English: Coat of arms of Windic March.

Text from: [1]

The Swabian Miror (Schwabenspiegel, circa 1275), the oldest historical source concerning the installation of the dukes of Carantania (later Carithia) mentions also the Slovenian Hat (windischer huot) that was put on the head of the duke during the enthronement ceremony. The aforesaid source describes it as follows: �A grey Slovenian Hat with a grey cord and four leaves suspended from his brim.� The pictures of this hat on signets show that the leaves were those of the linden, the old Slovenian tree of life. It was a common hat characteristic of the Slovenian peasant people in that period and it symbolized the power conferred to the duke from the hand of a peasant, representative of the people. In 1358, when the Habsburg Duke Rudolph IV �the Founder� imparted coats of arms to those provinces without them at that time, he assigned the Slovenian Hat to the Slovenian March (later Lower Carniola, Dolenjsko). However, the Hat of this coat of arms bore the heraldic colours: a sable hat with red lining and red cord on a golden shield. It was placed on the Emperor's great coat of arms, where it remained until 1915. Ducal Hat. In connection with the Privilegium maius of 1358, Rudolph IV the Founder, duke of Austria (Carantania), had elaborated a great seal, the reverse of which shows the Duke himself standing on two stags (the sign of Archhunter), and bearing a crown denoted as a hat (the sign of the Palatin Archduke). In the following centuries its original form with one bow appeared on the top of the Austrian coat of arms as Archducal Hat of the Habsburg Hereditary Lands, originated in the ancient Carantania. The original Ducal Hat appeared first in Inner Austria, the Habsburg name of Carantania, and thereaftrer it was worn by the Leopoldine line of the Habsburg family. In 1453 under Frederic III, the first Emperor from the Leopoldine line of the Habsburg stock, the Privilegium maius, and with it also the above mentioned Hat was acknowledged as state ensign.

Text from: Carantanian Hat, An Ancient Sign of Sovereignty, by Dr. Josef Šavli, FAS, The Augustan Society Omnibus, Book 14, 1993, p. 37 ff.

After the decline of the Roman Empire in A.D. 476, many kingdoms and principalities or duchies arose in Western Europe, as for exemple that of the Visigoths in Spain, of the Ostrogoths in Italy, of the Burgunds in France and, equally important, that of the Franks in Western Germany and Northern France.

The victory of the Frankish majordomo Charles Martel over the Moslem Arabs near Poitiers in 732 put onto the Frankish family of Carolingians the role of protectors of Christianity in Europe, which was recognized also by the Pope in Rome.

Gradually the Franks imposed their supremacy upon the greatest part of the European nations. But this was rather a protection in the Christian community because they recognized them their own lex (law), which embraced, above all, their social structure and their self-government. This signified, expressed in modern terms, the conserving of the separate statehoods of those nations, which later took part in the Holy Roman Empire, established with the crowning of Charlemagne as Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in 800.

Some of those leges (laws) are well-known in historiography. Such is the lex Salica appertaining to the Franks, then the Edictum Theodorici of the Ostrogoths, the Edictum Rothari of the Lombards the lex Alamannorum of the Swabians the lex Bavariorum of the Bavarians, the lex Saxonum of the Saxons, etc.

Many of those leges were preserved also in the Medieval kingdoms. The Lombardic law in Italiy was to be found in the judicial book Lombarda. The Visigoth law in Spain, for example, was subsumed in the judicial book Antiqua that remained in force also under the Arabian occupation. According to this law, women were also able to be heiresses to the throne in Spain and in England.

In France and in the German duchies, in conformity with the Salic law there were only male successors to the throne. The regulations of the Saxon law were to be found in the 13th century in the books Saxenspiegel (Saxon Mirror) and the Schwabenspiegel (Swabian Mirror); the former was used in the Northern, the latter in the Southern German countries.

