The Duchy of Austria (german: Herzogtum Österreich) was a medieval
principality
A principality (or sometimes princedom) can either be a monarchical feudatory or a sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a regnant-monarch with the title of prince and/or princess, or by a monarch with another title considered to fall under ...
of the
Holy Roman Empire, established in 1156 by the ''
Privilegium Minus'', when the
Margraviate of Austria
The Margraviate of Austria (german: Markgrafschaft Österreich) was a medieval frontier march, centered along the river Danube, between the river Enns and the Vienna Woods (''Wienerwald''), within the territory of modern Austrian provinces of Up ...
(''
Ostarrîchi
The German name of Austria, , derives from the Old High German word " eastern realm", recorded in the so-called '' Document'' of 996, applied to the Margraviate of Austria, a march, or borderland, of the Duchy of Bavaria created in 976.
Th ...
'') was detached from
Bavaria and elevated to a
duchy
A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a Middle Ages, medieval country, territory, fiefdom, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or Queen regnant, queen in Western European tradition.
There once exis ...
in its own right. After the ruling
dukes of the
House of Babenberg became extinct in male line, there was as much as three decades of rivalry on inheritance and rulership, until the German king
Rudolf I took over the dominion as the first monarch of the
Habsburg dynasty in 1276. Thereafter, Austria became the patrimony and ancestral homeland of the dynasty and the nucleus of the
Habsburg monarchy
The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...
. In 1453, the
archducal title of the Austrian rulers, invented by Duke
Rudolf IV in the forged ''
Privilegium