BABENBERG, the name of a Franconian family which held the duchy of Austria in the middle ages. Its earliest known ances tor was one Poppo, count in Grapfeld in the 9th century. His son, Henry, margrave and duke in Franconia, fell fighting against the Normans in 886 ; another son, Poppo, was margrave in Thur ingia from 88o to 892, when he was deposed by the German king Arnulf, who favoured the Babenberg's rivals, the Conradines. Henry's three sons, who held the castle of Babenberg on the upper Main, carried on the "Babenberg feud" against the Con radines, till two of them were killed, and the third, Adalbert, on refusing a summons from the regent Hatto I. to appear before the imperial court, was besieged in his castle of Theres, sur rendered in 906 and was beheaded.
A Luitpold or Leopold of Babenberg, count in the Donnegau, presumed to be of the above family, was in 976 appointed mar grave of the new Ostmark founded that year, which was the nucleus of the later Austria. The history of the family now be comes that of Austria (q.v.) ; the accompanying table shows only coast is a group of small islands called the "Seven Brothers." The eastern channel has a surface current inwards and the western a strong undercurrent outwards.