Friesach

Friesach lies in Carinthia beneath the fortress of Petersberg, but for centuries belonged to the archbishops of Salzburg. Archbishop Gebhard raised the fortress around 1076 during his conflict with Emperor Heinrich IV. The town below received privileges in 1215 and prospered on the road between Vienna and Venice. Its silver supplied the Friesach pfennig, which circulated throughout the eastern Alps and as far as Croatia. The rise of Habsburg rule in Carinthia after 1335 diminished Friesach's relative importance, but Salzburg kept its foothold. From 1495 Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach enlarged and strengthened the fortress above the town. The archbishops retained Friesach until their territory was secularised in 1803, when the town finally passed to Carinthia.