The Privilegium Minus — Austria Becomes a Duchy
Frederick Barbarossa issued the Privilegium Minus in September 1156, raising the March of Austria to a duchy and giving it terms no other imperial territory had. It settled a quarrel that had run for eighteen years. Bavaria had been taken from Henry the Proud in 1138 and given to the Babenbergs; Henry's son, Henry the Lion, wanted it back, and Barbarossa needed the Welfs reconciled before he could pursue anything in Italy. The solution was to detach Austria from Bavaria and compensate its margrave with a status worth more than the territory he was giving up. The privileges were unusual and deliberate. Austria became a duchy held from the emperor directly. It could be inherited in the female line, and if the line failed entirely the duke could name his own successor — which removed the emperor's right to reassign a lapsed fief, the ordinary lever of imperial control. Military service was owed only in campaigns in lands adjoining Austria, and attendance at court only at diets held in Bavaria. No one could exercise jurisdiction in the duchy without the duke's consent. The effect was a territory inside the empire that owed it very little, and every later Austrian claim to a distinct standing runs back to this document. Rudolf IV forged the Privilegium Maius in the 1350s to extend it further, inventing an archducal title; Petrarch was asked to examine it and pronounced it false, and the Habsburgs used it anyway until an emperor of their own confirmed it in 1453.
- Year: 1156 CE
- Category: Political
