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The Viennese of the twelfth century sought, with pardonable vanity, to invest their town with the sacredness of antiquity. But we can scarcely allow their claims. On the contrary, we must deny all continuity between the Vindobona of the fourth and the Wien of the twelfth century. The Roman castrum disappeared, the Babenberg capital appeared, but between the two there is an unexplored gulf.
The early days of Ottokar II are noteworthy on account of the close connection established between Bohemia and Austria which led to endless complications and eventual disaster for the former country. Ottokar thought fit to marry Adela, sister of Duke Frederick of Austria, Frederick the Warlike, the last of the long line of Babenberg.
Hatto, while a zealous churchman, was a bold, energetic, and unscrupulous statesman, and raised himself to an almost unlimited power in France and Southern Germany by his arts and influence, Otho of Saxony aiding him in his progress to power. Two of his opponents, Henry and Adelhart, of Babenberg, took up arms against him, and came to their deaths in consequence.
Yet this incipient Vienna, although only the capital of a ducal family that had a hard fight at times for existence, holds an honorable position in the annals of German literature. The Babenberg dukes were generous patrons of the Muses. Their court was frequented by minnesingers and knights-errant. Their praises were sung by Walther von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von Lichtenstein and others.
From 976 to 1246 the duchies were in the possession of the Babenberg family. In 1276 they were annexed by Rudolph of Habsburg. Ever since then they have constituted the central possession of the house of which he was the founder. Prior to the middle of the twelfth century Vienna appears to have been a town of little importance.
In 1147 a large body of German pilgrims, enlisted for the Second Crusade, were allowed to fulfil their vows by serving against the Slav in the armies of Saxony and Brandenburg. The Babenberg dukes, grown weary of their monotonous work on the Danube, roamed eastward to conquer Egypt or Palestine, westward to exterminate the Albigensians of Languedoc and the infidels in Spain.
The influence of Hatto and the consent of Otto placed Conrad, Duke of Franconia, on the imperial throne. Sprung from a newly risen family, a mere creature of the bishop, his nobility as a feudal lord only dating from the period of the Babenberg feud, he was regarded by the Church as a pliable tool and by the dukes as little to be feared.
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