Duchy of Carinthia in the context of "Inner Austria"

Ferdinand II (9 July 1578 – 15 February 1637) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia from 1619 until his death in 1637. He was the son of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria and Maria of Bavaria, who were devout Catholics. In 1590, when Ferdinand was 11 years old, they sent him to study at the Jesuits' college in Ingolstadt because they wanted to isolate him from the Lutheran nobles. A few months later, his father died, and he inherited Inner Austria–Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and smaller provinces. His cousin, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was the head of the Habsburg family, appointed regents to administer these lands.

Ferdinand was installed as the actual ruler of the Inner Austrian provinces in 1596 and 1597. Rudolf II also charged him with the command of the defense of Croatia, Slavonia, and southeastern Hungary against the Ottoman Empire. Ferdinand regarded the regulation of religious issues as a royal prerogative and introduced strict Counter-Reformation measures from 1598. First, he ordered the expulsion of all Protestant pastors and teachers; next, he established special commissions to restore the Catholic parishes. The Ottomans captured Nagykanizsa in Hungary in 1600, which enabled them to invade Styria. A year later, Ferdinand tried to recapture the fortress, but the action ended in November 1601 with a defeat, due to unprofessional command of his troops. During the first stage of the family feud known as the Brothers' Quarrel, Ferdinand initially supported Rudolph II's brother, Matthias, who wanted to convince the melancholic emperor to abdicate, but Matthias' concessions to the Protestants in Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia outraged Ferdinand. He planned an alliance to strengthen the position of the Catholic Church in the Holy Roman Empire, but the Catholic princes established the Catholic League without his participation in 1610.

Aragonite is a carbonate mineral and one of the three most common naturally occurring crystal forms of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), the others being calcite and vaterite. It is formed by biological and physical processes, including precipitation from marine and freshwater environments.

The crystal lattice of aragonite differs from that of calcite, resulting in a different crystal shape, an orthorhombic crystal system with acicular crystal. Repeated twinning results in pseudo-hexagonal forms. Aragonite may be columnar or fibrous, occasionally in branching helictitic forms called flos-ferri ("flowers of iron") from their association with the ores at the Carinthian iron mines.

The Duchy of Bavaria (German: Herzogtum Bayern) was a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom from the sixth through the eighth century. It was settled by Bavarian tribes and ruled by dukes (duces) under Frankish overlordship. A new duchy was created from this area during the decline of the Carolingian Empire in the late ninth century. It became one of the stem duchies of the East Frankish realm, which evolved as the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.

During internal struggles in the Ottonian dynasty, the Bavarian territory was considerably diminished by the separation of the newly established Duchy of Carinthia in 976. Between 1070 and 1180, the Holy Roman Emperors were again strongly opposed by Bavaria, especially by the ducal House of Welf. In the final conflict between the Welf and Hohenstaufen dynasties, Duke Henry the Lion was banned and deprived of his Bavarian and Saxon fiefs by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Frederick passed Bavaria over to the House of Wittelsbach, which held it until 1918. The Bavarian dukes were raised to prince-electors during the Thirty Years' War in 1623, and to kings by Napoleon in 1806. The duchy chaired the bench of the secular princes to the Reichstag of the Empire.

The first Congress of Visegrád was a 1335 summit in Visegrád in which Kings John I of Bohemia, Charles I of Hungary and Croatia, and Casimir III of Poland formed an anti-Habsburg alliance. The three leaders agreed to create new commercial routes to bypass the staple port of Vienna, which made merchants offer their goods there before they could try elsewhere, and to obtain easier access to other European markets.

The summit was triggered by the sudden expansion of Habsburg power in the region, which had taken over Carinthia and Carniola after the death of duke Henry of Gorizia-Tyrol, who had unsuccessfully claimed the Bohemian and the Polish crowns.

William (c. 1370 – 15 July 1406), known as William the Courteous (German: Wilhelm der Freundliche), a member of the House of Habsburg and Wilhelm, was Duke of Austria from 1386. As head of the Leopoldian line, he ruled over the Inner Austrian duchies of Carinthia, Styria and Carniola as well as the County of Tyrol and Further Austria from 1396 until his death.

The Patent of Toleration (German: Toleranzpatent, Hungarian: Türelmi rendelet) was an edict of toleration issued on 13 October 1781 by the Habsburg emperor Joseph II. Part of the Josephinist reforms, the Patent extended religious freedom to non-Catholic Christians living in the crown lands of the Habsburg monarchy, including Lutherans, Calvinists, and the Eastern Orthodox. Specifically, these members of minority faiths were now legally permitted to hold "private religious exercises" in clandestine churches.

For the first time after the Counter-Reformation, the Patent guaranteed the practice of religion by the Evangelical Lutheran and the Reformed Church in Austria. Nevertheless, worship was heavily regulated, wedding ceremonies remained reserved for the Catholic Church, and the Unity of the Brethren was still suppressed. Similar to the articular churches admitted 100 years before, Protestants were only allowed to erect 'houses of prayer' (Bethäuser) which should not in any way resemble church buildings. In many Habsburg areas, especially in the 'hereditary lands' of Upper Austria, Styria and Carinthia, Protestant parishes quickly developed, strongly relying on crypto-protestant traditions. The Patent also regulated mixed faith marriages, foreshadowing the Marriage Patent that was to be released in 1783 seeking to bring marriages under civil rather than canon law. In allowing marriages between religions, if the father was Catholic all children were required to be raised as Catholics whilst if the mother was Catholic only the daughters had to be raised as such.

Charles II Francis of Austria (German: Karl II. Franz von Innerösterreich) (3 June 1540 – 10 July 1590) was an Archduke of Austria and a ruler of Inner Austria (Styria, Carniola, Carinthia and Gorizia) from 1564. He was a member of the House of Habsburg.

Carinthia (Slovene: Koroška [kɔˈɾóːʃka] ; German: Kärnten), also Slovene Carinthia or Slovenian Carinthia (Slovenska Koroška), is a traditional region in northern Slovenia. The term refers to the small southeasternmost area of the former Duchy of Carinthia, which after World War I was allocated to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain. It has no distinct centre, but a local centre in each of the three central river valleys among the heavily forested mountains. Towns that make urban centers include Ravne, Prevalje, Mežica and Dravograd.

Since the entry of Slovenia into the European Union in May 2004, much effort has been made to re-integrate Carinthia as a cultural, tourism, and economic unit. The historical region has no official status within Slovenia and does not territorially correspond to today's Carinthia Statistical Region, but popular identification with Carinthia as an informal province remains common.