Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest is the world's largest Volksfest. Held annually in Munich, Germany, it is a 16- to 18-day folk festival running from mid or late September to the first weekend in October, with more than six million people from around the world attending the event every year. Locally, it is called the Wiesn, after the colloquial name for the fairgrounds, Theresa's meadows; the Oktoberfest is an important part of Bavarian culture, having been held since the year 1810. Other cities across the world hold Oktoberfest celebrations that are modeled after the original Munich event. During the event, large quantities of Oktoberfest Beer are consumed: during the 16-day festival in 2013, for example, 7.7 million litres were served. Visitors enjoy numerous attractions, such as amusement rides and games. There is a wide variety of traditional foods available; the Munich Oktoberfest took place in the 16-day period leading up to the first Sunday in October. In 1994, this longstanding schedule was modified in response to German reunification.
As such, if the first Sunday in October falls on the 1st or the 2nd the festival would run until 3 October. Thus, the festival now runs for 17 days when the first Sunday is 2 October and 18 days when it is 1 October. In 2010, the festival lasted until the first Monday in October. Kronprinz Ludwig King Ludwig I, married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen on 12 October 1810; the citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities held on the fields in front of the city gates to celebrate the royal event. The fields were named Theresienwiese in honour of the Crown Princess, have kept that name since, although the locals have since abbreviated the name to the "Wiesn". Horse races, in the tradition of the 15th-century Scharlachrennen, were held on 18 October to honor the newlyweds, it is understood that Andreas Michael Dall'Armi, a Major in the National Guard, proposed the idea. However, the origins of the horse races, Oktoberfest itself, may have stemmed from proposals offered by Franz Baumgartner, a coachman and Sergeant in the National Guard.
The precise origins of the festival and horse races remain a matter of controversy, the decision to repeat the horse races and celebrations in 1811 launched what is now the annual Oktoberfest tradition. The fairground, once outside the city, was chosen due to its natural suitability; the Sendlinger Hill was used as a grandstand for 40,000 race spectators. The festival grounds remained undeveloped except for the king's tent; the tastings of "Traiteurs" and other wine and beer took place above the visitors in the stands on the hill. Before the race started, a performance was held in homage of the bridegroom and of the royal family in the form of a train of 16 pairs of children dressed in Wittelsbach costumes, costumes from the nine Bavarian townships and other regions; this was followed by the punishing race with 30 horses on an 11,200-foot long racetrack, concluded with the singing of a student choir. The first horse to cross the finish line belonged to Franz Baumgartner. Horse racing champion and Minister of State Maximilian von Montgelas presented Baumgartner with his gold medal.
In 1811, a show was added to promote Bavarian agriculture. In 1813, the festival was canceled due to the involvement of Bavaria in the Napoleonic Wars, after which the Oktoberfest grew from year to year; the horse races were accompanied by tree climbing, bowling alleys, swings and other attractions. In 1818, carnival booths appeared; the city fathers assumed responsibility for festival management in 1819, it was decided that Oktoberfest become an annual event. It was lengthened and the date pushed forward because days are longer and warmer at the end of September; the horse race continued until 1960, the agricultural show still exists today and is held every four years in the southern part of the festival grounds. To honour the marriage of Prince Ludwig and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, a parade took place for the first time in 1810. Since 1850, the parade has become an important component of the Oktoberfest. Eight thousand people—mostly from Bavaria—and dressed in traditional costumes walk from Maximilian Street through the centre of Munich to the Oktoberfest grounds.
