Prince's Stone

It was followed by a mass at Maria Saal cathedral and the installation at the Duke's chair, where he swore an oath in German and received the homage of the estates.

The column probably originates from the nearby Roman city of Virunum,[1][2] established as capital of the Noricum province under the reign of Emperor Claudius (AD 41–54).

[3] Until 1862, when it was transferred to the Landhaus provincial assembly at Klagenfurt, it stood northwest of the Kaiserpfalz of Karnburg (Slovene: Krnski grad) in the Zollfeld plain, built by Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia.

It was also described by Jean Bodin in his Treatise on Republican Government (1576) as "unrivaled in the entire world", although there is evidence that the Stone of Scone in Scotland and the Lia Fáil in Ireland were used in a similar fashion.

[4] The first mention of a sedes Karinthani ducatus in the course of the installation of Herman II of Sponheim in 1161 possibly referred to the Prince's Stone.

The ceremony was explicitly described about 1341 by the chronicler John of Viktring in his liber certarum historiarum on the occasion of the coronation of Meinhard II of Gorizia-Tyrol in 1286: when the duke-to-be approached, he found a free peasant sitting on the stone.