County of Ortenburg

The Ortenburger were a medieval noble family in the Duchy of Carinthia, with roots in Bavarian nobility. An affiliation with the Counts of Ortenburg-Neuortenburg, a branch line of the Rhenish Franconian House of Sponheim, is not established. Little is known about their reasons for settlement in Carinthia, nor about the manner in which they obtained property. No charters are available on the creation of the present Ortenburg Castle above Baldramsdorf.

History
In 1072 one Adalbert of Ortenburg served as the Vogt stattholder in the Carinthian possessions of the Bishopric of Freising. His castle Hortenburc was first mentioned in a 1091 deed, it was situated south of the Drava river within the diocese of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, across from Hohenburg Castle of the rivaling Lurn family, liensmen of the Salzburg archbishops. When the Lurn dynasty became extinct in 1135, the Counts of Ortenburg received large estates stretching down the Drava Valley to the town Villach. In 1191 they founded a hospital at the bridge across the Lieser river, the later town of Spittal an der Drau. In the 12th and 13th century Ortenburgers were bishops of the Diocese of Gurk, in the 14th century they also owned the lands of Gottschee in the March of Carniola where they founded the town of Kočevje.

The last Count Frederick III of Ortenburg died in 1418 and his estates were inherited by Count Hermann II of Celje. When his grandson Ulrich II of Celje was killed in 1456, the Bavarian Counts of Ortenburg-Neuortenburg claimed their ostensible rights, but failed to prove their kinship to the Carinthian Ortenburgers. Their attempts to gain the Ortenburg county lasted until the 18th century but were all rejected. Instead Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg seized the estates, which his great-grandson Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria granted to his treasurer Gabriel von Salamanca in 1524.

Counts of Ortenburg

 * Adalbert I (1038 – 1096), married Bertha of Dießen-Andechs
 * Otto I (1088 – 1157), married Agnes of Auersperg
 * Henry I (1138 – 1192)
 * Otto II (1140 – 1197), married Brigida of Haimburg (Heunburg)
 * Ulrich (1188 – 1253), Bishop of Gurk 1221 – 1253
 * Herman I (1196 – 1256), married Elizabeth of Heunburg, secondly Euphemia of Plain-Hardegg
 * Frederick I (1247 – 1304), regent of Carniola under King Rudolph I of Germany, married Adelheid, daughter of Count Meinhard I of Gorizia-Tyrol
 * Euphemia (1278 – 1316), married Count Hugo II of Werdenberg
 * Catharine (b. 1279), married Rizzardo IV da Camino
 * Meinhard I (1280 – 1332), regent of Carniola, founder of Gottschee County, married Elizabeth of Sternberg-Peggau
 * Meinhard II (d. 1337), married Belingeria della Torre
 * Herman II (d. 1338), married Adelheid of Hohenlohe
 * Elizabeth, married Stephen II, Ban of Bosnia
 * Otto III (1282 – 1343), married Sophia of Hardegg, daughter of Burgrave Berthold of Magdeburg
 * Adelheid (1284 – 1304), Count Ulrich IV of Berg-Schelklingen
 * Albert I (1286 – 1335)
 * Rudolph, married Margaret, daughter Count Albert II of Gorizia (Görz)
 * Adelheid (d. 1391), married Count Ulrich I of Celje (Cilli)
 * Frederick II (d. 1355), married Margaret of Pfannberg
 * Albert (d. 1390), Prince-Bishop of Trent 1363 – 1390
 * Otto IV (d. 1374/76), regent of Carniola, married Anna of Celje
 * Frederick III (d. 1418), regent of Carniola, married Margaret of Teck
 * Euphemia (1256 – 1292), married Count Albert I of Gorizia
 * Hermann (1147 – 1200), Bishop of Gurk 1179 – 1180
 * Agnes (1149 – 1207), married Berthold I, Count of Tyrol