[1] After the ruling dukes of the House of Babenberg became extinct in male line, there was as much as three decades of rivalry on inheritance and rulership, until the German king Rudolf I took over the dominion as the first monarch of the Habsburg dynasty in 1276.

In 1453, the archducal title of the Austrian rulers, invented by Duke Rudolf IV in the forged Privilegium Maius of 1359, was officially acknowledged by the Habsburg emperor Frederick III.

As a former border march, it was located on the eastern periphery of the Empire, on the northern and southern shores of the Danube River, east of ("below") the Enns tributary.

Drosendorf, Raabs, Laa and other fortifications along the Thaya River, north of the historic Waldviertel and Weinviertel regions and separated by the Manhartsberg range, marked the border with the Duchy of Bohemia (elevated to a Kingdom in 1198) and the Moravian lands, both of which were held by the Czech Přemyslid dynasty.

In the east, the Imperial border with the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Slovakia) had gradually shifted towards the plains of the Morava River and the eastern rim of the Vienna Basin.

In 1139, after King Conrad III of Germany deposed the Welf duke Henry the Proud, he gave the Bavarian duchy to his half-brother Margrave Leopold.

The Austrian lands prospered, due to their favorable location on the Danube, as an important trade route from Krems and Mautern via Vienna down to Hungary and the Byzantine Empire.

In 1186, they signed the Georgenberg Pact with the first and last Otakar duke Ottokar IV of Styria and, upon his death in 1192, acquired the adjacent Styrian lands in the south, which were ruled with Austria in personal union until 1918.

They also expanded their territory into the old Bavarian lands west of the Enns River, along the Traun to the city of Linz, the future capital of Upper Austria.

Handed over to Emperor Henry VI, Richard was only released after paying an enormous ransom, and the duke used his share to lay out the Wiener Neustadt fortification near the Hungarian border.

His son Leopold VI, sole ruler of the Austrian and Styrian lands from 1198, married the Byzantine princess Theodora Angelina and later married his daughter Margaret to Henry of Hohenstaufen, son of Emperor Frederick II, in 1225. Notable minnesingers like Reinmar von Hagenau and Walther von der Vogelweide were regular guests at the Vienna court and Middle High German poetry flourished.

However, Emperor Frederick II, in the last years of his rule, was weakened by the struggle against Pope Innocent IV, and was stuck in the Italian Wars between the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

Upon the death of Gertrude's second husband, Margrave Herman VI of Baden, in 1250, Ottokar invaded the Austrian lands, acclaimed by the local nobility.

King Béla IV of Hungary contested this, referring to the Gertrude's third marriage with his relative Roman Danylovich and occupied the Styrian lands.

Having reached an agreement with the prince-electors, he granted the Austrian domains to his sons Albert and Rudolf II at the 1282 Diet of Augsburg, elevating them to Princes of the Holy Roman Empire.