Maria Saal
Encyclopedia
Maria Saal is a market town
Market town
Market town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...

 in the district of Klagenfurt-Land
Klagenfurt-Land
Bezirk Klagenfurt-Land is a district of the state ofCarinthia in Austria.-Municipalities:Towns are indicated in boldface; market towns in italics; suburbs, hamlets and other subdivisions of a municipality are indicated in small characters.*Ebenthal **Aich an der Straße, Berg, Ebenthal,...

 in the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n state of Carinthia
Carinthia (state)
Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...

. It is located in the east of the historic Zollfeld
Zollfeld
Zollfeld is a slightly ascending plain in Carinthia, Austria. It is one of the oldest cultural landscapes in the East Alpine region.-Geography:...

 plain (Gosposvetsko polje), the wide valley of the Glan
Glan (Gurk)
The Glan is a river in Carinthia, Austria, a right tributary of the Gurk.It rises north of the Wörthersee in the Ossiacher Tauern mountains, then running through Feldkirchen, going northeastwards passing Glanegg Castle until it reaches Sankt Veit where it bends sharply towards south...

 river. The municipality includes the cadastral communes of Kading, Karnburg, Möderndorf, Possau and St. Michael am Zollfeld.

History

The Zollfeld valley has been a cultural and political centre since Celtic tribes settled in the region. When their kingdom of Noricum
Noricum
Noricum, in ancient geography, was a Celtic kingdom stretching over the area of today's Austria and a part of Slovenia. It became a province of the Roman Empire...

 had become a province of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 in 15 BC, Emperor Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...

 had the city of Virunum
Virunum
Claudium Virunum was a Roman city in the province of Noricum, on today's Zollfeld in the Austrian State of Carinthia. Virunum may also have been the name of the older Celtic-Roman settlement on the hilltop of Magdalensberg nearby....

 erected as the province's capital at the foot of the nearby Magdalensberg
Magdalensberg
Magdalensberg is a municipality in the district of Klagenfurt-Land in Carinthia in Austria.The municipality comprises 40 villages and hamlets: Christofberg, Deinsdorf, Dürnfeld, Eibelhof, Eixendorf, Farchern, Freudenberg, Gammersdorf, Geiersdorf, Göriach, Gottesbichl, Großgörtschach, Gundersdorf,...

, where on the hill top a splendid Celtic settlement had already existed. Virunum became a centre of Early Christianity
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....

 in the early 4th century as the see
Episcopal See
An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...

 of a bishop under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Aquileia.

When pagan Slavic tribes
Slavic settlement of the Eastern Alps
Slavic settlement of the Eastern Alps region was a historic process that took place between the 6th and 9th century AD, having culminated in the final quarter of the 6th century...

 entered the region around 590, they settled in a place called Krnski grad/Karnburg close to Virunum, which became the administrative centre of their Carantania principality. Here the ritual of installing the prince
Prince
Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...

s took place on the Prince's Stone
Prince's Stone
The Prince's Stone is the reversed base of an ancient Ionic column that played an important role in the ceremony surrounding the installation of the princes of Carantania in the Early Middle Ages...

, the base of an ancient Roman Ionic
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

 column originating from Virunum. The ceremony was continued in the local dialect of the Slovene language long into the Middle Ages. After Duke Odilo of Bavaria about 743 had vassalised the Carantanian prince Borut, the ritual was supplemented by a German-language ceremony at the Duke's Chair
Duke's Chair
The Duke's Chair, also known as the Duke's Seat , is a medieval stone seat dating from the ninth century and located at the Zollfeld plain near Maria Saal north of Klagenfurt in the Austrian state of Carinthia.-History:...

, a double throne made of stone, which can still be seen near Maria Saal.

The second Christianization
Christianization
The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...

 of the area began at about 767 under Bishop Vergilius of Salzburg
Vergilius of Salzburg
Vergilius of Salzburg was an Irish churchman, an early astronomer and bishop of Salzburg. His obituary calls him the geometer.-Biography:...

. His missionary Modestus had the first church of the Assumption of Mary
Assumption of Mary
According to the belief of Christians of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and parts of the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglicanism, the Assumption of Mary was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her life...

 built at Maria Saal/Gospa Sveta, across the plain from Krnski Grad/Karnburg, as the centre of his missionary activities. S. Maria ad Carantanum was first mentioned in a 860 deed, probably a smallish wooden church that has vanished long since. From this bishop's church - by no means a cathedral in the modern sense of the word - Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 was spread all over Carantania.

After Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

 had finally deposed the Bavarian duke Tassilo III in 787, Karnburg remained the political capital when Carantania became a march of the Frankish realm. The East Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia
Arnulf of Carinthia
Arnulf of Carinthia was the Carolingian King of East Francia from 887, the disputed King of Italy from 894 and the disputed Holy Roman Emperor from February 22, 896 until his death.-Birth and Illegitimacy:...

 († 899), probably born in nearby Moosburg
Moosburg, Austria
Moosburg is a market town in the Klagenfurt-Land district in the Austrian state of Carinthia, northwest of its capital Klagenfurt. It consists of the Katastralgemeinden Bärndorf, Gradenegg, Kreggab, Moosburg , St...

, built a Kaiserpfalz
Kaiserpfalz
The term Kaiserpfalz or Königspfalz refers to a number of castles across the Holy Roman Empire which served as temporary, secondary seats of power for the Holy Roman Emperor in the Early and High Middle Ages...

here. In 893 he appointed the Bavarian count Luitpold
Luitpold, Margrave of Bavaria
Luitpold , perhaps of the Huosi family or related to the Carolingian dynasty by Liutswind, mother of Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia, was the ancestor of the Luitpolding dynasty which ruled Bavaria and Carinthia until the mid-tenth century.In 893, he was appointed margrave in the March of Carinthia...

 Margrave in the March of Carinthia
March of Carinthia
The March of Carinthia was a frontier district of the Carolingian Empire created in 889. Before it was a march, it had been a principality or duchy ruled by native-born Slavic princes at first independently and then under Bavarian and subsequently Frankish suzerainty...

, his Luitpolding descendants also ruled as Bavarian dukes.

When Emperor Emperor Otto II
Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor
Otto II , called the Red, was the third ruler of the Saxon or Ottonian dynasty, the son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy.-Early years and co-ruler with Otto I:...

 deposed Duke Henry II the Quarrelsome
Henry II, Duke of Bavaria
Henry II , called the Wrangler or the Quarrelsome, in German Heinrich der Zänker, was the son of Henry I and Judith of Bavaria.- Biography :...

 and finally separated Carinthia from Bavaria
History of Bavaria
The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empires to its status as an independent kingdom and, finally, as a large and significant Bundesland of the modern Federal Republic of...

 in 976, Karnburg also was the political centre of the duchy
Duchy of Carinthia
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, then the first newly created Imperial State beside the original German stem duchies....

, a function that later was taken over by the ducal town of Sankt Veit an der Glan
Sankt Veit an der Glan
Sankt Veit an der Glan is a town in the Austrian state of Carinthia. It is the capital of a district with the same name.-Location:This town is a major point on the Glan River in the north of the Zollfeld Valley....

, a few miles to the north, and finally in the 16th century by the City of Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt
-Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...

 to the south.

Cathedral

Maria Saal is famous for its large pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...

 church in seemingly transitional style from Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

 to Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

. Not much remains from the Romanesque church that had replaced the bishop's church of Modestus and his successors. The present fortified church building goes back to the mid-15th century and is in high Gothic style, actually reconstructed within 20 years after the big fire of 1669.

In view of the church's predecessor, which, as the church of Bishop Modestus, was the religious center of Carinthia in the 8th century and practically an episcopal see
Episcopal See
An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...

 until 945, the present church is popularly still called a "Dom", i.e. "cathedral", which it, of course, has never been. The Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 sarcophagus beneath the church is said to contain the remains of Modestus. Still today, however, it is a major pilgrimage
Pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...

 site for both German- and Slovene-speaking Carinthians and even for Slovene nationals.

Notable people

  • Friedrich Welwitsch
    Friedrich Welwitsch
    Friedrich Martin Josef Welwitsch was an Austrian explorer and botanist who in Angola discovered the plant Welwitschia mirabilis...

    , botanist
    Botany
    Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

    , born February 25, 1806 in Maria Saal, died October 20, 1872 in London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

    .

Twin towns — Sister cities

Maria Saa is twinned with: Aquileia
Aquileia
Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in what is now Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about 10 km from the sea, on the river Natiso , the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times...

 (Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

) Forgaria nel Friuli
Forgaria nel Friuli
Forgaria nel Friuli is a comune in the Province of Udine in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 90 km northwest of Trieste and about 25 km northwest of Udine...

 (Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

) Gornji Grad (Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

)
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