Early Settlements and Roman Raetia

Palaeolithic finds point to the earliest known inhabitants as the Celts, participating in the widespread La Tène culture, whom the Romans subdued just before the opening of the Christian era. It is generaly believed that the Bavarian tribe descended from the Romans who remained in the country, the original Celtic population and the new Germanic invaders. The Romans founded colonies among them and including their land in the provinces of Raetia and Noricum. The Roman center of administration for this area was Castra Regina (Regensburg).

Migrations and Early Medieval Period

During the 5th century the Romans in Noricum and Raetia came under increasing pressure from an influx of foreign peoples. One theory of the etymological origins of the name "Bavarian" is that Bai(o)arii was derived from Bai(a)haim (Boiohaemum in Latin), which is thought to be equivalent with the land of the antique tribe of the Boii and modern Bohemia (Reindel 1981).

The Bavarian name was first mentioned historically by the Franks in a list of peoples, prepared c. 520. The first document that also describes their location (east of the Swabians) is in the History of the Goths by the historian Jordanes dating from 551. Then follows a remark by Venantius Fortunatus in his description of his travels from Ravenna to Tours (565-571) in which he had crossed the lands of the Bavarians, referring to the dangers of travel in the region: 'If the road is clear and if the Bavarian does not stop you … then travel across the Alps.'

Archaeological evidence dating from the 5th and 6th centuries points to social and cultural influences from several regions and peoples, such as Alamanni, Lombards, Thuringians, Goths, Bohemian Slavs the local Romanized population .Recent research (e.g. Wolfram and Pohl 1990) has moved away from searching for specific geographical origins of the Bavarians. It is now thought that the tribal ethnicity was established by the process of ethnogenesis, whereby an ethnic identity is formed because political and social pressures that make a coherent identity necessary.

Bavaria in the 10th century. Note that it extended south of the Alps to Venice and Triest.

The Tribal Duchy of Bavaria

Bavaria and the Agilolfings under Frankish overlordship
The Bavarians soon came under the dominion of the Franks, probably without a serious struggle. The Franks likely regarded this border area as mainly being useful as a buffer zone against peoples to the east, such as the Avars and the Slavs, and as a source of manpower for the army. Sometime around 550 they put it under the administration of a duke -- possibly Frankish or possibly chosen from amongst the local leading families -- who was supposed to act as a regional governor for the Frankish king. The first duke we know of, and likely the first, was Gariwald, or Garibald I, a member of the powerful Agilolfing family. This was the beginning of a series of Agilolfing dukes that was to last until 788.

For a century and a half a succession of dukes resisted the inroads of the Slavs on their eastern frontier, and by the time of Duke Theodo I, who died in 717, had achieved complete independence from the feeble Frankish kings. When Charles Martel became the virtual ruler of the Frankish realm he brought the Bavarians into strict dependence, and deposed two dukes successively for contumacy. Pippin the Short likewise maintaining Frankish authority, and several marriages took place between the family to which he belonged and the Agilolfings, who were united in a similar manner with the kings of the Lombards. The ease with which the Franks suppressed various risings gives colour to the supposition that family quarrels rather than the revolt of an oppressed people motivated the rebellions.

Bavarian law was committed to writing between the years 739 and 748. Supplementary clauses, added afterwards, bear evidence of Frankish influence. Thus, while the dukedom belongs to the Agilolfing family, the duke must be chosen by the people and his election confirmed by the Frankish king, to whom he owes fealty. The duke has a fivefold weregild, summons the nobles and clergy for purposes of deliberation, calls out the host, administers justice and regulates finance. Five noble families exist, possibly representing former divisions of the people. Subordinate to the nobles we find the freeborn, and then the freedmen. The law divides the country into gaits or counties, under their counts, assisted by judges responsible for declaring the law.

Christianity
Christianity had lingered in Bavaria from Roman times, but a new era set in when Rupert, bishop of Worms, came to the county at the invitation of Duke Theodo I in 696. He founded several monasteries, as did St. Emmeran, bishop of Poitiers, with the result that before long the bulk of the people professed Christianity and relations commenced between Bavaria and Rome. The 8th century witnessed indeed a heathen reaction, but the arrival in Bavaria in about 734 of Saint Boniface checked apostacy. Boniface organised the Bavarian church and founded or restored bishoprics at Salzburg, Freising, Regensburg and Passau.

