@@solotraveleruae5027 YOU DO EVERYTHING FOR US. CITIZENS OF THE WORLD. BOW. JUST A HUGE AMOUNT OF WORK. NEXT I WILL ALSO WATCH AND LIKE. BEAUTIFUL AND YOUR COUNTRY. BEST REGARDS TO YOU FROM BAKU
@@elshadjafar2437 Thank you very much for your appreciation. I appreciate this. I love travel, happy moments, and beautiful scenery. I would love to be shared with someone. That's why I have a RUclips channel. (I visited Azerbaijan in 2016 Baku and ganja qbala) a beautiful country and the most beautiful were the kind people) Thank you very much for watching and commenting 🙏
Tyrol is a common territory in southern Austria and northern Italy, Bozen is the German name, and Bolzano is the Italian name. It is the largest city in northern Italy .. Thank you very much for watching and commenting .. 🙏🙏🙏
@@solotraveleruae5027 The last thing I need is a Saudi Arabian trying to explain my homeland to me. South Tyrol is a land occupied and stolen by Italy.
🇮🇹🧐The topic of the progressive Germanization of South Tyrol is complex, controversial and at least partially obscure. An attempt at a very brief synthesis could be the following. (part I) I] The very long Italian spirit of South Tyrol. From prehistory to the 5th century after Christ. It should be stated immediately that the question of settlement in South Tyrol after the fall of Rome is considerably delicate and complex, since this region has undergone substantially continuous changes in its ethnic composition, which however are difficult to reconstruct, especially for the early Middle Ages. In any case, it is necessary to put forward some essential data on what must be considered as "the starting point". The oldest known human population of the region was that of the Rhaetians, a pre-Indo-European people closely related to the Ligurians, the Etruscans, in short, the so-called "Mediterraneans", who constituted the most remote inhabitants of the Italian peninsula, even before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans around to the 2nd millennium BC The Raeti initially inhabited all of north-eastern Italy and extended to the east to include most of present-day Austria. The Veneti replaced them in the plain lands of the current Veneto and Friuli, however mixing with them, while the Rhaetians continued to be the majority in the Alpine lands and to live in the central and eastern Alps, both in the Cisalpine and transalpine ones. The ethnic configuration of South Tyrol and in general of the north-west of the peninsula on the eve of the affirmation of Rome was therefore analogous to that of the rest of Italy, with a substantial fusion between the very ancient Mediterraneans (such were the Rhaetians), descendants of the groups of Homo sapiens sapiens who replaced the Neanderthals in Italy, and the more "recent" Indo-Europeans, who however lived in the peninsula from the 2nd millennium BC. Despite the undoubted differences, a growing cultural affinity had been established, which made the different peoples of the peninsula very similar to each other: it is the condition that has been defined as "pan-Italianism". The subsequent Roman political, juridical and linguistic unification was grafted onto this common cultural basis. Present-day Alto Adige was included, in the Augustan organization of Italy, in the X Region "Venetia et Histria" (which included the current Triveneto from Brennero to Carnaro) and locally, in the "Districuts" having Tridentum (Trento ). This region was therefore already considered part of Italy in the Augustan era and its inhabitants were Roman "cives", i.e. their complete Romanization was recognized. By way of confirmation, Romansh, Ladin and Friulian, i.e. the Rhaeto-Romance languages, are certainly local languages with their own specificities, but they are usually recognized by glottologists as belonging to the linguistic group called "Italo-Romance", which includes almost all existing local languages in Italy, with the exception only of the tiny German-speaking, Slavic-speaking, francophone and Greek-speaking minorities. In other words, Romansh, Ladin and Friulian are not only Neo-Latin languages, but belong to the typically Italian Romance stock, distinct from those beyond the Alps or Eastern Europe. However, Rhaeto-Romance groups, i.e. Romanised Rhaetian groups or rather Romans of Rhaetian origin, existed along the entire north-eastern Alpine arc, where they actually made up the majority of the population, even in present-day Austria. II] The genocide of the Rhaeto-Romance in the transalpine lands. As is well known, the Danube remained the boundary between the Latin and Germanic worlds approximately until the fall of Rome. The breaking of the limes of the empire led to an irruption of Germanic peoples into present-day Austria as early as the 5th century AD. and then, from the late sixth century, of Slavic tribes in present-day Slovenia and then in the eastern Alps. It is very difficult to reconstruct the ethnic changes exactly, indeed according to my knowledge