The march is led by the Münchner Kindl. Since 1850, the statue of Bavaria has watched over the Oktoberfest; this worldly Bavarian patron was first sketched by Leo von Klenze in a classic style and Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler romanticised and "Germanised" the draft. The statue was constructed by Ferdinand von Miller. In 1853, the Bavarian Ruhmeshalle was completed. In 1854, the festival was cancelled. There was no Oktoberfest in 1866. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War again forced the cancellation of the festival. In 1873, the festival was cancelled due to yet another cholera epidemic. In 1880, electric light illuminated more than 400 tents. In 1881, booths selling Bratwurst opened and the first beer was served in glass mugs in 1892. At the end of the 19th century, a re-organization took place; until there were games of skittles, large dance floors, trees for climbing in the beer booths. Organizers wanted more room for guests and musici
Beer measurement
When drinking beer, there are many factors to be considered. Principal among them are bitterness, the variety of flavours present in the beverage, along with their intensity, alcohol content, colour. Standards for those characteristics allow a more objective and uniform determination to be made on the overall qualities of any beer. "Degrees Lovibond" or "°L" scale is a measure of the colour of a substance beer, whiskey, or sugar solutions. The determination of the degrees Lovibond takes place by comparing the colour of the substance to a series of amber to brown glass slides by a colorimeter; the scale was devised by Joseph Williams Lovibond. The Standard Reference Method and European Brewery Convention methods have replaced it, with the SRM giving results equal to the °L; the Standard Reference Method or SRM is a system modern brewers use to measure colour intensity darkness, of a beer or wort. The method involves the use of a spectrophotometer or photometer to measure the attenuation of light of a particular wavelength, 430 nanometres, as it passes through a sample contained in a cuvette of standardised dimensions located in the light path of the instrument.
The EBC convention measures beer and wort colour, as well as quantifying turbidity in beer. Beer strength is the alcohol content measured by volume expressed as a percentage, to say, the number of millilitres of absolute alcohol in 100 ml of beer; the most accurate method of determining the strength of a beer would be to take a quantity of beer and distill off a spirit that contains all of the alcohol, in the beer. The alcohol content of the spirit can be measured using a hydrometer and tables of density of alcohol and water mixtures. A simple calculation would yield the strength of the beer; this method is accurate, but is time and beer consuming. A second method is the ebulliometer method, which uses the difference between the boiling temperature of pure water and the boiling temperature of the liquor being tested; this method is accurate and time-consuming, but uses less energy and beer. The most common method of estimating the strength of a beer is to measure the density of the wort before fermentation and to measure the density once the fermentation is completed, to use these two data points in an empirical formula which estimates the alcohol content or strength of the beer.
The most common method measuring the density of a liquid is with a hydrometer. A common scale is that of specific gravity. Specific gravity can be measured by a pycnometer or oscillating U-tube electronic meter. Water has a SG of 1.000, absolute alcohol has a SG of 0.789. Other density scales are discussed below; the density of the wort depends on the sugar content in the wort: the more sugar the higher the density. The fermented beer will have some residual sugar which will raise the SG, the alcohol content will lower the SG; the difference between the SG of the wort before fermentation and the SG of the beer after fermentation gives an indication of how much sugar was converted to alcohol by the yeast. A basic formula to calculate beer strength based on the difference between the original and final SG is: A B V = 131.25 The formula below is an alternate equation which provides more accurate estimates at higher alcohol percentages. A B V = 133 / F G where OG is the original gravity, or the specific gravity before fermentation and FG is the final gravity or SG after fermentation.
"Original Extract" is a synonym for original gravity. The OE is referred to as the "size" of the beer and is, in Germany printed on the label as Stammwürze or sometimes just as a percent. In the Czech Republic, for example, people speak of "10 degree beers", "12 degree beers" and so on. Gravity measurements are used to determine the "size" of the beer, its alcoholic strength, how much of the available sugar the yeast were able to consume. Gravity was measured and recorded in brewer's pounds. If a wort was said to be "26 lbs. gravity per barrel" it meant that a standard barrel of 36 imperial gallons of the wort weighted 26 pounds more than a barrel of pure water. The actual measurement was by saccharometer correcting for temperature by a calibration scale or else by a special brewer's slide rule. Three common scales used in fermentation are: Balling Brix PlatoThe oldest scale, was developed in 1843 by Bohemian scientist Karl Joseph Napoleon Balling as well as Simon Ack. In the 1850s German engineer-mathematician Adolf Ferdinand Wenceslaus Brix corrected some of the calculation errors in the Balling scale and introduced the Brix scale.
In the early 1900s German chemist Fritz Plato and his collaborators made further improvements, introducing the Plato scale. They are the same. A rough conversion betwe
Benedictines
The Benedictines the Order of Saint Benedict, are a monastic Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. They are sometimes called the Black Monks, in reference to the colour of the members' religious habits. Despite being called an order, the Benedictines do not operate under a single hierarchy but are instead organised as a collection of independent monastic communities, with each community within the order maintaining its own autonomy. Unlike other religious orders, the Benedictines do not have a superior general or motherhouse with universal jurisdiction. Instead, the order is represented internationally by the Benedictine Confederation, an organisation, set up in 1893 to represent the order's shared interests; the monastery at Subiaco in Italy, established by Saint Benedict of Nursia c. 529, was the first of the dozen monasteries he founded. He founded the Abbey of Monte Cassino. There is no evidence, that he intended to found an order and the Rule of Saint Benedict presupposes the autonomy of each community.
