TheDuchy of Merania[a] was a fiefdom of theHoly Roman Empire from 1152 until 1248. The dukes of Merania were recognised asprinces of the Empire enjoyingimperial immediacy at a time when these concepts were just coming into use to distinguish the highest ranks of imperial nobility.[1]
The name "Merania" ("sea-land") comes from either theHigh German word for sea,meer[2] or theSlavic word for the same,morje (both cognate withLatinmare).[3] The name literally means "land by the sea" (am Meer), referring to its location on theAdriatic.[4]
The exact territorial extent of Merania is unknown. It probably included the town ofFiume (Rijeka) and the coast of theKvarner Gulf, either on theIstrian peninsula or across from it.[5][6][7] The author of theHistoria de expeditione Friderici imperatoris, an account ofBarbarossa's crusade of 1190, writing around 1200, refers to "the Duke of Dalmatia, also called Croatia or Merania", specifying (imprecisely) that the duchy neighbouredZahumlje andRaška. The actual duchy contained at most only a small part of the region ofDalmatia, which had historically belonged toCroatia. By the twelfth century,Croatia was in a personal union with Hungary.[8]
This territory came under imperial control during the reign ofHenry IV. According to the fourteenth-centuryChronicon pictum Vindobonense (Viennese Illustrated Chronicle), the "march of Dalmatia" (marchia Dalmacie) was occupied by theCarinthians between 1064 and 1068 during the reign ofDmitar Zvonimir, who in fact was not king of Croatia until 1075. Despite this inconsistency in the chronicle, several modern historians, led by Ljudmil Hauptmann, have connected this Dalmatian borderland with the later duchy of Merania.[9][10] According to the historians Miho Barada and Lujo Margetić, it was the accession of the young KingStephen II of Hungary in 1116 that provided an opportunity for the EmperorHenry V to annex the entire eastern coast of Istria and the coast opposite as far as the riverRječina, including the city of Fiume. This territory, conquered for the emperor by the lords ofDuino (Devin), became known as Merania.[11] It is not clear to what extent the Meranian dukes of the Dachau or Andechs lines ever managed to exert their control over the region.[10]
There are other theories proposing a different etymology of "Merania". Erwin Herrmann argues that the name cannot have actually been in use as the name of a region, since it is unknown save as the name of the duchy that existed between 1152 and 1248. He argues that it is probably formed from the name of the seat of the lordship, which he identifies with the town ofMarano Lagunare. The region he identifies as that between the riversTagliamento andCorno.[12]
In older literature, Merania is sometimes mistakenly identified withMeran, a town in theTyrol, because the Andechser dukes held land in the Tyrol.[13]August Dimitz, while correcting the Tyrolean error, equates Merania with themarch of Istria.[14]
The duchy of Merania was created for theWittelsbach CountConrad II of Dachau by the EmperorFrederick Barbarossa during anImperial Diet atRegensburg in June 1152 by separating some lordships from the marches ofCarniola andIstria, which were under the jurisdiction of theDuchy of Bavaria. Merania thus bordered the Kingdom of Croatia, which belonged toHungary. This was done despite the fact that the Diet had refused to approve Frederick's proposed invasion of Hungary. Rather than an attempt to circumvent the diet in his designs on Hungary, it can be seen as part of a more general policy, pre-dating Frederick's reign, of elevating noblemen of the rank of count to that of duke as a counterweight to the powerful hereditary dukes of the so-calledstem duchies (like Bavaria). It was also part of a reorganisation of the southeastern frontier that included the creation of theDuchy of Austria in 1156.[3][15]
The historian Wilhelm Wegener has proposed that Merania was created out of lands claimed by Conrad through his mother, Willibirg, daughter of Udalschalk, count ofLurngau, and Adelaide, daughter of MargraveUlrich I of Carniola. He proposed that Willibirg was heir to Adelaide, who was heir to her brotherUlrich II (died 1112). Thus, the creation of Conrad's duchies was a partial vindication of his claims on Carniola and had a hereditary basis. This theory had not found wide acceptance, since several duchies were created in Germany in the twelfth century with no clearly hereditary basis.[16]
These new ducal titles created in the twelfth century were often based on insignificant or diminished territories. Merania was small, with little in the way of rights or income for its holder.[17] The ducal title that technically pertained only to the newly acquired territory was thus also often used in conjunction with the dynastic seat, and Conrad was thus sometimes known as the Duke of Dachau.[18] BishopOtto I of Freising, in his history of Barbarossa's reign, calls Conrad the Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia, an impressive if imprecise title that alluded to the origin of the lands in question as part of Croatia.[19]
It has been argued that since neither Duke Conrad I nor his son,Conrad II, is ever recorded as having visited the region around the Istrian peninsula or the Kvarner Gulf, it is more likely that their title referred to unspecified lands around the southeastern frontier but not actually under imperial control. On this theory, Merania was at first a purely titular dignity for the Dachauers that only became a territorial reality under the Andechsers, who created it out of lands they held in the far southeast.[20]
In 1180, Frederick Barbarossa transferred Merania toBerthold, the son of thecount of Andechs. This was probably done in order to maintain a balance of power and rank between the House of Andechs and theHouse of Wittelsbach, which had received theDuchy of Bavaria earlier that year.[21] Although some sources ascribe the transfer of Merania to Conrad's death and propose that Berthold was his heir through his mother, in fact Conrad II did not die until 1182. The transfer of 1180 was part of a reorganization of the southeastern frontier by the emperor.[16]
Berthold inherited the marches of Istria and Carniola from his father in 1188. Although the Andechsers' primary lands lay elsewhere in the Empire, their southeastern connection involved them in its foreign affairs. When Barbarossa passed through the Balkans on his crusade in 1189, he negotiated the marriage of one of Berthold's daughters toToljen, the eldest son of PrinceMiroslav of Zahumlje, a younger brother of Grand PrinceStefan Nemanja of Serbia. Although Berthold consented, the marriage probably never took place. In any case, the duke of Merania was considered a near neighbour of the Serb princes.[8][22] The Andechsers pushed the empire's southeastern frontier further south, acquiringGottschee,Črnomelj andMetlika for Merania–Carniola at the expense of thekings of Hungary.[23]
On Berthold's death in 1204 Merania went to his eldest son,Otto I, and Istria to a younger son,Henry.[17] In the 1240s, the duke of Merania,Otto II, who had numerous possessions throughout southern Germany, was involved in a dispute with the duke of Bavaria that turned into open warfare.[24] In 1248, the duchy fell vacant with the extinction of the Andechs-Meranier and was broken up, mostly going to Istria.[1][24]