Salzburg, Ptuj, and the Origin of the Border between Styria and Hungary in Present-Day Slovenia

Abstract

When the Drava river became the border river between the Salzburg and the Aquilea metropolitan province in Pannonia in 796 and in 803 respectively, this was Salzburg's first contact with Ptuj (Pettau), the most important town in the Slovene region in the first millennium. From the last quarter of the 10th century at the latest, Ptuj belonged to the Bavarian archdiocese. In order to protect the land the archdiocese possessed in the Podravje region, archbishop Conrad I around 1130 managed to attain peace with Hungarians and stabilise the border along the line between Radgona and Ptuj. The first shift of the border toward the east, thus toward Hungary, occurred around 1200, the second around the middle of the 13th century. Owing chiefly to the archdiocese ministerials of Ptuj, the eastern part of the Slovenske Gorice region thus passed to Styria, and later became part of Slovenia.