When Monte Cassino was sacked by the Lombards about the year 580, the monks fled to Rome, it seems probable that this constituted an important factor in the diffusion of a knowledge of Benedictine monasticism. It was from the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome that Augustine, the prior, his forty companions set forth in 595 on their mission for the evangelization of England. At various stopping places during the journey, the monks left behind them traditions concerning their rule and form of life, also some copies of the Rule. Lérins Abbey, for instance, founded by Honoratus in 375 received its first knowledge of the Benedictine Rule from the visit of St. Augustine and his companions in 596. Gregory of Tours says that at Ainay Abbey, in the sixth century, the monks "followed the rules of Basil, Cassian and other fathers and using whatever seemed proper to the conditions of time and place", doubtless the same liberty was taken with the Benedictine Rule when it reached them. In Gaul and Switzerland, it supplemented the much stricter Irish or Celtic Rule introduced by Columbanus and others.
In many monasteries it entirely displaced the earlier codes. By the ninth century, the Benedictine had become the standard form of monastic life throughout the whole of Western Europe, excepting Scotland and Ireland, where the Celtic observance still prevailed for another century or two. Through the work of Benedict of Aniane, it became the rule of choice for monasteries throughout the Carolingian empire. Monastic scriptoria flourished from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. Sacred Scripture was always at the heart of every monastic scriptorium; as a general rule those of the monks who possessed skill as writers made this their chief, if not their sole active work. An anonymous writer of the ninth or tenth century speaks of six hours a day as the usual task of a scribe, which would absorb all the time available for active work in the day of a medieval monk. In the Middle Ages monasteries were founded by the nobility. Cluny Abbey was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910; the abbey was noted for its strict adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict.
The abbot of Cluny was the superior of all the daughter houses, through appointed priors. One of the earliest reforms of Benedictine practice was that initiated in 980 by Romuald, who founded the Camaldolese community; the dominance of the Benedictine monastic way of life began to decline towards the end of the twelfth century, which saw the rise of the Franciscans and Dominicans. Benedictines took a fourth vow of "stability". Not being bound by location, the mendicants were better able to respond to an "urban" environment; this decline was further exacerbated by the practice of appointing a commendatory abbot, a lay person, appointed by a noble to oversee and to protect the goods of the monastery. Oftentimes, this resulted in the appropriation of the assets of monasteries at the expense of the community which they were intended to support; the English Benedictine Congregation is the oldest of the nineteen Benedictine congregations. Augustine of Canterbury and his monks established the first English Benedictine monastery at Canterbury soon after their arrival in 597.
Other foundations followed. Through the influence of Wilfrid, Benedict Biscop, Dunstan, the Benedictine Rule spread with extraordinary rapidity, in the North it was adopted in most of the monasteries, founded by the Celtic missionaries from Iona. Many of the episcopal sees of England were founded and governed by the Benedictines, no fewer than nine of the old cathedrals were served by the black monks of the priories attached to them. Monasteries served as places of refuge for the weak and homeless; the monks studied the healing properties of plants and minerals to alleviate the sufferings of the sick. Germany was evangelized by English Benedictines. Willibrord and Boniface preached there in the seventh and eighth centuries and founded several abbeys. In the English Reformation, all monasteries were dissolved and their lands confiscated by the Crown, forcing their Catholic members to flee into exile on the Continent. During the 19th century they were able to return to England, including to Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, one of the few great monastic churches to survive the Dissolution.