Tassilo III, who became duke of the Bavarians in 749, recognized the supremacy of the Frankish king Pippin the Short in 757, but soon afterwards refused to furnish a contribution to the war in Aquitaine. Moreover, during the early years of the reign of Charlemagne, Tassilo gave decisions in ecclesiastical and civil causes in his own name, refused to appear in the assemblies of the Franks, and in general acted as an independent ruler. His control of the Alpine passes, and his position as an ally of the Avars and as son-in-law of the Lombard king Desiderius formed so serious a menace to the Frankish kingdom that Charlemagne determined to crush him.

The details of this contest remain obscure. Tassilo appears to have done homage in 781, and again in 787, probably owing to the presence of Frankish armies. But further trouble soon arose, and in 788 the Franks summoned the duke to Ingelheim, and sentenced him to death on a charge of treachery. The King, however, pardoned Tassilo who entered a monastery and formally renounced his duchy at Frankfurt in 794.

Gerold, a brother-in-law of Charlemagne, ruled Bavaria till his death in a battle with the Avars in 799, when Frankish counts took over the administrátion and assimilated the land with the rest of the Carolingian empire. Measures taken by Charlemagne for the intellectual progress and material welfare of his realm improved conditions. The Bavarians offered no resistance to the change which thus abolished their dukedom. Their incorporation with the Frankish dominions, due mainly to the unifying influence of the church, appeared already so complete that Charlemagne did not find it necessary to issue more than two capitularies dealing especially with Bavarian affairs.

The Duchy during the Carolingian period
The history of Bavaria for the ensuing century intertwines with that of the Carolingian empire. Given at the partition of 817 to the king of the East Franks, Louis the German, Bavaria formed part of the larger territories confirmed to him in 843 by the Treaty of Verdun. Louis made Regensburg the center of his government and actively developed Bavaria, providing for its security by numerous campaigns against the Slavs. When he divided his possessions in 865, it passed to his eldest son, Carloman, who had already managed its administration, and after his death in 880 it formed part of the extensive territories of Emperor Charles the Fat. This incompetent ruler left its defense to Arnulf, an illegitimate son of Carloman. Due mainly to the support of the Bavarians, Arnulf could take the field against Charles in 887 and secure his own election as German king in the following year. In 899 Bavaria passed to Louis the Child, during whose reign continuous Hungarian ravages occurred. Resistance to these inroads became gradually feebler, and tradition has it that on 5 July 907 almost the whole of the Bavarian tribe perished in battle against these formidable enemies.

During the reign of Louis the Child, Liutpold, Count of Scheyern, who possessed large Bavarian domains, ruled the Mark of Carinthia, created on the southeastern frontier for the defence of Bavaria. He died in the great battle of 907, but his son Arnulf, surnamed the Bad, rallied the remnants of the tribe, drove back the Hungarians, and became duke of the Bavarians in 911, uniting Bavaria and Carinthia under his rule. The German king Conrad I unsuccessfully attacked Arnulf when the latter refused to acknowledge his royal supremacy.

The Duchy during the Ottonian and Salian periods
In 920 Conrad's successor as German king, Henry the Fowler of the Ottonian dynasty, recognized Arnulf as duke, confirming his right to appoint bishops, coin money and issue laws.

A similar conflict took place between Arnulf's son and successor Eberhard and Henry's son Otto I the Great. Eberhard proved less successful than his father, and in 938 fled from Bavaria, which Otto granted (with reduced privileges) to the late duke's uncle, Bertold. Otto also appointed a count palatine in the person of Eberhard's brother Arnulf to watch the royal interests.

When Bertold died in 947, Otto conferred the duchy upon his own brother Henry, who had married Judith, a daughter of Duke Arnulf. The Bavarians disliked Henry, who spent his short reign mainly in disputes with his people.

