Little is known about the reasons the Ortenburgs settled in the Carinthian
Lurngau. No charters are available on the creation of the
Ortenburg Castle on the northern slope of Mt. Goldeck above the village of
Baldramsdorf, nor about the manner in which the Ortenburgs obtained their property. In 1072, one Adalbert of Ortenburg, probably a younger son of Count Hartwig II of
Grögling-Hirschberg (d. 1068/69), served as a
Vogt stattholder in the Carinthian possessions of the
Bishops of Freising. His castle
Hortenburc was first mentioned in a 1091 deed, and was situated south of the
Drava river within the
Archdiocese of Aquileia — across from
Hohenburg Castle held by the rivaling Counts of Lurn, liensmen of the
Salzburg archbishops. When the Lurn dynasty became extinct in 1135, the Counts of Ortenburg received large estates stretching from
Möllbrücke down the Drava Valley to Rennstein near
Villach. They also held possessions in the Gegend Valley around
Afritz. In 1191 they founded a hospital (
Spittl) at the bridge across the Lieser river—site of the later town of
Spittal an der Drau. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Herman and Ulrich of Ortenburg served as
Bishops of Gurk. Count Otto II joined the
Crusade of 1197 of Emperor
Henry VI. About 1330, Count Meinhard of Ortenburg acquired the estates of the extinct Counts of
Sternberg between
Lake Ossiach and
Wörthersee. In the fourteenth century, the dynasty also owned the lands of
Gottschee in
Lower Carniola, where they founded the town of Gottschee (
Kočevje) with German colonists from their Upper Carinthian lands. Valley of the Drava Struggling for autonomy against the Carinthian dukes from the House of Sponheim and their
Meinhardiner successors, the Ortenburgs avoided open conflict. In 1306, when the Meinhardiner duke
Henry of Carinthia reached for the
Bohemian crown, the Ortenburgs supported his rival
Rudolf I of Habsburg. Soon after, their
immediate rights were acknowledged by the
Habsburg king
Albert I of Germany, and later confirmed by Emperor
Sigismund in a 1420 deed. Two years before however, the last Count Frederick III of Ortenburg had died without heirs and his estates were inherited by Count
Hermann II of Celje (
Cilli). When the
Counts of Celje themselves became extinct with the killing of Hermann's grandson
Ulrich II in 1456, the Counts of Ortenburg-Neuortenburg claimed their ostensible rights, but failed to prove their
kinship to the Carinthian Ortenburgs. Their attempts to gain the Ortenburg estates lasted until the 18th century, but were all rejected. Instead, the Habsburg emperor
Frederick III took possession of the Ortenburg estates, which his great-grandson Archduke
Ferdinand I of Austria granted to his treasurer
Gabriel von Salamanca in 1524. Today, the ruins of the Ortenburg Castle can still be seen on Goldeck mountain above the village of Baldramsdorf, west of
Spittal an der Drau in Carinthia, Austria. ==Genealogy==