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the loss of all their Carinthian possessions up to the entrance to the Puster valley. In the
sixteenth century, the western part of the former Gorizian Land (including Lienz) was added
to Tyrol, while the remainder went to Carinthia. The Gorizian land complexes in Istria, and in
the Slovene March and White Carniola developed into two separate Länder. Both Länder, the
County in the March and White Carniola, and the county of Pazin, which are described in
greater detail above, were inherited by the Habsburgs in 1374, but successfully retained their
territorial identity throughout the Middle Ages. This unique case, in which one dominium
separated into four Länder was also reflected in the structure of the Gorizian territorial
administration, which had not one, but four captains in the fourteenth century: in Lienz,
Gorizia, Metlika and Pazin.
Celje
At a time when it seemed that
the development into Länder had definitively concluded
on the territory of present-day Slovenia, a separate Celje Land began to form from the
counties, lordships and territorial courts held by the counts of Cilli (Celje) in Styria, Carinthia
and Carniola. In the middle of the fifteenth century, this new formation threatened to blow
apart the group of three Inner Austrian Länder that was stabilising under Habsburg power.
The counts of Cilli were the most important noble house with origins in the territory of
present-day Slovenia. Their high social standing from first appearances in the records, their
original estates and the time of their appearance in documents indicate their descent from
Asquinus (Asquinus was the advocate of the Gurk monastery and a relative of its founder,
Hemma). Around 1130, they named themselves after the Savinja (von Soune), and from 1173
they named themselves after Žovnek (von Sannegg), a castle in the northwest of the Celje
basin, which they probably built in the first half of the twelfth century on their allodial estates.
Their rise began late, when most of the old noble houses had already died out. In 1308, the
lords of Žovnek gave all their allodial lands to the Habsburgs, who immediately returned them
as a fief, thus beginning a lengthy association with this ruling dynasty. This at first served
them well, but later, in the fifteenth century – at least within the German empire – would
become the most significant obstacle to their ambitions. The inheritance of most of the
posessions of the counts of Haimburg was even more significant, bringing them, in 1333, their
new centre: Celje. In 1341, Louis of Bavaria elevated them to the status of counts of Cilli, an
act repeated in 1372 by Emperor Charles IV. The foundation for the rise of the Cilli to high
politics was being laid at the same time, as they made their first dynastic links to the Bosnian
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house of Kotromanić and the Polish Piasti dynasty. Although the unheralded increase in lands
and Cilli expansion over the borders of hereditary Habsburg lands only occurred in the time of
Herman II, they had already established their integration into the European noble elite through
widespread dynastic alliances by the end of the fourteenth century. The other major factor in
the rise of the Cillis during the first half of the fifteenth century, in addition to these marriage
ties, was the alliance of Herman II, who ruled the house of Cilli for almost half a century, with
Sigismund of Luxemburg, the Holy Roman emperor and king of Hungary, Bohemia and
Germany. Fighting the Turks in 1396, at the unsuccessful Battle of Nicopolis, Herman saved
the life of Sigismund; later Sigismund would take Herman’s youngest daughter, Barbara, as
his wife. This opened a path to Hungarian crown lands for Herman and the Cilli line; through
this connection they acquired numerous estates as fiefs or in pledge, primarily in Croatia,
making them among the most powerful landowners in Slavonia. In 1406, Sigismund made
Herman ban of Slavonia and Croatia-Dalmatia. This gave the count of Celje the status and
power of regent and royal representative for the entire Kingdom of Croatia. The centre of Cilli
power was therefore moved outside of the Habsburg lands. Sigismund’s creation of the Order
of the Dragon in 1408 clearly reflected the status of the Cillis in Hungary: in the founding
charter, Herman II, Count of Cilli and Zagorje (Sagor) and his son Frederick, are at the head
of the Hungarian royal barons, before the counts palatine and other Hungarian magnates. The
ambitions of Frederick’s son, Ulrich, were also largely directed towards Hungary, where he
wanted to establish himself as guardian of his young relative, King Ladislas the Posthumous,
grandson of Barbara of Cilli. It was none other than Ulrich who held the crown of Saint
Stephen above the head of the three-month old Ladislas at his coronation as king of Hungary
in 1440. The crown had been stolen from Visegrád north of Budapest by a lady-in-waiting of
Ladislas’ mother. It was being kept there by a party of powerful Hungarian nobles and bishops
who intended to place Vladislaus, the young Polish king, on the Hungarian throne. It was a
clear sign from Ulrich of the role he wanted to play in Hungary. The outcome of the policy of
the Cillis Hungarian policy was the murder of Ulrich in the Kalemegdan fortress in Belgrade
in 1456, which brought an end to the house of Cilli.
The rise of the house of Cilli at the beginning of the fifteenth century reached a level
that demanded a redefinition of Cilli-Habsburg relations. The end of the Ortenburg line in
1418 signified an enormous increase in power for the Cillis as their heirs, all the more
because the county of Ortenburg was a fief with immediate status. In 1415, King Sigismund
had granted his father-in-law, Herman II, the right to administer high justice in the county of
Celli, meaning both Cilli counties had immediate status within the empire, which limited the