The ravages of the Hungarians ceased after their defeat on the Lechfeld (955), and the area of the duchy temporarily grew with the addition of certain adjacent districts in Italy.

In 955 Henry's young son Henry, surnamed the Quarrelsome, succeeded him, but in 974 he became involved in a conspiracy against King Otto II. The rising occurred because the king had granted the duchy of Swabia to Henry's enemy, Otto, a grandson of Emperor Otto the Great, and had given the new Bavarian Eastern Mark, subsequently known as Austria, to Leopold, count of Babenberg. The revolt soon failed, but Henry, who on his escape from prison renewed his plots, formally lost his duchy of Bavaria in 976 to Otto, Duke of Swabia. At the same time Carinthia was made a separate duchy, the office of Count Palatine was reestablished, and the Bavarian church became dependent on the king instead of on the duke.

Restored in 985, Henry proved himself a capable ruler by establishing internal order, issuing important laws and taking measures to reform the monasteries. His son and successor, chosen German king as Henry II in 1002, gave Bavaria to his brother-in-law Henry of Luxembourg, after whose death in 1026 it passed successively to Henry, afterwards Emperor Henry III, and then to another member of the family of Luxembourg, ruling as Duke Henry VII. In 1061, Empress Agnes, mother of and regent for the German king Henry IV, entrusted the duchy to Otto of Nordheim.

The Welfs
In 1070, King Henry IV deposed duke Otto, granting the duchy to Count Welf, a member of an influential Bavarian family with roots in northern Italy.

In consequence of his support of Pope Gregory VII in his quarrel with Henry, Welf lost but subsequently regained Bavaria; two of his sons followed him in succession: Welf II from 1101 and Henry IX from 1120. Both exercised considerable influence among the German princes.

Henry IX's son Henry X, called the Proud, succeeded in 1126, and also obtained the Duchy of Saxony in 1137. Alarmed at this prince's power, King Conrad III refused to allow two duchies to remain in the same hands, and declared Henry deposed. He bestowed Bavaria upon Leopold IV, Margrave of Austria. When Leopold died in 1141, the king retained the duchy himself; but it continued to be the scene of considerable disorder, and in 1143 he entrusted it to Henry, surnamed Jasomirgott, Margrave of Austria.

The struggle for its possession continued until 1156, when King Frederick I, in his desire to restore peace to Germany, persuaded Henry to give up Bavaria to Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and son of Henry the Proud. In return, Austria was elevated from a margraviate to an independent duchy in the Privilegium Minus. It was Henry the Lion who founded Munich.

Geographic fluctuations
During the years following the dissolution of the Carolingian empire the borders of Bavaria changed continually, and for a lengthy period after 955 expanded. To the west the Lech still divided Bavaria from Swabia, but on three other sides Bavaria took advantage of opportunities for expansion, and the duchy occupied a considerable area north of the Danube. During the later years of the rule of the Welfs, however, a contrary tendency operated, and the extent of Bavaria shrank. The immense energies of Duke Henry the Lion focused on his northern duchy of Saxony rather than on his southern duchy of Bavaria, and when the dispute over the Bavarian succession ended in 1156, the district between the Enns and the Inn became part of Austria.

The increasing importance of former Bavarian territories like the Mark of Styria (erected into a duchy in 1180) and of the county of Tirol had diminished both the actual and the relative strength of Bavaria, which now on almost all sides lacked opportunities for expansion. The neighboring Duchy of Carinthia, the large territories of the Archbishop of Salzburg, as well as a general tendency to claim more independence on the part of both clerical and lay nobles: all these cramped Bavarian expansionism.

The Wittelsbach dynasty
A new era began when, in consequence of Henry the Lion being placed under an imperial ban in 1180, Emperor Frederick I awarded the duchy to Otto, a member of the old Bavarian family of Wittelsbach, and a descendant of the counts of Scheyern. The Wittelsbach dynasty ruled Bavaria without interruption until 1918. Also the Electoral Palatinate was acquired by the Wittelsbach in 1214.

