Engelbert III [lower-alpha 1] (died 6 October 1173), a member of the Rhenish Franconian House of Sponheim, was Margrave of Istria [1] from 1124 until his death.
He was the second son of Margrave Engelbert II and his first wife Uta of Passau. When his father succeeded his elder brother Henry as Duke of Carinthia, Engelbert III received the margravial title in Istria. However, he mainly ruled in the Sponheim estates around Kraiburg in Bavaria, bequested by his mother.
In 1135 Emperor Lothair III dispatched him to a synod at Pisa in Italy, in order to back Pope Innocent II against Antipope Anacletus II. In turn, Engelbert was vested with the Imperial March of Tuscany, but was succeeded by the Welf duke Henry X of Bavaria already in 1137. Engelbert attended the 1156 Imperial Diet in Regensburg, where he witnessed the granting of the Privilegium Minus by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, elevating the March of Austria to a duchy.
In 1140 Engelbert had married Matilda, youngest daughter of the Bavarian count Berengar II of Sulzbach. He was thus a brother-in-law of Gertrude of Sulzbach, consort of King Conrad III of Germany, and Bertha of Sulzbach, as Irene wife of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. Matilda died late in 1165, the marriage remained childless. The margravial title in Istria passed to the Bavarian Counts of Andechs.
His son Pellegrino was Patriarch of Aquileia in northern Italy from 1195 to 1204. [2]
The Duchy of Carinthia was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and was the first newly created Imperial State after the original German stem duchies.
Henry the Proud, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Bavaria from 1126 to 1138 and Duke of Saxony as well as Margrave of Tuscany and Duke of Spoleto from 1137 until his death. In 1138 he was a candidate for the election as King of the Romans but was defeated by Conrad of Hohenstaufen.
Henry IX, called the Black, a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Bavaria from 1120 to 1126.
Louis I, called the Kelheimer or of Kelheim, since he was born and died at Kelheim, was the Duke of Bavaria from 1183 and Count Palatine of the Rhine from 1214. He was a son of Otto I and his wife Agnes of Loon. Louis was married to Ludmilla, a daughter of Duke Frederick of Bohemia.
Berthold IV, a member of the House of Andechs, was Margrave of Istria and Carniola. By about 1180/82 he assumed the title of Duke of Merania, referring to the Adriatic seacoast of Kvarner which his ancestors had conquered in the 1060s and annexed to Istria and Carniola.
The Marchof Carniola was a southeastern state of the Holy Roman Empire in the High Middle Ages, the predecessor of the Duchy of Carniola. It corresponded roughly to the central Carniolan region of present-day Slovenia. At the time of its creation, the march served as a frontier defense against the Kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia.
The March of Verona and Aquileia was a vast march of the Holy Roman Empire in northeastern Italy during the Middle Ages, centered on the cities of Verona and Aquileia. Seized by King Otto I of Germany in 952, it was held by the Dukes of Bavaria; from 976 in personal union with the Duchy of Carinthia. The margravial regime ended with the advent of the Lombard League in 1167.
The March of Friuli was a Carolingian frontier march, established in 776 as the continuation of the Lombard Duchy of Friuli, established against the Slavs and Avars. It was ceded to the Duchy of Bavaria as the March of Verona in 952. Its territory comprised parts of modern-day Italy, Slovenia and Croatia.
The March of Istria was originally a Carolingian frontier march covering the Istrian peninsula and surrounding territory conquered by Charlemagne's son Pepin of Italy in 789. After 1364, it was the name of the Istrian province of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary.
Ulric I, also Odalric or Udalrich, Count of Weimar-Orlamünde, was margrave of Carniola from 1045 and of Istria from 1060 to his death.
Engelbert II, a member of the House of Sponheim, was Margrave of Istria and Carniola from about 1103/07 until 1124. In 1123, he succeeded his elder brother Henry as Duke of Carinthia and Margrave of Verona which he held until his retirement in 1135.
Sponheim or Spanheim was a medieval German noble family, which originated in Rhenish Franconia. They were immediate Counts of Sponheim until 1437 and Dukes of Carinthia from 1122 until 1269. A cadet branch ruled in the Imperial County of Ortenburg-Neuortenburg until 1806.
The House of Andechs was a feudal line of German princes in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Counts of Dießen-Andechs obtained territories in northern Dalmatia on the Adriatic seacoast, where they became Margraves of Istria and ultimately dukes of a short-lived imperial state named Merania from 1180 to 1248. They were also self-styled lords of Carniola.
Berthold III, a member of the Bavarian House of Andechs, was Margrave of Istria from 1173 until his death.
Herman II of Spanheim, a scion of the Rhenish House of Sponheim, was Duke of Carinthia from 1161 until his death.
Adelheid of Wolfratshausen was a countess of Sulzbach as the second wife of Berengar II, Count of Sulzbach. Slightly different dates for her death are given in the necrologies of Tegernsee and the Salzburg Cathedral.
Matilda of Andechs was a daughter of Margrave Berthold I of Istria and his first wife, Hedwig of Dachau-Wittelsbach, daughter of the Bavarian Count palatine Otto IV of Scheyern.
Meinhard I, an ancestor of the noble House of Gorizia, was ruling count of Gorizia from 1122 until his death. He also held the offices of a Count palatine in the Duchy of Carinthia as well as Vogt governor of the Patriarchate of Aquileia and of St Peter Abbey in the March of Istria.
Pellegrino II was Patriarch of Aquileia in northern Italy from 1195 to 1204.
Henry V, of the House of Spanheim, was the margrave of Verona from 1144 until 1151 and the duke of Carinthia from 1144 to his death. According to the contemporary chronicler Otto of Freising, Henry was "a valiant man, experienced in the councils of war".