Innerösterreich

Innerösterreich: From the 16^th century, collective name for the duchies of Styria and Carinthia as well as Carniola and the County of Gorizia, as opposed to Tirol and the western Domains. When the Habsburg lands were divided in 1379, Albert III received the countries on the Danube (Upper and Lower Austria); Styria, Carinthia, Tirol, the old Habsburg lands in the west, and central Istria fell to his brother Leopold III. After Albert´s death in 1395, new conflicts arose in the Habsburg family. Under the Vienna Treaty, the line of Leopold III split into Styrian and Tirolean branches, resulting in three complexes of Austrian territory - a state of affairs that was to reappear in the 16^th century. The individual parts came to be known by the names of Niederösterreich (then comprising Lower and Upper Austria), Innerösterreich (comprising Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and the Adriatic possessions), and Oberösterreich (comprising the Tirol and the western domains, known as the Vorlande, or Vorderösterreich ["Austrian Forelands"]). Central organs for Innerösterreich were established in Graz (the Privy Council, or Geheimer Rat, for foreign affairs and dynastic matters; the Court Treasury, or Hofkammer, for finance and budgeting; and the Court Council of War, or Hofkriegsrat, for border protection). Legations were sent to the Imperial Diet and to the Curia. The military frontier of Croatia was established and maintained by the government of Innerösterreich in 1578. Karlsburg (now Karlovac, Croatia) became the new centre in 1579. When Karl V abdicated, Ferdinand I became emperor (1558), and thus the leadership of the empire was taken over by the Austrian (German) line of the Habsburgs. Maximilian II followed his father in Bohemia, Hungary, and the Austrian Danube territories (1564). Ferdinand, was endowed with Tirol and the Vorderlande; Karl received the Inner Austrian lands and took up residence in Graz. After Ferdinand II, Karl´s son, was elected German emperor at Frankfurt in 1619, the name Innerösterreich was not used any more. After 1619 Vienna became the centre of the Empire. From that time onwards, the former government of Innerösterreich (superior to the governors of Graz, Klagenfurt, Laibach (Ljubljana) and Görz (Gorica), and those of Trieste, Fiume, Aquileia and Flitsch) was considered an intermediate government headed by a stadtholder.

Literature: W. Neunteufel, Die Entwicklung der innerösterreichischen Länder, in: Innerösterreich 1564-1619, 1968.