Monasteries and princes
Austrian art begins in the monasteries along the Danube and in the archbishops’ Salzburg. Under the Babenbergs Vienna grew into a princely residence, and in Klosterneuburg Nicholas of Verdun created one of the most admired works of medieval goldsmithing.
In the early Middle Ages what is now Austria was a borderland in the east, between Bavaria, the Slavs and the Magyars. Christianity spread from Salzburg and from monasteries such as Kremsmünster, founded in 777 by the Bavarian Duke Tassilo III. The Tassilo Chalice, which the duke gave to the monastery, is one of the oldest surviving works of art from the region. In Salzburg splendid manuscripts were painted, and the archbishops were powerful princes.
From 976 the Ostmark, the eastern march, was ruled by the Babenberg dynasty, and in 1156 Austria became a duchy. The Babenbergs founded monasteries such as Klosterneuburg and Heiligenkreuz and made Vienna their residence. Romanesque churches with massive walls and deep portals were built, and at Gurk in Carinthia the cathedral received a crypt with a hundred columns. Around 1260 its west gallery was painted with murals in the sharp, angular manner known as the Zackenstil.
The high point was the Verdun Altar in Klosterneuburg, completed in 1181 by the goldsmith Nicholas of Verdun from the Meuse valley. Its enamel plaques show biblical scenes with a movement and a classical weight that point forward to Gothic. After the Babenbergs died out in 1246, King Ottokar II of Bohemia and Rudolf of Habsburg fought over the land, and in 1278 the Habsburgs won; they would rule Austria for 640 years.