Carniola

• 1. Introduction

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  Carniola ceased to exist as a legal territory in 1921, when the Vidovdan Constitution abolished it. Yet in 1991-47 percent of Slovenia's population still lived within the borders of the former Duchy of Carniola. Slovenes still speak of Upper Carniola, Lower Carniola, White Carniola, and Inner Carniola, as if the old duchy had never disappeared. For centuries this region belonged to the Holy Roman Empire and then the Austrian Empire, ruled almost continuously by the Habsburgs. The peasants who farmed its fields spoke a different language than the officials who ran its towns. How did one region end up with four traditional subdivisions, two languages, and a name that outlived the empire that shaped it? And what finally pulled apart the duchy that had held its people together for centuries?

• 2. Mountains, Rivers, and Fields

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  Triglav climbs to 9300 feet, the highest point where the Julian Alps meet the Karawanks across Carniola's terrain. Nanos reaches 4200 feet, Vremščica 3360 feet, and Snežnik 5900 feet, each marking a different corner of the region. Several rivers cut through the landscape: the Sava, Tržič Bistrica, Kokra, Kamnik Bistrica, Sora, Ljubljanica, Mirna, Krka, and Kolpa. Black Lake, Lake Bohinj, Lake Bled, and Lake Cerknica sit among them, close to the wetlands of the Ljubljana Marsh. Hot and mineral springs bubble up at Dolenjske Toplice, Šmarješke Toplice, and Izlake.

  Agriculture flourished more in Upper Carniola than in Lower Carniola. The Vipava Valley stood out for its wine, its vegetables, and its unusually mild climate. Average temperatures ran to 56°F in spring, 77°F in summer, 59°F in autumn, and 26°F in winter.

  By 1910, the region's railroads included the Southern, Prince Rudolf, Bohinj, Kamnik, Lower Carniola, and Vrhnika lines. Its principal towns included Kamnik, Kranj, Tržič, Vrhnika, Vipava, Idrija, Turjak, Ribnica, Metlika, Novo Mesto, and Vače. Centuries before any of these towns took their names, entirely different peoples held these same valleys.

• 3. Tribes Before Rome

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  Before Rome arrived around 200 BC, the Taurisci held the north of Carniola and the Pannonians held the southeast. The Iapodes, a Celtic tribe also called the Carni, held the southwest. Rome folded the region into the province of Pannonia. Its northern part was attached to Noricum, while its southwestern and southeastern reaches, along with the city of Aemona, went to Venice and Istria. Under Augustus, the stretch of land from Aemona to the Kolpa River, then called the Culpa, belonged to the province of Savia.

  Rome's western empire collapsed in 476, and Carniola passed into Odoacer's Kingdom of Italy. In 493, under Theodoric, it became part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom. The Carni still lived between the upper Sava and the Soča rivers. Toward the end of the sixth century, Slavs moved into the territory Latin writers called Carnia, or, for its smaller part, Carniola, meaning little Carnia. That Latin name later passed into Slavic as Kranjska, and into German as Krain, or Chrainmark.

  Around 623, these Alpine Slavs, as modern historians call them, broke from Avar domination to join the Slavic tribal union led by Samo. After Samo died in 658, Avar rule returned, though the Slavs most likely kept some autonomy. Frankish armies were not far behind, arriving with a new religion and a new administrative order.

• 4. A March Under Many Lords

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  Frankish rule reached Carniola around 788, bringing Christian missionaries from the Patriarchate of Aquileia. When Charlemagne created the margraviate of Friuli, he attached part of Carniola to it. After Friuli split apart, Carniola became its own margraviate, governed by a Slavic margrave based at Kranj. That margrave first answered to the governor of Bavaria, and after 976 to the Dukes of Carinthia. In 1071, Henry IV granted the territory to the Patriarch of Aquileia, folding it into the Patriarchal State of Friuli.

  A shared Carantanian, or Carinthian, identity had linked the region's people through the High Middle Ages. It slowly faded after the 14th century, replaced by a separate Carniolan identity. The church, meanwhile, had already built a real footprint here. In 974, the Bishop of Freising became feudal lord of the town of Škofja Loka in Upper and Lower Carniola. The Bishop of Brixen held Bled and land in the Bohinj Valley, while the Bishop of Lavant received Mokronog.

  Secular rulers held their own footholds too. The Dukes of Meran, Gorizia, Babenberg, and Zilli each governed land granted to them by the patriarchs of Aquileia, for close to half a century. The patriarch finally gave Carniola in fief to Frederick II of Austria, who took the title of duke in 1245. His successor, Ulrich III, Duke of Carinthia, married Agnes of Andechs, a relative of the patriarch. He endowed churches and monasteries and established a government mint at Kostanjevica. In 1268, Ulrich willed all his possessions, including the government of Carinthia and Carniola, to Ottokar II, King of Bohemia. That inheritance would not survive Ottokar for long.

• 5. From March to Duchy

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  Rudolph I of Germany defeated Ottokar. In 1282, at a meeting in Augsburg, Rudolph handed Carniola in fief to his own sons, Albrecht and Rudolf. The territory itself, though, was leased out to Meinhard, count of Gorizia-Tirol. Duke Henry of Carinthia pressed his own claim to the province, while the Dukes of Austria argued their right as successors to the Bohemian kingdom.

