The Prince's Stone (German: Fürstenstein, Slovene: Knežji kamen) is the reversed base of an ancient Ionic column that played an important role in the ceremony surrounding the installation of the princes of Carantania in the Early Middle Ages. After the incorporation into the Frankish Empire the procedure held in Slovene language was continued as the first part of the coronation of the Dukes of Carinthia, followed by a mass at Maria Saal cathedral and the installation at the Duke's chair, where he swore an oath in German and received the homage of the estates.
The column probably originates from the nearby Roman city of Virunum, established as capital of the Noricum province under the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54). During the Middle Ages the coat of arms of the Duchy of Carinthia were engraved at its top surface.[1] Till 1862, when it was transferred to the Landhaus provincial assembly at Klagenfurt, it stood northwest of the Kaiserpfalz of Karnburg (Slovene: Krnski grad) in the Zollfeld plain, built by Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia.
The first mention of a sedes Karinthani ducatus in the course of the installation of Herman II of Sponheim in 1161 possibly referred to the Prince's Stone. The ceremony was explicitly described about 1341 by the chronicler John of Viktring in his liber certarum historiarum on the occasion of the coronation of Meinhard II of Gorizia-Tyrol in 1286: when the duke-to-be approached he found a free peasant sitting on the stone. Not before Meinhard had assured him he was worthy to accede to the throne and would be a just ruler would the peasant vacate his position.
The partition of Carinthia after World War I made the Prince's stone a part of the common and therefore disputed Carantanian heritage. When in 2005 the Slovenian government of prime minister Janez Janša decided to depict the Prince's Stone on the national side of the Slovenian 2 cent coin, it caused some consternation in Austria. In 2006 the Carinthian governor Jörg Haider had the stone, that since 1905 had been displayed at the Carinthian State Museum, transferred again to the Heraldic Hall at the Klagenfurt Landhaus.