This is probably going to have to be a multi-part post, since the book by Georg Juritsch is a staggering 750+ pages long. We are speaking about Geschichte der Babenberger und ihrer Länder (976-1246), published in Innsbruck with Wagner in 1894.
The general organization of the work is to go through the individual rulers, though some of them, such as Leopold VI and his son (and final Babenberger) Friedrich have multiple chapters. It is not clear if this is correlated with their importance only; after all, the general state of records improves the closer one moves toward the present.
Before the Babenberger
Juritsch sets us up in 907, a hundred years after Charlemagne, when the East Marches are lost to the invading Hungarians, and the area from the Plattensee to the Enns is taken. Duke Luitpold and his Bavarian army was killed that year, including the bishops Thietmar of Salzburg and those of Freising and Säben (1). Juritsch speculates that, not unlike the Romans, the German pioneers retreated to the west and left the border marches depopulated, while abbeys (Altaich, Regensburg, Passau, Freising, Salzburg) and bishops held on to their legal titles (2) of their latifundiae (4) in the hope of future reclamation (2).
Though most of the villages were wood constructions, there were a few stone fortifications, such as the Eparesburg of Kremsmuenster, or the Hollenburg, and the holdings of some of Charlemagne's liegemen near St Pölten. Karlmann had owned a palatinate near Baden (3), and there was Mödling, a fief of Passau; surely both were fortified as well. In the Tullnerfeld, the remains of the Roman fortifications at Faviana and Comagena (Tulln) could be repurposed as defenses at short notice. (rck: Juritsch thinks that Faviana is Traismauer, where the Moravian duke Priwina was baptized (3), which however was called Augustianis; Favianis would have been the Roman castle Mautern.)
Though colonization had pushed along the rivers emptying into the Danube into the pre-alps, those ranching areas were just as deserted (3), though the Huns undertook no effort to destroy either fruit orchards or vineyards, looking mainly for plunder and slaves.
The military fortunes varied around the reign of Duke Heinrich II of Bavaria, the brother of the king; the Hungarians were defeated at Sediraburg and in the swamps of Drömling (938), and near Wels at the Traun (943 or 944). Bohemia had been put into its place (4; 5) making it possible for Bavaria to focus on the reconquest. The victory of 948 found its projection even into the writings of the Gandersheimer nun Hrotsuit (5). When the Hungarians tried to take advantage of the uprising of Arnulf and Luitpold in 954, they revolt was put down decisively and the Hungarians defeated August 10, 955 near Augsburg (Lechfeld).
The religious rulers were ready for re-colonization of their properties (6) and pushed beyond the Wachau on the left and the Traisen on the right side of the Danube banks. This reinstated the separation of the church territories of Salzburg and Passau (6).
Several of the Hungarian rulers at the Lechfeld (Karchan Bultzu, Dewix, Achtum) had already been christianized via Constantinople. The East-Roman monk Hierotheus was the bishop of Hungary, and the monastery of St John the Baptist near the river Maros was in place (7). The prince-bishoprics of Salzburg and Passau tried to build on these foundations when attempting pacification through Christianization.
An important person in that context was Pilgrim of Passau (8), nephew of Archbishop Friedrich von Salzburg, who had grown up in the monastery of Altaich, another owner of latifundiae in the Eastern marches. Pilgrim was also related to the Arnulfinger, key landowners in Bavaria and Carinthia (8). Pilgrim attempted to reorganize the responsibilities by consecrating a few more bishops via Benedict VII in Rome. He justified this with embellished reports of the missionizing successes in Hungary (9) and in his role as the archbishop of Lorch. Implied was the elevation of Passau to a metropolis (10) of an archbishop. Haldemar organized a papal bull in Rome supposedly reflecting the archival state there (11) which was used in this regard. Friedrich von Salzburg was not excited (11), and his influence in Rome sufficient to get the decision reversed. Pilgrim, thwarted, kept the bull and twelfth-century documents record him as archbishop nevertheless.
Refounding the Eastern Marches (976-774)
Emperor Otto I died 973 (12). The Bavarian Duke Heinrich II made a pact with Boleslava II of Bohemia and Miseco of Poland. Among those assisting the new emperor Otto II to put down the revolt was Luitpold, a count of the Danube district, and his brother Berthold, whose father was a relative of the sister of Heinrich I of Saxony. They themselves believed their descent from one Adalbert of Babenberg, who was executed in the reign of Ludwig the Child, but a franko-suebian origin makes more sense.
The brothers had known the favor of Otto I already and now Berthold received the northern district and Luitpold the Eastern marches.
The marches toward Carinthia and Verona were separated to form the Duchy of Carinthia (13), and the reduced Bavaria given to the Suebian Duke Otto.
