Establishment : 1 thaler County of Tyrol,
Leopold V – 1621 At least since King
Otto I of Germany had conquered the former
Lombard Kingdom of
Italy in 961 and had himself crowned
Holy Roman emperor in
Rome, the
principal passes of the
Eastern Alps had become an important transit area. The German monarchs regularly traveled across the
Brenner or
Reschen Pass on their Italian expeditions aiming at papal
coronation or the consolidation of Imperial rule. In 1004 King
Henry II of Germany separated the estates of
Trent from the North Italian
March of Verona and vested the
bishops of Trent with comital rights. In 1027 Henry's
Salian successor, Emperor
Conrad II, granted the Trent bishops further estates around
Bozen and in the
Vinschgau region; at the same time, he vested the
bishop of Brixen with the
suzerainty in the
Etschtal and
Inntal, part of the German
stem duchy of
Bavaria under the rule of Conrad's son
Henry III. Especially the Brixen bishops remained loyal supporters of the Salian rulers in the
Investiture Controversy and in 1091 also received the
Puster Valley from the hands of Emperor
Henry IV. Documented from about 1140 onwards, the comital dynasty residing in
Tyrol Castle near
Meran held the office of
Vogts (bailiffs) in the Trent diocese. They extended their territory over much of the region and came to surpass the power of the bishops, who were nominally their
feudal lords. After the deposition of the
Welf Duke
Henry X of Bavaria in 1138, the counts of Tyrol strengthened their independence. When
Henry the Lion was again enfeoffed with the Bavarian duchy by Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa at the 1154
Imperial Diet in
Goslar, his possessions no longer comprised the Tyrolean lands. The counts maintained that independence under the rising Bavarian
Wittelsbach dynasty. In 1210, Count
Albert IV of Tyrol also took over the
Vogt office in the Bishopric of Brixen, prevailing against the rivalling
counts of Andechs.
Gorizia-Tyrol In 1253 Count
Meinhard of Gorizia (Görz) inherited the Tyrolean lands by his marriage to Adelheid, daughter of the last Count Albert IV of Tyrol. When their sons divided their estate in 1271, the elder
Meinhard II took Tyrol, for which he was recognized as an
immediate lordship. He supported the German king
Rudolph of Habsburg against his rival King
Ottokar II of Bohemia. In reward, he received the
Duchy of Carinthia with the
Carniolan march in 1286. In 1307 Meinhard's son
Henry was elected
King of Bohemia, After his death, he had one surviving daughter,
Margaret Maultasch, who could gain the rule only over Tyrol. In 1342 she married
Louis V of Wittelsbach, then
Margrave of Brandenburg. The red eagle in Tyrol's coat of arms may derive from the
Brandenburg eagle at the time when she and her husband ruled Tyrol and Brandenburg in
personal union, though the Tyrolean eagle had already appeared in the 13th century. Louis V died in 1361, followed by Margaret's son
Meinhard III two years later. Lacking any descendants to succeed her, she bequeathed the county to
Rudolph IV of Habsburg, Duke of
Austria in 1363. He was recognized by the House of Wittelsbach in 1369. From that time onward, Tyrol was ruled by various lines of the Austrian
House of Habsburg, who held the title of
count.
Austria during the 15th century After the
Habsburg hereditary lands had been divided by the 1379
Treaty of Neuberg, Tyrol was ruled by the descendants of Duke
Leopold III of Austria. After a second division within the
Leopoldinian line in 1406, Duke
Frederick IV of the Empty Pockets ruled them. In 1420 he made
Innsbruck the Tyrolean capital. In 1490 his son and heir
Sigismund renounced Tyrol and
Further Austria in favour of his cousin German King
Maximilian I of Habsburg. By then Maximilian I had re-united all Habsburg lands under his rule. In 1500 he also acquired the remaining Gorizia (
Görz) territories around
Lienz and the
Puster Valley. When Emperor
Ferdinand I died in 1564, he bequeathed the rule over Tyrol and Further Austria to his second son Archduke
Ferdinand II. Both territories thereafter fell to the younger sons of the Habsburg Emperors: Archduke
Matthias in 1608 and
Maximilian III in 1612. After the death of Archduke
Sigismund Francis in 1665, all Habsburg lands were again under the united rule of the Emperor
Leopold I. From the time of
Maria Theresa (1740−1780) onward, Tyrol was governed by the central government of the
Habsburg monarchy at
Vienna in all matters of major importance. In 1803 the lands of the Bishoprics of
Trent and
Brixen were
secularised and incorporated into the county.
