History Of Lienz
The city of Lienz in Austria has a rich Bronze Age heritage. The Celts lived there before the invasion of the Roman Empire. Later, the city belonged to the descendants of the Meinhardeners and the Patriarchs of Aquileia. After gaining city rights in 1242, Lienz became a major trade route. It then came under the control of the counts of Gorizia and then merged with the county of Tyrol. Lienz worked in various fields, including French soldiers and the Italian army, before joining the Reichsgau of Carinthia under Nazi Germany. After World War II ended, British soldiers occupied it. In the years following the war, the city rebuilt and grew, with a particular emphasis on residential construction and infrastructure improvements.
Prehistoric and Roman Times
Lienz had been inhabited since the Bronze Age, around 2000 BC. Since almost 300 BC, the Celts lived in this region primarily for mining purposes. In 15 BC, the Roman Empire took power. Near Lienz, in the modern municipality of Dölsach, Emperor Claudius founded a municipium called Aguntum, which was later included in the province of Noricum. Aguntum, the seat of an early Christian bishop in the 5th century, collapsed following Slavic colonization of the eastern Alps and subsequent wars with the Bavarians under Duke Tassilo I around 600.
Middle Ages
Originally part of the Slavic principality of Carantania, the region was under the suzerainty of the Bavarians and finally the Franks in the 8th century. Around 1030, the bishop of Brixen issued a deed initially referring to Lienz as Luenzina. The owners of the settlement and its surroundings of Patriasdorf were the Patriarchs of Aquileia, elevated to the rank of immediate owners by Emperor Henry IV in 1077. Later it was purchased by the descendants of the Meinhardiner dynasty, who lived in Lienz and were Vögte (reeves) of Aquileia. ). From around 1127 they called themselves Counts of Görz (Gorizia).
Located on the important trade route linking Venzone in Friuli to Salzburg, Lienz, a town, obtained the right of city on February 25, 1242. From 1278 to 1500, the counts lived in their local seat at Burg Bruck, a castle. In the Middle Ages, Turks, Venetians and Bavarians besieged and burned Lienz several times. Lienz was also influenced by the Peasants’ War of 1525, the Thirty Years’ War of 1618-1648 and the Napoleonic Wars of 1797-1814.
Modern Times
Lienz was included in the county of Tyrol in 1500; under Habsburg rule until 1918. Under Napoleon’s protection, Tyrol was briefly independent from Austria; Lienz was the capital of the princely county of Tyrol from 1809 to 1814. After the end of World War I, the Italian army occupied Lienz in 1918. Lienz was separated from the rest of Tyrol in 1919 when the Treaty of Saint-Germain assigned the South Tyrol and Trentino to Italy. Since then, Lienz has been an exclave of the federal state of Tyrol within Austria. During World War II, Lienz avoided major damage; but it suffered the Bleiburg repatriations of 1945, during which Yugoslav partisans killed or deported thousands of nearby Yugoslav refugees and prisoners of war. Lienz was under British occupation of Austria between 1945 and 1955.
Lienz grew economically and socially in the second half of the 20th century, becoming a regional center of tourism, healthcare, education and industry. Lienz has also developed numerous twinning agreements and alliances with other European cities, including Agordo in Italy, Seligenstadt in Germany and Gorizia in Italy. Lienz celebrated its 750th anniversary in 2002.
