Early Middle Ages
During the Migration Period, the Slavic tribe of the Carantanians migrated into the Alps in the wake of the expansion of their Avar overlords during the 7th century, mixed with the Celto-Romanic population, and established the realm of Carantania, which covered much of eastern and central Austrian territory. In the meantime, the Germanic tribe of the Bavarians had developed in the 5th and 6th century in the west of the country and in Bavaria, while what is today Vorarlberg had been settled by the Alemans. Those groups mixed with the Rhaeto-Romanic population and pushed it up into the mountains.
Carantania, under pressure of the Avars, lost its independence to Bavaria in 745 and divided between Bavaria (western part) and Avar Khaganate (eastern part). Bavarian part of it became a margraviate. During the following centuries, Bavarian settlers went down the Danube and up the Alps, a process through which Austria was to become the mostly German-speaking country it is today.
The Bavarians themselves came under the overlordship of the Carolingian Franks and subsequently became a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire. Duke Tassilo III, who wanted to maintain Bavarian independence, was defeated and displaced by Charlemagne in 789. An eastern march (military borderland), the Avar March, was established in Charlemagne's time, but it was overrun by the Hungarians in 909.
Read more about this topic: History Of Austria
Famous quotes containing the words early, middle and/or ages:
“I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)
“This world has many rings, like Saturn, and we live now on the outmost of them all. None can say deliberately that he inhabits the same sphere, or is contemporary, with the flower which his hands have plucked, and though his feet may seem to crush it, inconceivable spaces and ages separate them, and perchance there is no danger that he will hurt it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)