When Otto of Wittelsbach gained Bavaria at Altenburg in September 1180 the duchy's borders comprised the Böhmerwald, the Inn, the Alps and the Lech; and the duke exercised practical power only over his extensive private domains around Wittelsbach, Kelheim and Straubing.

Otto only enjoyed his rule for three years. His son Louis I succeeded him in 1183, played a leading part in German affairs during the early years of the reign of the emperor Frederick II, and died (assassinated) at Kelheim in September 1231. His son Otto II, called the Illustrious, the next duke, found that his loyalty to the Hohenstaufen emperors saw himself placed under a papal ban and Bavaria placed under an interdict. Like his father, Otto II increased the area of his lands by purchases, and he considerably strengthened his hold upon the duchy before he died in November 1253.

Partitions

The efforts of the dukes to increase their power and to give unity to the duchy had met with a fair measure of success; but they were soon vitiated by partitions among different members of the family, which for 250 years made the history of Bavaria little more than a jejune chronicle of territorial divisions bringing war and weakness in their train.

The first of these divisions occurred in 1255. Louis II and Henry XIII, the sons of Duke Otto II, who for two years after their father's death had ruled Bavaria jointly, split their inheritance: Louis II obtained the western part of the duchy, afterwards called Upper Bavaria, but also the Electoral Palatinate and Henry secured eastern or Lower Bavaria.

Lower Bavaria
Henry XIII of Lower Bavaria spent most of his time in quarrels with his brother, with Ottakar II of Bohemia and with various ecclesiastics. When he died in February 1290, the land fell to his three sons, Otto III, Louis III, and Stephen I. The families of these three princes governed Lower Bavaria until 1333, when Henry XV (son of Otto III) died, followed in 1334 by his cousin Otto IV; and as both died without sons the whole of Lower Bavaria then passed to Henry XIV. Dying in 1339, Henry left an only son, John I, who died childless in the following year, when the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV, by securing Lower Bavaria for himself, united the whole of the duchy under his sway.

Upper Bavaria
In the course of a long reign Louis II, called "the Stern", became the most powerful prince in southern Germany. He served as the guardian of his nephew Conradin of Hohenstaufen, and after Conradin's execution in Italy in 1268, Louis and his brother Henry inherited the domains of the Hohenstaufen in Swabia and elsewhere. He supported Rudolph, count of Habsburg, in his efforts to secure the German throne in 1273, married the new king's daughter Mechtild, and aided him in campaigns in Bohemia and elsewhere.

For some years after Louis' death in 1294, his sons Rudolph I and Louis, afterwards the emperor Louis IV, ruled their duchy in common; but as their relations were never harmonious a division of Upper Bavaria occurred in 1310, by which Rudolph received the land east of the Isar together with the town of Munich, and Louis the district between the Isar and the Lech. It was not long, however, before this arrangement led to war between the brothers, with the outcome that in 1317, three years after he had become German king, Louis compelled Rudolph to abdicate, and for twelve years ruled alone over the whole of Upper Bavaria. But in 1329 a series of events induced him to conclude the Treaty of Pavia with Rudolph's sons, Rudolph and Rupert, to whom he transferred the Palatinate of the Rhine (which the Wittelsbach family had owned since 1214) and also a portion of Bavaria north of the Danube, afterwards called the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz).

At the same time the two lines of the Wittelsbach family decided to exercise the electoral vote alternately, and that in the event of the extinction of either branch of the family, the surviving branch should inherit its possessions.

The consolidation of Bavaria under Louis IV. lasted for seven years, during which the emperor was able to improve the condition of the country. When he died in 1347 he left six sons to share his possessions, who agreed upon a division of Bavaria in 1349. Its history, however, was complicated by its connections with Brandenburg, Holland, Hainaut and Tyrol, all of which the emperor had also left to his sons. All the six brothers exercised some authority in Bavaria; but three alone left issue, and of these the eldest, Louis V, Duke of Bavaria, also margrave of Brandenburg and count of Tyrol, died in 1361; followed to the grave two years later by his only (and childless) son Meinhard. Tyrol then passed to Habsburg. Brandenburg was lost in 1373.

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