  Henry died in 1335, and King John of Bohemia gave up his claims. Albrecht, Duke of Austria, took possession of Carniola that same year. Rudolf IV proclaimed it a duchy in 1364. Emperor Frederick III later joined Upper, Lower, and Central Carniola, along with Metlika and Pivka, into a single duchy. The union of these once separate parts was finally completed by 1607.

  From 1335 onward, the Habsburgs held Carniola almost without interruption, all the way through to 1918. The centuries ahead would test that grip more than once.

• 6. War, Faith, and Foreign Rule

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  Ottoman raiders struck Carniola repeatedly through the 15th and 16th centuries. Local residents rose up against Habsburg rule too, at various points between the 15th and 17th centuries. Amid this pressure, the Reformation made steady progress in the province between 1527 and 1564. Ferdinand I died in 1564, and Carniola passed to Archduke Charles, whose rule brought the start of religious persecutions.

  French revolutionary troops first occupied Carniola in 1797, then returned from 1805 to 1806. The Treaty of Schönbrunn placed Carniola under French rule in 1809. Under the Treaty of Vienna, it then became part of France's Illyrian provinces. Ljubljana served as the provinces' capital, a role it held from 1809 to 1814.

  Napoleon's defeat returned Carniola to Austrian Emperor Francis I, initially with larger boundaries than before. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 then fixed the region within narrower limits, at 9904 square kilometers, the borders it would hold until its dissolution. From 1816 to 1849, Carniola belonged to the Austrian Kingdom of Illyria, still governed from Ljubljana. Through all these political upheavals, one institution had been quietly drawing its own borders across the same territory for far longer: the church.

• 7. A Church Divided

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  In early Christian centuries, church authority over Carniola belonged to the metropolitans of Aquileia, who later became patriarchs, along with Syrmium and Salona. The arrival of pagan Slovenes disrupted that arrangement until they converted to Christianity in the seventh and eighth centuries. Charlemagne then granted most of Carniola to the Patriarchate of Aquileia, with the remaining portion going to the Diocese of Trieste. By 1100, that patriarchate had split into five archdeaconries, and Krain was counted among them.

  Emperor Frederick III established the Diocese of Ljubljana, or Laibach, on the 6th of December 1461, placing it directly under the pope's authority. Pope Pius II confirmed the new diocese by papal bull on the 10th of September 1462. It combined part of Upper Carniola, two parishes from Lower Carniola, and portions of Lower Styria and Carinthia. The rest of Carniola stayed attached to Aquileia, and later to Gorizia and Trieste.

  A redistribution of dioceses between 1787 and 1791 still left some Carniolan parishes outside the Diocese of Ljubljana's reach. That gap was finally closed in 1833. Two deaneries were taken from the Diocese of Trieste, one from Gorizia, and one parish from the Diocese of Lavant. Together, they brought every parish inside Carniola's political borders under a single church. By then, secular administrators in Vienna were drawing their own map of Carniola's future, one built on districts and delegates rather than dioceses.

• 8. Crownland and Dissolution

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  By 1914, on the eve of the First World War, Carniola held a population slightly under 530,000, of whom 95 percent were Slovenes. Back in 1849, the Austrian Empire had reorganized the territory into its own duchy and crownland, the Duchy of Carniola. Carinthia bordered it to the north, Styria to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast and south, and Trieste, Goritza, and Istria to the west. At that time it spanned 3,857 square miles and counted 510,000 people.

  Ljubljana served as the crownland's capital and the see of a prince-bishop, with a population of 40,000. The Romans had known the city as Aemona before Obri forces destroyed it in the sixth century. Politically, Carniola was split into Upper Carniola, called Gorenjska in Slovenian, Lower Carniola or Dolenjska, and Inner Carniola or Notranjska. These were further divided into eleven districts, holding 359 municipalities and 31 judicial circuits. Those districts included Kamnik, Kranj, Radovljica, the area around Ljubljana, Logatec, Postojna, Litija, Krsko, Novo Mesto, Crnomelj, and Kocevje, also known as Gotschee.

  A rescript of the 20th of December 1860 constituted the duchy's home government. An imperial patent of the 26th of February 1861 followed. Legislation on the 21st of December 1867 then granted the home parliament power over any laws not reserved to the imperial diet. Carniola sent 11 delegates to that imperial diet. Landowners chose two of those delegates, cities and commercial boards chose three, and village communes chose five. A fifth curia elected the remaining delegate by secret ballot, open to every registered man over twenty four. The home legislature itself held 37 members in a single chamber, with the prince-bishop sitting ex officio. The emperor convened it, and the governor presided. Landed interests elected ten of those members, cities and towns eight, commercial and industrial boards two, and village communes sixteen. That system lasted until 1907, when universal and equal suffrage for all men replaced it.

  The chamber's business stayed limited to agriculture, public and charitable institutions, communal administration, church and school affairs, and housing soldiers during war or manoeuvres. In 1901, the land budget totaled 3,573,280 crowns, worth about $714,656 at the time.

  In 1918, the duchy ceased to exist. Its territory joined the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia. The western part, including the towns of Postojna, Ilirska Bistrica, Idrija, and Šturje, was annexed to Italy in 1920 before joining Yugoslavia in 1947. Since 1991, that same ground has belonged to an independent Slovenia. One small part, around Fusine in Valromana, still remains in Italy today.