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Maria Saal (Slovenian: Gospa Sveta) is a market town in the district of Klagenfurt-Land in Carinthia, Austria, in the Zollfeld valley on the Glan river. The municipality includes the cadastral communes of Kading, Karnburg, Möderndorf, Possau and St. Michael am Zollfeld. Maria Saal is famous for its cathedral, considered the religious center of Carinthia in the 8th century and an episcopal see until 945. Today, it is a major pilgramage site.[citation needed]
[edit] History
The Zollfeld valley has been a cultural and political centre since Celtic tribes settled in the region. When their kingdom Noricum had become a province of the Roman Empire in 15 BC the Roman Emperor Claudius had the capital town Virunum erected at the nearby Magdalensberg (Slovenian: Štalenska gora). Virunum became a centre of Early Christianity in the early 4th century as a bishopric under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Aquileia.
When Slavic tribes entered the region around 590 they made this settlement the capital of the principality of Carantania, called Karnburg (Slovenian: Krnski grad). Here the ritual of installing the Princes took place on the Prince's Stone (Slovenian: Knežji kamen), the base of an ancient Roman Ionic column, originating from Virunum. After the incorporation of Carantania into the Bavarian sphere of influence the ritual was extended with a ceremony at Duke's Chair (Slovenian: Vojvodski prestol), a throne made of stone, who still can be seen near Maria Saal. The second Christianization of the area began about 767 under Bishop Vergilius of Salzburg. His missionary Modestus, so called Apostole of Carinthia, built the first church of the Assumption of Mary in Karnburg, from which Christianity was spread all over Carantania. Karnburg remained the political capital when Carantania became a march of the Frankish Empire. The Carolingian Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia († 899), born in nearby Moosburg, built a Kaiserpfalz here. When Emperor Otto II separated Carinthia from Bavaria in 976, Karnburg also was the political capital of the duchy.
[edit] Sister cities
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