Duchy · Eastern Germany, Bohemia and Austria · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Duchy of Austria

The Babenberg duchy on the Danube between the Enns and the Hungarian frontier on the Leitha and the March, with the Waldviertel and the Weinviertel north of the river up to the Bohemian and Moravian frontier.

Since 1198 it is joined in the hands of one young duke with Styria (and with Styria's Traungau round Steyr, Enns and Wels and its district of Pitten round Wiener Neustadt). Austria is one of the richest principalities of the Empire: it controls the Danube road from Regensburg and Passau to Hungary, and Richard I of England's ransom (the English king was seized at Erdberg outside Vienna in December 1192) has paid for a new mint at Vienna, new walls round Vienna and the new town of Wiener Neustadt. The duke rules through his court at Vienna, his castles, his judges and a dense class of sworn officers of unfree birth (ministeriales: the Kuenringer and dozens of other families), alongside a few great free houses and counts (the Plain counts of Hardegg, the Peilstein counts, the free lords of Lengenbach who are Regensburg's advocates in Austria, the absentee heirs of the counts of Raabs, the Velburg counts of Clam in the Machland), a Babenberg cadet line at Mödling, and the great churches (the bishops of Passau, Salzburg, Freising and Regensburg and the Bavarian abbeys hold wide estates in the duchy; Austria has no bishop of its own and lies in the diocese of Passau).

Who rules

Name
Leopold VI of Babenberg (later called the Glorious)
Title
Duke of Austria (dux Austrie) and duke of Styria (dux Stirie)
Since
Austria since 16 April 1198, when his elder brother Duke Frederick I died in the Holy Land; Styria since 1195, after their father Leopold V died at Graz on 31 December 1194
Born
15 October 1176; 23 years old on 1 January 1200
Family
Babenberg. Younger son of Duke Leopold V (died 31 December 1194) and Helena (Ilona) of Hungary (1158-1199), daughter of King Géza II and sister of King Béla III, married at Pentecost 1174: so Leopold is first cousin of King Emeric of Hungary and of Duke Andrew. His mother died in 1199 (the day is not pinned in what we read; 25 December 1199 is the date usually given, from general knowledge). A sister, Agnes, is listed without dates. Grandson of Duke Henry II Jasomirgott, the first duke (1156). Unmarried on 1 January 1200: a betrothal of 1193 to the daughter of Isaac Comnenus of Cyprus (the 'Damsel of Cyprus') came to nothing, and he marries Theodora Angelina, a Byzantine princess, only in 1203. No legitimate children yet (his first child, Margaret, is born about 1204-05). His uncle Henry the Elder of Mödling, brother of Leopold V, holds his own lordship at Mödling (see Henry of Mödling).
Confidence
high

Birth date and accession dates from de and en Wikipedia; Frederick I's death date (16 April 1198, Heiligenkreuz necrology) from Medieval Lands (fmg.ac); the Hungarian marriage of Leopold V (12 May 1174) from the same.

Overlord

The German king, from whom the duke holds the duchy as a prince of the Empire under the Privilegium minus of 1156 (duchy heritable in the male and female line, the duke owing court attendance only in Bavaria and service only in lands next to Austria). Leopold recognises Philip of Swabia.

What the realm holds

  • Vienna: the ducal residence since 1155, the duke's castle (the old court at Am Hof), the mint, the market and the new walls under way about 1200
  • Klosterneuburg: the old Babenberg residence of Leopold III with the Augustinian canons' house (1114/1133) and a ducal palace
  • Tulln, Krems and Stein (the old mint town and the ducal Danube toll at Stein), Ybbs and the ducal rights along the Danube
  • The frontier castles and towns on the Hungarian side: Hainburg, the Leitha crossing at Bruck, and the Marchfeld
  • Ducal castles and lordships in the Waldviertel and the Weinviertel (Gars am Kamp, Eggenburg and others), with the forest lordship of the Wienerwald
  • The Riedmark east of the Aist north of the Danube (Babenberg since 1115) and the lands of the lords of Perg (inherited by Leopold V in 1191 after Frederick of Perg died on the Third Crusade)
  • The great Babenberg foundations as their burial and prayer houses: Melk (Benedictine, 1089), Klosterneuburg, Heiligenkreuz (Cistercian, 1133), the Schottenstift in Vienna (1155)
  • In personal union, the duchy of Styria (realm styria: the Styrian record is sty's) with the Traungau and Pitten (Styrian Traungau, Styrian Pitten)

How it was acquired

The Babenbergs held the march on the Danube from 976; Henry II Jasomirgott gave up Bavaria and received Austria as a duchy by the Privilegium minus (17 September 1156). Styria came under the Georgenberg compact of 17 August 1186 with the childless Duke Ottokar IV and fell to Leopold V on Ottokar's death in 1192 (enfeoffed at Worms, 24 May 1192). Leopold V divided his duchies on his deathbed against the compact: Frederick I had Austria (1195-98), Leopold VI Styria.

When Frederick died on crusade on 16 April 1198 Leopold VI took Austria as well, and the duchies have been under one duke since.

