decided on a two-stage referendum, of which the first stage, the
Carinthian Plebiscite was held on 10 October 1920 to determine the fate of Carinthia. The outcome in favour of Austria did not change the borders as decided upon in the Treaty of Saint-Germain. (
Knežji kamen) (
Vojvodski prestol) The Austrian part of the former duchy today forms the
federal state of
Carinthia (), while the area that was ceded to Italy as a part of the claimed "
Julian March" belongs to the autonomous
region of
Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Most of the area awarded to Yugoslavia (cf.
Slovenian Carinthia) now forms part of the larger
Carinthia Statistical Region in
Slovenia. == Area and population ==