Gertrude, Duchess of Austria

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Gertrude of Austria (1226-1288) was the niece of Duke Frederick II of Austria, the last male member of the Babenberg dynasty (daughter of his elder brother Henry of Mödling), and granddaughter of Leopold VI of Austria and Theodora Angelina.

She was the primogenitural heir of the entire Babenberg line of Dukes of Austria.

Her uncle, Duke Frederick, had a long quarrel with Emperor Frederick II, during which he had even been under imperial ban. When she was barely in her teens, in 1239, in a spectacular change in imperial politics, duke Frederick however became one of the emperor's most important allies. Negotiations about the elevation of Vienna to a bishopric and of Austria (including Styria) to a kingdom were initiated. However, a condition for those were that the duke's niece Gertrude would have had to marry the almost fifty-year-old emperor. Gertrude refused.

She married first in 1246 (year of her uncle's death) Vladislav of Bohemia, margrave of Moravia (died 1247), eldest son and heir of king Wenceslaus I of Bohemia, secondly Herman VI, Margrave of Baden (died 1250), and after his death in 1252 thirdly Roman of Halicz (divorced 1253), each of which unsuccessfully tried to establish themselves as Dukes of Austria, as did her son Frederick I, Margrave of Baden (1249-68).

Because the Babenberg Austria was inheritable by females according to provisions of Privilegium Minor, she claimed the inheritance first on basis of her father's successor against her uncle Frederick (died 1246), and then against her aunt Margaret, Duchess of Austria (died 1267) and her second husband king Otakar II of Bohemia (deposed in 1276 and killed in 1278) also as heiress of Frederick, and ultimately as heiress of Margaret.

Her first husband Vladislav of Bohemia, Msrgrave of Moravie (died 1247) had already claimed Austrian duchy against duke Frederick, as Gertrude was heiress of the elder brother.

Her second husband Herman VI, Margrave of Baden was able to hold some control in the duchies, but he died in 1250.

Her and Herman's son Frederick I, Margrave of Baden's claim was asserted to the Babenberg inheritance, but he was killed in Naples in 1268, leaving a sister (the future Countess of Heunburg) to continue the line. Their rights were ultimately lost quite fully as Rudolf I of Germany granted her duchies to his own sons in 1282. Gertrude survived her three husbands and her son.