Allies and rivals

Allies: King Philip of Swabia; Duke Andrew of Hungary, the king's rebel brother, whom Leopold helped to beat King Emeric at Mački in Slavonia in December 1197 and who fled to Austria after his defeat at Rád near Lake Balaton in summer 1199; Archbishop Adalbert III of Salzburg, a Přemyslid whose mother was a Babenberg (Gertrude, daughter of Leopold III). Neighbours, friendly in 1199: King Ottokar I of Bohemia and Margrave Vladislaus Henry of Moravia, both Staufen like Leopold and present with him at Speyer in May 1199. Watchful or rival: King Emeric of Hungary, whose rebel brother Leopold shelters (and whose sister Constance is Ottokar's new queen); the bishop of Passau, Wolfger of Erla, a fellow Staufen but the diocesan who would lose most from the Austrian bishopric the Babenbergs want for Vienna (Leopold asks Rome for it only in 1207); Duke Louis I of Bavaria, whose duchy borders the Traungau and whose overlordship still reaches Linz (under the Bavarian dukes until 1210, de.wikipedia).

The realm that morning

Leopold VI holds both duchies without challenge on the morning of 1 January 1200. He is young, unmarried and not yet knighted. His side in the throne war is Staufen: he was among the princes at Speyer on 28 May 1199 who declared for Philip and told the pope not to interfere. The Hungarian frontier on the Leitha and the March is quiet in the sense that no raid or campaign is recorded that winter, but relations with King Emeric are hostile: Leopold fought for Emeric's rebel brother Andrew in 1197, and Andrew fled to Leopold after his defeat in summer 1199 (whether Andrew is still in Austria on 1 January is not pinned).

Further south, on the Styrian side, Salzburg's men of Pettau beat the Hungarians at Easter 1199 and moved the frontier on the Drava (see sty's belt Pettau frontier), so Emeric has two grievances against Leopold's lands. We draw no raiding belt on the Austrian Leitha and March line: no raid is recorded there in the winter of 1199-1200. The Bohemian and Moravian frontiers are at peace. North of the Danube the duke holds the Riedmark east of the Aist and the Perg lands; the Machland beside it belongs to the Velburg counts of Clam; west of the Aist the Mühlviertel is not Babenberg ground in 1200 but a patchwork of Passau's castles (Riedegg), free lords (the Haunsbergs at Linz, the lords of Waxenberg, a Griesbach line by most accounts, not researched here) and Bavarian overlordship.

Across the Enns the Traungau is Leopold's own as duke of Styria; Linz and its castle are still held by Gottschalk of Haunsberg as a fief of the bishop of Passau (Leopold buys them in 1205-06). In the Waldviertel the Kuenringer are clearing the Nordwald towards Bohemia; Weitra is not yet founded (1201).

Wealth

The Danube trade from Regensburg and Passau to Hungary and the Black Sea road, taxed at the ducal tolls (Stein, Ybbs and others) and at Vienna; the Regensburg merchants are the great traders in the duchy (Leopold V's privilege for them of 1192 is from general knowledge, not checked here). Wine of the Wachau, the Weinviertel and the slopes south of Vienna. Salt comes up the Danube and the Traun from Salzburg's Hallein and Reichenhall (not Austrian).

Iron from the Styrian Erzberg passes through Steyr (Steyr's iron merchants documented by 1190). The Vienna penny (Wiener Pfennig) is struck at the new ducal mint in Vienna, set up with the silver of Richard I's ransom (the older Babenberg mint was at Krems, about 1130-1190). Richard's ransom also paid for the walls of Vienna (about 1200) and for Wiener Neustadt. The Enns fair on the Styrian side draws merchants from Regensburg and the east.

No Vienna staple yet: that is in the town charter of 18 October 1221.

Military

The duke's host is raised from his ministeriales and their knights, the free lords and counts, and the Babenberg castles: Vienna, Klosterneuburg, Hainburg, Gars and the others, and in Styria Graz, Steyr, Enns, Starhemberg and the new walled town of Wiener Neustadt facing Hungary. Record: Leopold led an army into Slavonia for Andrew against King Emeric in 1197 and won at Mački (December 1197). His brother Frederick I took an Austrian contingent on Henry VI's crusade (1197-98) and died there.

No numbers are recorded.

