Counts of Ortenburg

Though they had roots in Bavarian nobility, an affiliation with the Imperial Counts of Ortenburg, a branch line of the Rhenish Franconian House of Sponheim, is not established.

In 1072, one Adalbert of Ortenburg, probably a younger son of Count Hartwig II of Grögling-Hirschberg (d. 1068/69), served as a Vogt stattholder in the Carinthian possessions of the Bishops of Freising.

When the Lurn dynasty became extinct in 1135, the Counts of Ortenburg received large estates stretching from Möllbrücke down the Drava Valley to Rennstein near Villach.

Instead, the Habsburg emperor Frederick III took possession of the Ortenburg estates, which his great-grandson Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria granted to his treasurer Gabriel von Salamanca in 1524.

Today, the ruins of the Ortenburg Castle can still be seen on Goldeck mountain above the village of Baldramsdorf, west of Spittal an der Drau in Carinthia, Austria.