Institutio Sclavenica At that time the Slovenian duchy of Carantania, situated in the Eastern Alps, had its own laws as well, like other nations in Europe. Yet in 745 it was joined with the Frankish Empire after it had consented to accept Christianity. After the division of the Empire in 828 it belonged, together with the German duchies of Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia and Saxony, to the Francia Orientalis, i.e., to the Kingdom of the Eastern Franks. The Carantanian law, the so-called institutio Sclavenica, was never registered in a Codex but was conserved in the social customs, handed down from generation to generation, and it was consequently referred to by the historical sources as the consuetudo Sclavorum. Among other things in distinction to other laws, specially to those of the German nations, it recognized the right of a woman to have her property at free disposal, and to enjoy the rights of heredity, and even the right of succession of familia, in case there was no male successor.

The Carantanian duke Arnulf, later King and Emperor (ca. 850 – 899), a natural son of Liudvina (Liutswind), a Carantanin noblewoman, and of Carlman, a royal prince from the family of the Eastern Carolingians, was considered by Carantanians as their legal ruler, through the line of his mother,. In 887, the Carantanians accompanied their duke Arnulf with entire army to the Diet of the Eastern Franks in Trier, and made the princes present elect him King. In 896, Arnulf was also crowned by Pope Formosus as Emperor, in Rome.

In 952 under the Duke Henry, the younger brother of Otto I, King and later Emperor, Carantania became a great duchy, composed of the Dukedom of Carinthia and some marches. It extended from Bohemia to Verona in Italy. Until 976, it was reigned together with the nearby Bavaria by a common duke. In 1012 Duke Adalbero (Eppenstein) was appointed in Carantania. He was married with Beatrix, a Swabian Princess of Carolingian descent by the mother's line. Therefore, Duke Adalbero was a man of high standing, and he was the beginner of the Carantanian dynasty († 1269). Nevertheless, in the following two centuries the marches advanced to dukedoms, too. In this way the old Carantania was divided into many countries.

In addition to the Dukedom of Carinthia, that conserved the old institutio Sclavenica, there was also the Dukedom of Styria developed out of the Carantanian march, in 1180. It incorporated also other marches that kept on with the Carantanian political tradition.

Another dukedom, arisen from a Carantanian march, precisely from the Eastern March, was Austria. In 976, the Eastern March was given in administration to Margrave Leopold, a son of the Carantanian duke Berthold. Margrave Leopold was the beginner of a dynasty, which 70 years later took the name of Babenberg († 1249).

In 1156 the Eastern March became the Dukedom of Austria and it was given on this occasion some privileges, which in the historiography were called Privilegium minus, by the Emperor Frederic I Barbarossa. One of those privileges was also the right of the female succession, i.e., in the sense of the Carantanian law.

The Insignia In 1282 the Habsburg family obtained dominion in Austria and in Stiria, in 1335 also in Carinthia and in Carniola. In this way the entire territory of the ancient Carantania got an unique lord. Since then Carinthia, Styria and Carniola, and later also Trieste, the March Istria and the County of Gorizia, made an association called Inner Austria, which carried on the state and political tradition of Carantania. Austria was not a historical duchy. Therefore it did not possess its own historical lex like Carinthia (Carantania) and those duchies that were part of the former Frankish Kingdom and afterward the duchies of Kingdom of the Eastern Franks: Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia Saxony and Carantania. The princes of those duchies and of immediate provinces had the right of electing the King and Emperor.

After 1257 the above-said elections became reserved only for the so-called Princes Electors. And according to the Golden Bull of 1356, this honor belonged to the possessors of the high offices of the Emperor's Court: Archsteward, Archcellarman, Archmarshall, Archchamberlain, the Chancellors of Germany, Burgundy and Italy. These chancellors were respectively the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne.

One time, the high office of Archhunter (arcimagister venator) belonged to the Carantanian Duke. However, during the electoral reform Carantania was already divided in several duchies, and obviously the historical duchy of Carinthia was not able to put forward the historical right of its high office. In this way the Carinthian duke came out of the group of the Princes Electors.

The ancient right of Archhunter or Archmaster of Hunt perteining to the Carinthian, i.e., Carantanian duke remember several sources as Swabian Miror of ca.1275, the Chronicler Ottokar ca. 1306, Abbot Johannes Victoriensis ca. 1342, and others.