St. Mildred's Priory, on the Isle of Thanet, was built in 1027 on the site of an abbey founded in 670 by the daughter of the first Christian King of Kent; the priory is home to a community of Benedictine nuns. Five of
Galium odoratum
Galium odoratum, the sweetscented bedstraw, is a flowering perennial plant in the family Rubiaceae, native to much of Europe from Spain and Ireland to Russia, as well as Western Siberia, Iran, the Caucasus and Japan. It is sparingly naturalized in scattered locations in the United States and Canada, it is cultivated for its flowers and its sweet-smelling foliage. A herbaceous plant, it grows to 30–50 cm long lying flat on the ground or supported by other plants, its vernacular names include woodruff, sweet woodruff, wild baby's breath. It is sometimes confused with Galium verum, it owes its sweet smell to the odiferous agent coumarin, is sometimes used as a flavoring agent due to its chemical content. The leaves are simple, glabrous, 2–5 cm long, borne in whorls of 6–9; the small flowers are produced in cymes, each white with four petals joined together at the base. The fruits are 2–4 mm diameter, produced singly, each is covered in tiny hooked bristles which help disperse them by sticking temporarily to clothing and animal fur.
This plant prefers partial to full shade in rich soils. In dry summers it needs frequent watering. Propagation is by crown division, separation of the rooted stems, or digging up of the submerged perimeter stolons, it is ideal as a ground cover or border accent in woody, acidic gardens where other shade plants fail to thrive. Deer avoid eating it; as the epithet odoratum suggests, the plant is scented, the sweet scent being derived from coumarin. This scent increases on wilting and persists on drying, the dried plant is used in potpourri and as a moth deterrent, it is used in Germany, to flavour May wine, sweet juice punch, syrup for beer, jelly, jam, a soft drink, ice cream, herbal tea. Popular are Waldmeister flavoured jellies and without alcohol. In Germany it is used to flavour sherbet powder, which features prominently in Günter Grass' novel The Tin Drum. Plants for a Future USDA plants profile Missouri Botanical Gardens Plant Finder
Brewing
Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, at home by a homebrewer, or by a variety of traditional methods such as communally by the indigenous peoples in Brazil when making cauim. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BC, archaeological evidence suggests that emerging civilizations including ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia brewed beer. Since the nineteenth century the brewing industry has been part of most western economies; the basic ingredients of beer are a fermentable starch source such as malted barley. Most beer is flavoured with hops. Less used starch sources include millet and cassava. Secondary sources, such as maize, rice, or sugar, may be used, sometimes to reduce cost, or to add a feature, such as adding wheat to aid in retaining the foamy head of the beer; the proportion of each starch source in a beer recipe is collectively called the grain bill.
Steps in the brewing process include malting, mashing, boiling, conditioning and packaging. There are three main fermentation methods, warm and spontaneous. Fermentation may take place in an closed fermenting vessel. There are several additional brewing methods, such as barrel aging, double dropping, Yorkshire Square. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BC, archaeological evidence suggests emerging civilizations including ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia brewed beer. Descriptions of various beer recipes can be found in cuneiform from ancient Mesopotamia. In Mesopotamia the brewer's craft was the only profession which derived social sanction and divine protection from female deities/goddesses, specifically: Ninkasi, who covered the production of beer, used in a metonymic way to refer to beer, Siduri, who covered the enjoyment of beer. In pre-industrial times, in developing countries, women are the main brewers; as any cereal containing certain sugars can undergo spontaneous fermentation due to wild yeasts in the air, it is possible that beer-like beverages were independently developed throughout the world soon after a tribe or culture had domesticated cereal.
Chemical tests of ancient pottery jars reveal that beer was produced as far back as about 7,000 years ago in what is today Iran. This discovery reveals one of the earliest known uses of fermentation and is the earliest evidence of brewing to date. In Mesopotamia, the oldest evidence of beer is believed to be a 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet depicting people drinking a beverage through reed straws from a communal bowl. A 3900-year-old Sumerian poem honouring Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, contains the oldest surviving beer recipe, describing the production of beer from barley via bread; the invention of bread and beer has been argued to be responsible for humanity's ability to develop technology and build civilization. The earliest chemically confirmed barley beer to date was discovered at Godin Tepe in the central Zagros Mountains of Iran, where fragments of a jug, at least 5,000 years old was found to be coated with beerstone, a by-product of the brewing process. Beer may have been known in Neolithic Europe as far back as 5,000 years ago, was brewed on a domestic scale.
