Zollfeld is a slightly ascending plain in 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...

, 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...

. It is one of the oldest cultural landscapes in the East Alpine

Eastern Alps

Eastern Alps is the name given to the eastern half of the Alps, usually defined as the area east of the Splügen Pass in eastern Switzerland. North of the Splügen Pass, the Posterior Rhine forms the border, and south of the pass, the Liro river and Lake Como form the boundary line.-Geography:The...

 region.

Geography

It is from 400 metres (1,312.3 ft) to 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) wide and about 18 km (11.2 mi) long, with an elevation between 450 and 455 m (1,475 and 1,490 ft) above sea level. It is situated in the larger Klagenfurt Basin of the Central Eastern Alps

Central Eastern Alps

The Central Eastern Alps comprise the main chain of the Eastern Alps with its highest peaks, located between the Northern Limestone Alps and the Southern Limestone Alps, from which they differ in geological composition....

 and extends along the Glan River

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...

 from north 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 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....

.

The plain is confined by surrounded by four prominent peaks of the basin: the Ulrichsberg (1,022 m / 3,350 ft) in the south and the Magdalensberg (1,059 m / 3,470 ft) in the east as well as the Gößeberg (1,171 m / 3,841 ft) and the Lorenziberg in the north (971 m / 3,186 ft). Since about 500 years the mountains are stops on the annual Vierbergelauf procession

Procession

A procession is an organized body of people advancing in a formal or ceremonial manner.-Procession elements:...

 celebrated on second Friday after Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

.

History

The oldest archaeological findings at 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,...

 originate from the time of Hallstatt culture

Hallstatt culture

The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture.By the 6th century BC, the Hallstatt culture extended for some...

 (8th to 6th centuries BCE). The area was the cultural and political centre of the Celtic kingdom and the later Roman

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....

 province 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...

, when under the rule of 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...

 (41-54 AD) 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....

 was established as the province's capital, replacing - or maybe identical with - ancient Noreia

Noreia

Noreia was an ancient city in the eastern Alps, the capital of the kingdom of Noricum. Its location has so far not been determined precisely.Some researchers think that Noreia can be identified with the excavated Celtic-Roman settlement on the Magdalensberg in Carinthia, Austria. Others place it in...

.

Following the Slavic settlement of the Eastern Alps

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...

 about 600, the Karnburg (Krnski grad) fortress became the center of the Principality of Carantania, which about 740 was vassal

Vassal

A vassal or feudatory is a person who has entered into a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, usually including the grant of land held...

ized by Duke Odilo of Bavaria

Odilo of Bavaria

Odilo was an Alamannic nobleman, a son of Gotfrid of the house of the Agilolfings.He ruled Thurgau until 736, when with the death of Hugbert of Bavaria the older line of the Agilofing became extinct and he inherited the rulership of Bavaria, which he held until his death in 748.Odilo presided...

. With Bavaria a part of the Carolingian Empire

Carolingian Empire

Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...

 under 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...

 from 788 onwards, 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...

at Karnburg was erected about 830. It remained the administrative center after the Duchy of Carinthia

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....

 had been split off Bavaria in 976.

Inside the castle was a meeting place, where 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 column

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...

, stood and the Dukes of Carantania were installed. Near Maria Saal

Maria Saal

Maria Saal is a market town in the district of Klagenfurt-Land in the Austrian state of Carinthia. It is located in the east of the historic Zollfeld plain , the wide valley of the Glan river. The municipality includes the cadastral communes of Kading, Karnburg, Möderndorf, Possau and St...

 stands 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:...

, where the newly installed dukes distributed their land among the vassals.

See also

• Modestus (Apostle of Carinthia)
  Modestus (Apostle of Carinthia)
  Modestus , called the Apostle of Carinthia, Apostle of Carantania, was most probably an Irish monk and the evangelizer of the Carantanians, an Alpine Slavic people in the south of present-day Austria and north-eastern Slovenia, which were among the ancestors of present-day Slovenes.Upon the request...
  
  
• Carantanians
• History of Slovenia
  History of Slovenia
  The history of Slovenia chronicles the period of the Slovene territory from the 5th Century BC to the present times. In the Early Bronze Age, Proto-Illyrian tribes settled an area stretching from present-day Albania to the city of Trieste. The Holy Roman Empire controlled the land for nearly 1,000...