According to the report related in the Swabian Mirror, Duke of Carinthia was the Archmaster of Hunt of the Roman King – des Roemischen richs Jaegermaister. The »Roman King« was the title of the former King of Eastern Franks, called later also King of Germania. Furthermore, the Swabian Miror says that in the ceremony of the inthronization of the Carinthian duke was put on his head a Slovenian Hat – vnd setzen Im ouch ainen Grauen windischen hut vff...

It is very interesting the report of the Chronicler Ottokar who say, among others, that a Carantanian did not take off his hat in front of his duke. This was the right of the free Carantanian man. The same right belonged also to the Carantanian duke in front of the King, since he was a windischer herre (Slovenian Lord), and such right derived from his country. - In his relation about the same inthronization Abbot Johannes did not forged to mention the hat – indutus habitu pilleo... The hat played obviously the part of the Carantanian insignia.

At that time the ancient Kingdom of the Eastern Franks was usually called Germanic Kingdom (not German). After 1257 the elections of the King, and thereafter Emperor, became reserved only to the so-called Princes Electors. And according to the Golden Bull of 1356, made out by the Emperor Carl IV Luxembourg, this honour belonged only to the possessors of high offices at the Emperor's Court. However, the duke of Austria and of the Carantanian provinces, a Habsburgian, was not acknowledged as the possessor of a high office and consequently a prince elector.

Thus, i 1359 the Habsburg Duke Rudolf IV forged a deed named Privilegium maius with which he tried to prove that the Emperor Frederick I »Barbrossa« imparted to Austria, when it was elevated to a dukedom (1156), special rights that would make its dukes equal to the princes electors. Among these rights the honour of Archunter in the Kingdom (archimagister venator) and the Palatine Archduke (palatinus archidux) merit a special attention.

In sense of the latter, the title of the Palatin Archduke, and the right to receive his fief sitting on horseback with a scepter in his hand and with the Ducal Hat on his head (superposito ducali pilleo…), i.e., not on his knees like other lords, derived from the institutio Sclavenica.

In fact these rights had ben translated from the Carantanian tradition. They were connected with the ceremony of the installation of the Carantanian (Carinthian) dukes. But the Privilegium maius was recognized as falsified and therefore was not acknowledged at the Emperor's Court. However, it remained the aim of the political aspiration of the Habsburg dukes.

In 1379, the Habsburgian provinces were divided amnog two brothers: Albert III, the elder of them, received Austria with the centre in Vienna; the younger one, Leopold III, received Inner Austria (Carantania), with the centre in Graz. The latter was succeded by his sons. One of them, Ernest, was called »the Iron« (ruled 1411 – 1424). Duke Ernest the Iron assumed definitely the title of Archduke. In 1414, he arrived in Carinthia. There, he let install himself at the acient Princes Stone (Knežji kamen) put near the Castle of Karnburg, and then he bestowed the fiefs and reasoned quarrels sittin n the Ducal Throne (Vojvodski stol), which was situated on the field of Svatne.

His son, duke Frederick V, Frederick IV (1440) as King and Frederick III as Emperor (1452) acknowledged in 1453 the Privilegium maius as a state document.

The Ducal Hat became finally a state insignia. It is still coserved in Graz, one-time the chieftown of the Inner Austria (Crantania), and it obviously represent the tradition of the Carantanan Hat. Originally it was a Slovenian one, a popular hat. But in the feudal period it did not correspond to the rank of a ruler, i.e. a duke or archduke, for this rason another was elaborated, i.e., a ducal hut, in fact a crown.The town of Graz was, and it is still today, also the chieftown of the Austrian province of Styria. Therefore, the insignia in question is mostly known as »Styrian Hat«. But in this way, its historical and political tradition is not remembered.

References A. Anthony von Siegenfeld: Der sogenannte „Steirische Herzogshut“, in Das Landeswappen der Steiermarks (Anhang), Graz 1900 W. Neumann: Wirklichkeit und Idee des „windischen“ Herzogtum Kärnten, in Süddeutsches Archiv, Munchen 1961 R. Hadwich: Die reichssymbolische Bedeutung von Hut und Krone, Dissertation, Mainz 1951

K. R. M. Brieger: Das he8ilige Reich Symbolik von Adler Reichsapfel und Krone, in Extrablatt, Wien 1990