Ale produced before the Industrial Revolution continued to be made and sold on a domestic scale, although by the 7th century AD beer was being produced and sold by European monasteries. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, domestic manufacture ceased to be significant by the end of the 19th century; the development of hydrometers and thermometers changed brewing by allowing the brewer more control of the process, greater knowledge of the results. Today, the brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries. More than 133 billion litres are sold per year—producing total global revenues of $294.5 billion in 2006. The basic ingredients of beer are water. A mixture of starch sources may be used, with a secondary saccharide, such as maize, rice, or sugar being termed an adjunct when used as a lower-cost substitute for malted barley.
Less used starch sources include millet and cassava root in Africa, potato in Brazil, agave in Mexico, among others. The amount of each starch source in a beer recipe is collectively called the grain bill. WaterBeer is composed of water. Regions have water with different mineral components. For example, Dublin has hard water well suited to making stout, such as Guinness; the waters of Burton in England contain gypsum, which benefits making pale ale to such a degree that brewers of pale ales will add gypsum to the local water in a process known as Burtonisation. Starch source The starch source in a beer provides the fermentable material and is a key determinant of the strength and flavour of the beer; the most common starch source used in bee
Beer
Beer is one of the oldest and most consumed alcoholic drinks in the world, the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. Beer is brewed from cereal grains—most from malted barley, though wheat and rice are used. During the brewing process, fermentation of the starch sugars in the wort produces ethanol and carbonation in the resulting beer. Most modern beer is brewed with hops, which add bitterness and other flavours and act as a natural preservative and stabilizing agent. Other flavouring agents such as gruit, herbs, or fruits may be used instead of hops. In commercial brewing, the natural carbonation effect is removed during processing and replaced with forced carbonation; some of humanity's earliest known writings refer to the production and distribution of beer: the Code of Hammurabi included laws regulating beer and beer parlours, "The Hymn to Ninkasi", a prayer to the Mesopotamian goddess of beer, served as both a prayer and as a method of remembering the recipe for beer in a culture with few literate people.
Beer is distributed in bottles and cans and is commonly available on draught in pubs and bars. The brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries; the strength of modern beer is around 4% to 6% alcohol by volume, although it may vary between 0.5% and 20%, with some breweries creating examples of 40% ABV and above. Beer forms part of the culture of many nations and is associated with social traditions such as beer festivals, as well as a rich pub culture involving activities like pub crawling and pub games. Beer is one of the world's oldest prepared drinks; the earliest archaeological evidence of fermentation consists of 13,000 year old residues of a beer with the consistency of gruel, used by the semi-nomadic Natufians for ritual feasting, at the Raqefet Cave in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa in Israel. There is evidence; the earliest clear chemical evidence of beer produced from barley dates to about 3500–3100 BC, from the site of Godin Tepe in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran.
It is possible, but not proven, that it dates back further — to about 10,000 BC, when cereal was first farmed. Beer is recorded in the written history of ancient Iraq and ancient Egypt, archaeologists speculate that beer was instrumental in the formation of civilizations. 5000 years ago, workers in the city of Uruk were paid by their employers in beer. During the building of the Great Pyramids in Giza, each worker got a daily ration of four to five litres of beer, which served as both nutrition and refreshment, crucial to the pyramids' construction; some of the earliest Sumerian writings contain references to beer. The Ebla tablets, discovered in 1974 in Ebla, show that beer was produced in the city in 2500 BC. A fermented drink using rice and fruit was made in China around 7000 BC. Unlike sake, mold was not used to saccharify the rice. Any substance containing sugar can undergo alcoholic fermentation, it is that many cultures, on observing that a sweet liquid could be obtained from a source of starch, independently invented beer.
Bread and beer increased prosperity to a level that allowed time for development of other technologies and contributed to the building of civilizations. Xenophon noted. Beer was spread through Europe by Germanic and Celtic tribes as far back as 3000 BC, it was brewed on a domestic scale; the product that the early Europeans drank might not be recognised as beer by most people today. Alongside the basic starch source, the early European beers might contain fruits, numerous types of plants and other substances such as narcotic herbs. What they did not contain was hops, as, a addition, first mentioned in Europe around 822 by a Carolingian Abbot and again in 1067 by abbess Hildegard of Bingen. In 1516, William IV, Duke of Bavaria, adopted the Reinheitsgebot the oldest food-quality regulation still in use in the 21st century, according to which the only allowed ingredients of beer are water and barley-malt. Beer produced before the Industrial Revolution continued to be made and sold on a domestic scale, although by the 7th century AD, beer was being produced and sold by European monasteries.