This Ostarrichi of Luitpold was enclosed by the Enns in the West, the town of Spitz in the East (13), and the Traisen in the South (14). In order to secure this border region, the count of the marches was the sole count in this territory, required to both hold diets and attend the Bavarian diets (13) and serve in their wars.
We know that soon thereafter three counties were established, at Neuburg, Tulln and Mautern, which the marcher count had to service in a six-week rhythm (14). At the same time, Luitpold remained the count of the Danube district, especially the monastery of Metten received donations from him. He also held the castle of Melk (20), later claims of Passau notwithstanding.
Otto II was generous toward Passau as well (15): 975 they received Kremsmünster, the toll at Passau, the Ennsburg, St Florian and St Pölten. When the Carinthian duke Heinrich rebelled, Passau suffered destruction of its cathedral, which was made good with donations around Lorch. Salzburg, which had also stood with Otto II, received lands as well (16).
Otto II was smart to look to the churchmen for support against his aristocracy, and some of them, such as Wolfgang of Regensburg, were brave warriors that built their own defenses, such as the Wieselburg.
With the elimination of Duke Arnulf, the monasteries of Altaich and Tegernsee had lost their roles, and the game of latifundiae was down to Salzburg, Passau and Regensburg.
While the marcher counts did not have to participate in Italian wars, such as Otto II's campaign of 979, it was good to remain close to the emperor and the Roman curiae to realize plans, as the Merseburger bishop Giseler had demonstrated when he achieved his elevation to the archbishopric of Magdeburg (16) when Merseburg (which Otto I had created as a bishopric in gratitude to Laurentius after the Lechfeld) was decommissioned again (17). Unsurprisingly, the disaster in Italy of 979 (17) was considered "payback" from Saint Laurentius for having lost his bishopric so hastily [
rck Wikipedia
suggests that Otto II died of a malaria infection during the campaign].
Perhaps the contemporaries also expected a return of the Hungarians, which happened in 983 with the death of the Bavarian duke, but Luitpold managed to beat them back and even extend his sphere of influence to the Wiener Wald (17). Pilgrim nevertheless painted a picture of devastation of his lands in the Eastern marches when meeting Otto III in Bamberg 985. The point of this complaint was (18) to receive rights to bring free settlers into the marches, in addition to the bishop's colonials. These free settlers should be free of the Ministerial's interference, either fiscally or legally through the courts of the markgrave. Otto III obliged Passau, extending the immunities of Karl III, which in turn led to an apparently quick increase in free Bavarian settlers into the Eastern marches.
Pilgrim organized Synods to Lorch and Mautern (18) to settle the question of who would receive the tithe between Enns and the Wiener Wald (19), a topic that was also discussed at the Synod of Mistelbach.
Friedrich of Salzburg was no less concerned to get his holdings certified by the authorities in Rome and at the Imperial court, and the list is long and impressive: Ybbs, Url, Megalicha, Wachau, Arnsburg, Grinzing, Holenburg, Tulln, Pottenbrunn, Traismauer, Oberwöling. Unfortunately, these rights were backed with a forged privilege of King Arnulf (19), which led to ongoing frustrations 200 years later still (20).
The warfare had diminished the education in the new marches as well; Count Udalrich von Ebersberg claimed that all Bavarians knew how to read the public law (
Volksrecht) (20), but saw this no longer the case during his adulthood. The school in St Emmeran (21), reformed in 980 by St Wolfgang of Regensburg and reorganized by the Benedictine monk Ramwold of St Maximin near Trier, was famous and had 300 books in its library managed by Reginbald, who worked to increase the holdings. Ramwold had the
Aureus Codex of Emmeran renovated. Salzburg had inherited most of its books, including Beda's
De Arte Metrica of 701 and a collection of letters from Alexander the Great to Aristotle. There was also Bishop Reginold of Eichstätt, who knew Hebrew and Greek und wrote a vita of St Willibald and poems about St Wunnibald and St Blasius. Tegernsee (22) was renovated from St Emmeran through Gozpert (21), who brought enthusiasm for the classics with im (22) and had Boethius, Stasius, Persius, Horaz and the letters of Cicero read and copied.
(rck Juritsch thinks that Master Conrad wrote earlier versions of the Nibelungenlied in Latin, no less, at the behest of Pilgrim of Passau around this time; modern scholarship assumes that the epic was written in Middle High German from the beginning and that Pilgrim occurs because this was during the time that Pilgrim was supposed to be canonized. (22) Juritsch is well-informed about the miracles some 200 years after Pilgrim's death at the rediscovery of his grave (23).)
In 991 both Friedrich of Salzburg and Pilgrim of Passau died (23).
In 994 (24), Luitpold is hit by a stray error during a wargame and dies July 10th, 994. Thietmar of Merseburg praises him (24), as do the Annals of Quedlinburg.
Luitpold's son Heinrich I becomes the new markgrave, even though the role is not hereditary yet.
