The House of Babenberg was a noble dynasty of Austrian Dukes and Margraves. Descending from the Popponids and originally from Bamberg in the Duchy of Franconia (present-day Bavaria), the Babenbergs ruled the imperial Margraviate of Austria from its creation in 976 AD until its elevation to a duchy in 1156, and from then until the extinction of the line in 1246, whereafter they were succeeded by the House of Habsburg.

Origin

Elder and Younger Houses of Babenberg

The Babenberg family can be broken down into two distinct groups;

  1. The Elder or Franconian House of Babenberg. Their name refers to Babenburg Castle, the present site of Bamberg Cathedral. They also called Popponids after their progenitor Count Poppo of Grapfeld (d. 839–41). They were related to the Frankish Robertian dynasty and ancestors of the Franconian Counts of Henneberg and the House of Schweinfurt.
  2. The Younger or Austrian House of Babenberg, or simply the House of Babenberg, are the descendants of Margrave Leopold I, who ruled Austria from 976 onwards.

The second group claimed to have originated from the first, but scholars have not been able to verify that claim. In addition, a descent from the Bavarian Luitpolding dukes is assumed (though perhaps in maternal line).

Popponids

Like the French royal Capetian dynasty, the Elder Babenbergs likely descended from the Robertians. The earliest known Babenberg, Count Poppo I of Grapfeld, was first mentioned in 819 as a ruler in the gau of Grabfeld, a historic region in northeastern Franconia bordering on Thuringia. He may have been a descendant of the Robertian Count Cancor of Hesbaye.

One of Poppo's sons, Henry, served as princeps militiae under King Louis the Younger and was sometimes called margrave (marchio) and duke (dux) in Franconia under King Charles the Fat of East Francia. He was killed fighting against the Vikings during the Siege of Paris in 886. Another son, Poppo II, was margrave in Thuringia from 880 to 892, when he was deposed by King Charles' successor Arnulf of Carinthia. The Popponids had been favoured by Charles the Fat, but Arnulf reversed this policy in favour of rivalling Conrad the Elder, a member of the Conradine dynasty from the Lahngau in Rhenish Franconia and relative of Arnulf's consort Ota.

Babenberg Feud

The leaders of the Babenbergs were the sons of Duke Henry, who called themselves after their castle of Babenburg on the upper Main river, around which their possessions centered. The city of Bamberg was built around the ancestral castle of the family. and had to cope both with revolting nobles and the continuing attacks by Babenberg forces. Both sides met in the battle of Fritzlar on 27 February 906, where the Conradines won a decisive victory, although Conrad the Elder fell in the battle. Two of the Babenberg brothers were also killed. The third, Adalbert, was summoned before the imperial court by the regent Archbishop Hatto I of Mainz, a partisan of the Conradines. He refused to appear, held his own for a time in his castle at Theres against the king's forces, but surrendered in 906, and in spite of a promise of safe-conduct by Hatto was beheaded.

Leopold III supported Henry V, the son of Emperor Henry IV, in his rising against his father, but was soon drawn over to the emperor's side. In 1106 he married the daughter of Henry IV, Agnes, widow of Duke Frederick I of Swabia. In 1125 he declined the royal crown in favour of Lothair of Supplinburg. His zeal in founding monasteries, such as Klosterneuburg Monastery, earned for him his surname "the Pious", and canonization by Pope Innocent VIII in 1485. He is regarded as the patron saint of Lower and Upper Austria.