Threats

  • King Emeric of Hungary: Leopold has backed and sheltered his rebel brother Andrew; a Hungarian reprisal on the Leitha is possible if the brothers are not reconciled
  • No heir: Leopold is unmarried and childless, so a death would open both duchies (the Privilegium minus allows a childless duke to name an heir; the Georgenberg compact ties Styria to Austria)
  • Passau's hold on the Austrian church and its great estates in the duchy, which stand in the way of a bishopric for Vienna
  • The throne war: if Philip falls, Leopold's Staufen allegiance becomes a liability with the pope, who leans to Otto
  • The great ministeriales (above all the Kuenringer), who are powerful enough to defy a weak duke (they rise against his son in 1230-31)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 1200 (no day pinned)Andrew and Emeric are reconciled through the papal legate Gregory, and Emeric gives Andrew back Croatia and Dalmatia (in the summer, by the English account). The Hungarian accounts give terms in which both brothers vow to go to the Holy Land and the duke of Austria is to govern Hungary while they are away: the crusade never happens.Depends on: Innocent III's pressure, the legate's mediation and both brothers' willingness Stopped by: Andrew breaking out again from Austria, or Leopold refusing to give him up; a renewed war would make the Leitha a raiding frontier
  2. 8 April 1200Archbishop Adalbert III of Salzburg, Leopold's Babenberg-descended cousin, dies; Eberhard of Regensberg, bishop of Brixen, follows him later in 1200 and becomes a close ally of the Babenbergs.Depends on: natural death (campaign notes Part 10) Stopped by: nothing in play
  3. Pentecost, 28 May 1200 (ADB on Leopold VI: Pentecost 1200, in the Schottenkirche at Vienna)Leopold VI receives the sword (Schwertleite) in the Schottenkirche at Vienna, the ceremonial knighting that marks his coming of age as a ruling prince, with a great court; Walther von der Vogelweide writes a poem of homage for it.Depends on: peace in the duchy and the duke's health Stopped by: war with Hungary or Leopold's absence with Philip
  4. 28 December 1200Zwettl, the Kuenringer market below their castle, is first treated as a town (civitas).Depends on: Hadmar II of Kuenring's town-building Stopped by: nothing in play
  5. 1201 (beyond 1200)Hadmar II of Kuenring founds the fortified town of Weitra above Altweitra, facing Bohemia.Depends on: peace with Bohemia and the Kuenringer's colonisation of the Nordwald Stopped by: a Bohemian claim to the Weitra land (the area was disputed in 1176-79)
  6. 1202 and 1203 (beyond 1200)Leopold founds the Cistercian abbey of Lilienfeld (1202) and marries Theodora Angelina at Vienna (1203).Depends on: his choices Stopped by: nothing yet in motion
  7. 1205-06 (beyond 1200)Leopold buys Linz with its castle from Gottschalk of Haunsberg, the first step to the later land above the Enns.Depends on: Gottschalk's willingness to sell and Passau's consent Stopped by: a rival buyer (the duke of Bavaria) or Passau keeping the fief

Places of note

  • Vienna, ducal residence and mint: The Babenberg court and residence since 1155, the new mint for the Vienna penny, the walls built with Richard I's ransom
  • Klosterneuburg: Babenberg palace and the Augustinian canons, burial place of Leopold III
  • Heiligenkreuz Abbey: Cistercian abbey (1133), burial place of Leopold V and Frederick I
  • Melk Abbey: Benedictine house on the old Babenberg castle rock (1089)
  • Stein, ducal toll: Ducal toll station on the Danube by 1200
  • Hainburg: Castle and town facing Hungary across the Danube and the March

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign notes call Archbishop Adalbert III of Salzburg the brother of Ottokar of Bohemia; he is Ottokar's half-brother (both sons of Vladislaus II, Adalbert by Gertrude of Babenberg, Ottokar by Judith of Thuringia). This makes Adalbert Leopold VI's first cousin once removed through the Babenbergs. A small point, for sal to confirm.
  • de.wikipedia (Mühlviertel) says the Babenbergs acquired the western Mühlviertel in 1180. We could not confirm it: the Riedmark article gives the Babenbergs only the land east of the Aist (1115) and the Perg lands (1191), and Linz stays a Passau fief under Bavarian overlordship until 1205-06. We treat the Mühlviertel west of the Aist as not Babenberg in 1200 (anchors bavaria and passau there, not firm); the campaign may rule otherwise.
  • The brief places Leopold VI's accession in Styria in 1194: Leopold V died on 31 December 1194, so his sons' rule in practice begins in 1195. Both forms appear in the literature.

Evidence: Austria is one of the best documented principalities of the sheet (the Klosterneuburg, Melk and Admont annals, the Babenberg charters). What is thin here: the names of the court officers that winter, Andrew of Hungary's whereabouts on 1 January, and the exact day and place of the 1200 knighting, which we could not check in a source.

On the map: The frontiers are drawn on the later Lower Austrian lines, which follow the Leitha, the March and the Thaya closely enough; the Bohemian frontier in the Nordwald was a forest being cleared, settled only in part by Barbarossa's arbitration of 1179. The western edge north of the Danube (the Aist) is a judgement: the Babenbergs held the Riedmark east of the Aist, and lordship west of it to Linz is Passau's, the Haunsbergs' and other free lords'.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

Sources and studies

  1. Leopold VI. (Österreich), de.wikipedia
  2. Leopold VI, Duke of Austria, en.wikipedia
  3. Medieval Lands: Austria (Babenberg dukes)
  4. Speyerer Fürstenerklärung (28 May 1199), de.wikipedia
  5. Emeric, King of Hungary, en.wikipedia
  6. Andrew II of Hungary, en.wikipedia
  7. Imre magyar király, hu.wikipedia
  8. Geschichte Wiens, de.wikipedia
  9. Walther von der Vogelweide, de.wikipedia
  10. Leopold VI., Herzog von Österreich, ADB (Zeissberg 1883) and NDB, Deutsche Biographie

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.