During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, domestic manufacture ceased to be significant by the end of the 19th century. The development of hydrometers and thermometers changed brewing by allowing the brewer more control of the process and greater knowledge of the results. In 1912, the use of brown bottles began to be used by Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States; this innovation has since been accepted worldwide and prevents harmful rays from destroying the quality and stability of beer. As of 2007, the brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominant multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ran
Austria
Austria the Republic of Austria, is a country in Central Europe comprising 9 federated states. Its capital, largest city and one of nine states is Vienna. Austria has an area of 83,879 km2, a population of nearly 9 million people and a nominal GDP of $477 billion, it is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north and Slovakia to the east and Italy to the south, Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps; the majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects as their native language, German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other regional languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, Slovene. Austria played a central role in European History from the late 18th to the early 20th century, it emerged as a margraviate around 976 and developed into a duchy and archduchy. In the 16th century, Austria started serving as the heart of the Habsburg Monarchy and the junior branch of the House of Habsburg – one of the most influential royal houses in history.
As archduchy, it was a major component and administrative centre of the Holy Roman Empire. Following the Holy Roman Empire's dissolution, Austria founded its own empire in the 19th century, which became a great power and the leading force of the German Confederation. Subsequent to the Austro-Prussian War and the establishment of a union with Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was created. Austria was involved in both world wars. Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy with a President as head of state and a Chancellor as head of government. Major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz and Innsbruck. Austria is ranked as one of the richest countries in the world by per capita GDP terms; the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2018 was ranked 20th in the world for its Human Development Index. The republic declared its perpetual neutrality in foreign political affairs in 1955. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955 and joined the European Union in 1995.
It is a founding member of the OECD and Interpol. Austria signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, adopted the euro currency in 1999; the German name for Austria, Österreich, derives from the Old High German Ostarrîchi, which meant "eastern realm" and which first appeared in the "Ostarrîchi document" of 996. This word is a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Another theory says that this name comes from the local name of the mountain whose original Slovenian name is "Ostravica" - because it is steep on both sides. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976; the word "Austria" was first recorded in the 12th century. At the time, the Danube basin of Austria was the easternmost extent of Bavaria; the Central European land, now Austria was settled in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes. The Celtic kingdom of Noricum was claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province. Present-day Petronell-Carnuntum in eastern Austria was an important army camp turned capital city in what became known as the Upper Pannonia province.
Carnuntum was home for 50,000 people for nearly 400 years. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the area was invaded by Bavarians and Avars. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, conquered the area in AD 788, encouraged colonization, introduced Christianity; as part of Eastern Francia, the core areas that now encompass Austria were bequeathed to the house of Babenberg. The area was known as the marchia Orientalis and was given to Leopold of Babenberg in 976; the first record showing the name Austria is from 996, where it is written as Ostarrîchi, referring to the territory of the Babenberg March. In 1156, the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy. In 1192, the Babenbergs acquired the Duchy of Styria. With the death of Frederick II in 1246, the line of the Babenbergs was extinguished; as a result, Ottokar II of Bohemia assumed control of the duchies of Austria and Carinthia. His reign came to an end with his defeat at Dürnkrut at the hands of Rudolph I of Germany in 1278. Thereafter, until World War I, Austria's history was that of its ruling dynasty, the Habsburgs.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of the Duchy of Austria. In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund. Although Albert himself only reigned for a year, henceforth every emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was a Habsburg, with only one exception; the Habsburgs began to accumulate territory far from the hereditary lands. In 1477, Archduke Maximilian, only son of Emperor Frederick III, married the heiress Maria of Burgundy, thus acquiring most of the Netherlands for the family. In 1496, his son Philip the Fair married Joanna the Mad, the heiress of Castile and Aragon, thus acquiring Spain and its Italian and New World appendages for the Habsburgs. In 1526, following the Battle of Mohács, Bohemia and the part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans came under Austrian rule. Ottoman expansion into Hungary led to frequent conflicts between the two empires evident in the Long War of 1593 to 1606.
The Turks made incursions into Styria nearly 20 times, of which some are c
.jpg)