Napoleonic Wars Following defeat by
Napoleon in 1805,
Austria was forced to cede Tyrol to the
Kingdom of Bavaria in the
Peace of Pressburg. Tyrol as a part of Bavaria became a member of the
Confederation of the Rhine in 1806. The abolished traditional administrative divisions and replaced them with ; Tyrol's territory was split up into: • : roughly the modern
Trentino province • : roughly the modern
East Tyrol excluding
Matrei and
South Tyrol excluding the westernmost upper
Etsch valley around
Glurns • : roughly
North Tyrol plus the upper Etsch valley and excluding the
Zillertal and
Brixental (which were part of
Salzburg) against the invading
French forces. In 1809 the
Tyroleans rose up against Bavarian authority and succeeded three times in defeating Bavarian and French troops trying to retake the country. Austria lost the
War of the Fifth Coalition against
France, and got harsh terms in the
Treaty of Schönbrunn in 1809. Glorified as Tyrol's national hero,
Andreas Hofer, the leader of the uprising, was executed in 1810 in
Mantua. His forces had lost a fourth and final battle against the French and Bavarian forces. In 1810 Bavaria was forced by France to cede southern Tyrol (the plus
Bozen) to the
Kingdom of Italy, most of which became the
Department of Alto Adige, and the eastern part of the (roughly modern
East Tyrol) to the French Empire's
Illyrian Provinces. The remainder of the was transferred to the (along with
Werdenfels and the newly-acquired Zillertal), while parts of the were transferred to other : the eastern part around
St. Johann and
Kitzbühel to the ; the
Lechtal in the north-west to the . Tyrol remained divided between Bavaria and Napoleonic Italy for another four years.
Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary In 1814, by decisions of the
Congress of Vienna, Tyrol was reunified and returned to Austria, becoming a crown land () of the Austrian Empire. The formerly Salzburgian Zillertal, Brixental and Matrei were also permanently integrated into Tyrol. Administratively
Vorarlberg was attached to the reconstituted Tyrol (formally as "the princely county of Tyrol with Vorarlberg" – ) as until it became a crown land in its own right in the 1861
February Patent. Tyrol-proper (i.e. excluding Vorarlberg) was until 1849 divided into six : (or
Imst), (
Schwaz), (
Bruneck), Etsch (
Bozen),
Trient and
Rovereto. In 1849 this was reduced to three:
Innsbruck,
Brixen and Trient, which broadly corresponded with the modern North Tyrol, South + East Tyrol and Trentino respectively. These were briefly divided into modern-style
political districts but were recentralised and divided into smaller "" from 1853. Following the
Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 Tyrol was a
Cisleithanian (Austrian) crown land within
Austria-Hungary. The and office districts were abolished and political districts re-introduced in 1868.
End of the County After
World War I, the victors settled border changes. The
Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 ruled according to the 1915
London Pact, that the southern part of the Austrian crown land of Tyrol had to be ceded to the
Kingdom of Italy, including the territory of the former
Trent bishopric, roughly corresponding to the modern-day
Trentino, as well as the south of the medieval Tyrol county, the present-day province of
South Tyrol. Italy thus took control of the strategically important Alpine
water divide at the
Brenner Pass and over the south of Tyrol proper with its large German-speaking majority. Since 1949 both parts form the autonomous Italian
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region. The northern part of Tyrol retained by the
First Austrian Republic today forms the Austrian
State of Tyrol with its
East Tyrol exclave. In 1945 following
World War II, Austrian attempts and South Tyrolean petitions to reunite South Tyrol with Austria were unsuccessful; Italy retained control. From 1972 onwards, the Italian Republic has
granted further autonomy to the
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region. ==Counts of Tyrol==