County of Görz

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(Princely) County of Gorizia (Gefürstete) Grafschaft Görz
State of the Holy Roman Empire
← 1127–1747 →
Flag Coat of arms
Capital	Gorizia
Government	Principality
Historical era	Middle Ages
- Meinhard,     Count of Gorizia	1127
- Meinhard III inherited     Tyrol	1253
- Gained immediacy	1365
- Bequeathed to     House of Habsburg	1500
- Joined Austrian Circle	1512
- Reunited with Gradisca	1747

The County of Görz (German: Grafschaft Görz, Italian: Contea di Gorizia, Slovene: Goriška grofija, Friulian: Contee di Gurize) was a county based around the town of Gorizia in the present-day Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of north-eastern Italy.

Gorizia Castle

Count Meinhard, descendant of the Bavarian Meinhardiner noble family with possessions around Lienz in Tyrol, is mentioned as early as 1107. As a vogt of the Patriarchate of Aquileia he was enfeoffed with large estates in the former March of Friuli, including the town of Gorizia, and from 1127 on called himself a Graf von Görz. The borders of the county changed frequently in the following four centuries, due to frequent wars with the Aquileia and other counties, but also to the subdivision of the territory in two main nuclei: one around the upper Drava near Lienz, the other centered on Gorizia itself.

Meinhard's descendant Meinhard III, a follower of Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, was appointed administrator of Styria in 1248. He campaigned the Duchy of Carinthia but was defeated by the troops of Duke Bernhard von Spanheim and his son Archbishop Philip of Salzburg at Greifenburg in 1252. Nevertheless the county reached the apex of its power, when Meinhard III inherited the County of Tyrol (as Meinhard I) from his father-in-law Albert III one year later.

After Count Meinhard I of Gorizia-Tyrol had died in 1258, his sons at first ruled jointly until in 1271 they divided their heritage: While Meinhard II received the Tyrolean lands west of the Puster Valley, his brother Albert retained the hereditary lands around Gorizia. The Counts also controlled the March of Treviso (Marca Trevigiana) and the remains of the Istrian march around Pazin, though for a short while. After the death of Albert's son Henry III, assassinated in 1323, the county was again partitoned into the inner county at Gorizia and the outer county at Lienz. In 1365 Count Meinhard VII of Gorizia was granted the princely title by Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, the county was thereon called Gefürstete Grafschaft Görz. The Meinhardiner nevertheless suffered a steep decline under their powerful neighbours, the Republic of Venice and the Austrian lands of the Habsburg dynasty.

In 1429 the county was reunited under the single rule of Count Henry V. The last count of Gorizia, Leonhard, died in 1500 and despite claims raised by Venice, according to a contract of inheritance the county fell to Maximilian I of Habsburg. Until 1747 Gorizia formed an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire ruled by the Inner Austrian Archdukes as part of the Austrian Circle, governed by a capitano. Its territory included the upper valley of Isonzo River to Aquileia, the area of Cormons and Duino, and the former Venetian fortress of Gradisca conquered by Imperial troops in 1511. In 1647 Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg separated the County of Gradisca from Gorizia for his courtier Johann Anton von Eggenberg, until in 1747 both were again merged to form the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca.

See also

• List of Counts of Gorizia
• Gorizia and Gradisca
• History of Gorizia
• Austrian Empire
• County of Tyrol
• Republic of Venice
• History of Slovenia

References

This page uses content from HistoryWiki at County of Gorizia. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Wikipedia, the text of HistoryWiki is available under the CC-By-SA.