AUSTRIA, in German Osterreich, or Ostreich, is a considerable province of southern Germany, which has given fourteen emperors to that country, six kings to Spain, and has made a conspicuous figure in Europe for ten centuries. Of the early history of this fine region we are almost totally ignorant. Charlemagne conquered it in 791, after he had previously pushed the eastern boundary of his empire to the present frontiers of Bavaria and Austria ; and, crossing the river Ens, which now divides Upper from Lower Aus tria on the south side of the Danube, he drove the eastern tribes, who were invading Germany, beyond the river Raab, in Hungary, and entrenched its banks as the limit of his western empire. He ap pointed governors, by the title of margraves, (or wardens of marches,) in the conquered country, and granted them various privileges, as protectors of the adjacent provinces against the barbarians of the East. It is probable, that the name of the principality, as well as its varied during the period which elapsed from its establishment as a separate margra viate in 791, to the reign of the Emperor Otho III. who, in 996, gives it the present name in a written document still extant. The document in question, dated 1st November 996, refers to a grant of a vil lage then called Nuiwanhova, now Waidhofen, made by the emperor to the ghurcli of Freisingen. " Nos Otho Ste. quasdam nostri juris res in regione vulgari nomine Ostirrichi, in Marcha et in Comitatu Hain. rici comitis, filii Luitpaldi marchionis in loco Nui.
wanhova dicta : id est cum eadem carte et in proxi mo confmio adjacentes xxxx regales hobas concessi nuts." Hund Mctr. &ills& cum notis Christ. Ger wadi. Ratisp. 1719, fol. torn. i. p.
, It is probable that Oster-reich (eastern kingdom, or principality) had for a considerable time been the vulgar name of the country, before the date of this grant, and that the vernacular language of the peo ple was the same as it is new, since its first conquest and partial colonization Charlen.agne. Certain . it is, that they have been nearly the same from 996 to the present times.
Austria continued a margraviate until 1156. Du ring the 400 years which intervened between its establishment under that title and its exaltation to an archduchy by the Emperor Frederick I., in favour of his friend and relative Henry II. of Austria, Ger many had been convulsed with wars, occasioned by claims to the succession to it. In 1156, however, the emperor just mentioned united Upper and Lower Austria (pretty much in their present extent in 1810) into one dukedom, and that too with such ex tensive privileges, that its bonds of dependence as a part of the fccderal Germanic body were almost total ly dissolved. Henry and his successors ranked im mediately after the electors, and before all the other princes and dukes of Germany. By the solemn act concluded at Ratisbon in 1156, the new dukedom was declared hereditary in Henry's family ; failing of males, it was to descend to females ; and, in the event of there being no direct heir of the ducal house, the ' actual possessor was to bequeath Austria to whom he pleased. These last mentioned privileges are very
remarkable for that period of our European history.
Henry died in 1177, and was succeeded by his eld est son Leopold, who was the first hereditary duke of Austria. This prince was fortunate enough to receive from Othokar VI. duke of Stiria, that ex tensive province as a formal legacy. The important donation was comirmed to him by the Emperor Hen ry VI., whO granted him the solemn investiture of that dukedom, at Worms in 1192. I3ut Leopold proved very ungrateful to his superior for this act of kind. ness. Our Richard Lion-Heart, on his return from the Holy Land, was shipwrecked on the Coast of Istria, and attempted to make his way through Ger many to England in the dress of a pilgrim. He was discovered, however, at Vienna, and, by the order of Leopold, with whom he had quarrelled at St Jean d'Acre, ungenerously cast into a dungeon, and treat ed with extreme inhumanity. It was a considerable time before the mediation of the emperor, and a heavy ransom procured the liberty of the gallant Richard.* Leopold was, in 1191., succeeded by Frederick I., who went to Palestine, and obtained the sirname [. of Catholic. The younger brother, Leopold, the seventh margrave, but second duke, succeeded him; and was the first of the Austrian princes who adopt= ed the wise policy of acquiring territory by purchase instead of chicanery or arms. He bought from the bishop of Freisingen some extensive estates • and su penonties in Carniola, which, in 1809, remained in his family. He proved himself, in many respects, to be greatly superior to most princes of his age. Many of his successors availed themselves of the same means for gaining admission into provinces, which they in tended gradually to secure altogether for themselves ; and they were, perhaps, as much indebted for their astonishing success to their pacific•policy, as to their military talents and their good fortune. It was not, however, until 1272, when Rudolf, count of Habs ' burg and Kyburg, and landgrave of Upper Alsatia, (founder of the houses of Austria and Lorraine, ) was elected emperor, that Austria became a formidable power. That prince, the best politician, and one of the ablest men of his age, contrived to elude the jea lousy of his rivals, and to consolidate the power of his heir, while he apparently studied the advantage of all the collateral branches of his house. In order to soothe the minds of the electors, always suspicious of their emperor's destination of their property and power, he granted to his two sons the investiture of Austria, Stiria, and Carinthia, with their dependen cies; and to Mainard, their nearest heir, Carniola, and part of Tyrol ; but with the restriction of a joint investiture with his sons, and a reversion in their fa vour. The count of Tyrol acknowledged them also as his superior lords. All .these arrangements took place at a solemn diet at Augsburg, on the 27th of December 1282.