Upper Austria (Habsburg)

Territory in the Holy Roman Empire
Upper Austria
coat of arms
Alternative names	Tyrol and the foothills
Arose from	County of Tyrol , Upper Austria
Form of rule	Lieutenancy
Ruler / government	Archduke of Austria , Count of Tyrol / governor (in personal union)
Today's region / s	AT / IT / DE
Reichskreis	Austrian Imperial Circle
Capitals / residences	innsbruck
Dynasties	Habsburg , Habsburg-Tirol ( older , younger )
Denomination / Religions	Catholic
Language / n	Bavarian , Alemannic , Lombard , Ladin
Incorporated into	Kronland Tyrol

Upper Austria ( Latin Austria Superior ), also Tyrol and the Vorlande , was the name of an area of dominion that existed through the division of inheritance of the Habsburgs from 1406 to 1665, which consisted of the County of Tyrol with the regions of Upper Austria and Vorarlberg . Upper Austria, together with Lower Austria and the temporarily existing Inner Austria, formed the core area of ​​the Austrian hereditary lands .

The term should not be confused with today's Austrian state of Upper Austria , which was then called Austria ob der Enns and which, together with today's Lower Austria, was part of the Duchy of Austria .

history

The name Austria superior was first mentioned in a document during the Austrian Interregnum in 1264. Ottokar Přemysl ruled the former Babenberg lands at that time , who in 1254, in the Peace of Ofen, detached the Traungau and the city of Steyr from Styria . For the new administrative area between Ybbs and Hausruck, however, another term prevailed at the time of the Habsburgs, namely Austria ob der Enns ( supra Anasum ), which was first documented in 1266.

The Tyrolean land, however, the core of the rule of Tyrol in Burggrafenamt in South Tyrol is, at this time are just in development, there still prevail, the Counts of Gorizia-Tyrol and acquire the 1250ern and 1260ern with the Upper Inn Valley in North Tyrol the first countries in today's state of Tyrol . According to the inheritance contract between Görzerin Margarete von Tirol and Rudolf the founder, the Habsburgs assumed power  there in 1363. Soon afterwards, in the Neuberg house contract in  1379, the Albertine lines separate from the Leopoldine lines , the former taking over Lower Austria (Austria Inferior) with the (arch) duchy above and below the Enns around Vienna, the latter taking over Inner Austria (Austria Interior) around Graz, with the duchies of Styria , Carinthia and Carniola . The latter, younger line forms in the (older) Tyrolean another branch line, and their rule, the county Tyrol and their addition to the land , gets the old name of Upper Austria (Austria Superior) , for the old family seat using the name Front Austria (Austria Anterior) , whereby the state of Vorarlberg occupy an intermediate status between Tyrol and the Vorlanden. The Habsburg line is only short and includes Friedrich with the empty pocket (1382–1439) and his son Siegmund (1427–1496). Shortly before the line was extinguished, in 1493, on the occasion of Maximilian I's inauguration , Emperor Friedrich III. the Tyrolean counties were ruled , thus elevated to the status of imperial immediacy .

Emperor Friedrich overcomes this separation, and in 1490 the joint state administration is installed in the Innsbruck Hofburg . Since then, the Tyrolean governors - initially Habsburg hereditary princes ( archdukes ), later low-ranking administrative officials, also administrated Upper Austria or the foreland (just as Inner Austria still manages the coastal regions (littoral) around Trieste on the Adriatic). At times, however, one of the Habsburg princes held his own governorship in Upper Austria, mostly in Freiburg im Breisgau .

Once again, under Emperor Ferdinand II , a Tyrolean ruling house, called the Younger Tyrolean Line , was formed when the older son Ferdinand became Emperor (III) and Archduke of Austria in 1619, and the younger Leopold  (V., 1586–1632) regent in Tyrol. This line also expires in the next generation, with Sigismund Franz (1630–1665), and Ferdinand finally inherits all Habsburg lines. With this, the term “Upper Austria” in the sense of an independent territory loses its meaning.

In the following centuries, in the course of the centralization of absolutism , the crown lands emerged as the central administrative structure of the Habsburg monarchy. The term "Upper Austria" for Austria ob der Enns then reappeared colloquially in the 17th century (geographers and map makers such as Matthäus Merian , Georg Matthäus Vischer and Martin Zeiller made the expression particularly popular in its original meaning ; it is officially valid for the federal state only from 1919), when the western Austrian states in the Swabian-Alsatian area had already largely been lost and people only spoke of [Fürstete Grafschaft] Tyrol with the Vorlanden or ultimately with Vorarlberg .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Winkelbauer : Stands freedom and princely power. Countries and subjects of the House of Habsburg in the denominational age. Part 1. Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-8000-3617-7 , p. 30ff.
2. ↑ Garsten documents (1082-1778) 1264 VII 01. Court letter of Chunrats von Sumerau, Richters ob der Enns, with which he awards the Spek estate to the Garsten monastery ( Konrad von Sum [m] erau is called "iudex Provincie Austrie superioris", ie " District Judge of the Province of Upper Austria ”, mentioned) in the European document archive Monasterium.net .
   See Klaus Rumpler: "Provintia Austria superior". Document 1264, OÖLA, StiA Garsten, document no. 56 - July 1, 1264, Linz in the forum OoeGeschichte.at (with original Latin text).
3. ^ ^{A b} Christian Rohr : Land expansion in medieval Upper Austria in the forum OoeGeschichte.at.