it is currently impossible. However, there is no doubt about what happened in broad terms: the Latin speakers were practically exterminated in what is now eastern Austria, partly by the Germans, partly by the Slavs. A greater survival occurred in western Austria, where, on the other hand, it seems that Roman refugees from the east took refuge, but this did not however prevent a Germanization of the Austrian transalpine region, which had begun at the beginning of the sixth century and was already completed in the Upper Middle Ages. The Rhaeto-Romance settlements in the Eastern Alps had a longer duration. Even in the late Middle Ages, in the fourteenth century, there were "Italian" Rhaeto-Romance speaking communities on the upper and middle Isonzo, near Postumia and on Mount Nevoso, therefore in areas that centuries later appeared compactly Slavicized. The compact Slovene population on most of the eastern Alps is therefore historically very recent and was only achieved with the cancellation of the pre-existing Italian and romances communities, many of which still survived well into the fourteenth century. The Latins of Noricum, of central Helvetia, of the eastern Alps, romanized and descended from the Rhaetians, were therefore either killed or brutally assimilated. Some found refuge by moving west, where they joined their compatriots living there. The fate of the Romans of these regions was therefore comparable, mutatis mutandis, to that of the inhabitants of Illyria, who were mostly exterminated by the invading Slavs, while the survivors took refuge in Dalmatia. III] The phase of the Germanic invasions in South Tyrol If the Germanization of ancient Noricum (present-day Austria) and the Slavicization of the eastern Alps (upper and middle Isonzo valley, Monte Nevoso, etc.) took place relatively quickly and in a very violent way (in eastern Austria the Latins were practically exterminated), on the contrary in the central Swiss Alps and in Alto Adige it was a much longer and slower process. Certainly throughout the early Middle Ages the Latins remained the majority in the northern basin of the Adige and in the lateral valleys. The invasions of the Ostrogoths and the Lombards did not significantly change the population of the area, since both these populations were numerically very scarce compared to the "Italians" of the time (see, for example, the excellent study by the medievalist Stefano Gasparri, Prima delle Nazioni ). Furthermore, the former disappeared from the peninsula after their defeat in the Gothic-Byzantine war, while the latter gradually assimilated without leaving anything but very few traces in the later Italian culture: some names and surnames, some toponyms, some terms of the Italian language, very rare folk heritage . To see the beginning of the Germanization of South Tyrol, one must call into question the Baiuvari, ancestors of the Bavarians. They invaded the region and managed to control it only after a fierce resistance from the Latins, led by their bishop Ingenuino. That of the Baiuvari is the first real Germanic settlement in South Tyrol, but it essentially consisted of a small circle of soldiers who dominated the local enslaved population. The situation did not change under Frankish rule. Until around the year 1000, the Germanic presence in South Tyrol was therefore very scarce. IV] After the year 1000. Instead, it was with the Ottonian dynasty that there was a first real impulse to the Germanization in depth of the upper Adige basin, with a very slow and "patchy" process, which began approximately at the turn of the year One thousand. An event of particular gravity in terms of Germanization was the decision of Emperor Conrad II (1024-1033) to grant territorial powers to the bishops of Bressanone and Trento. This decision in fact broke the traditional, very ancient administrative unit of north-eastern Italy, which rested on a cultural continuum dating back to prehistory or at least to Roman times. The expression "Triveneto" sometimes still used today in fact approximates this previous cultural unit. The nobility and clergy beyond the Alps were the main drivers of this Germanisation, which was now no longer superficial and limited (for the most part) to the ruling class as it was in the past, but extended to all social classes. By granting lands and fiefdoms to their faithful, the German emperors facilitated the transplantation of entire Germanic communities in South Tyrol, which, however small, were "organic" and included soldiers, clergymen, artisans, traders, peasants. The government of the region formally fell to the episcopal principality of Trento, which existed until 1802 and was usually represented by Italian bishops and residents of an Italian city in the heart of an Italian region. However, in fact a gradual usurpation of his rights in South Tyrol had occurred by the counts of Tyrol starting from the 12th century, whose Land however was, on a strictly legal level, existing only and solely north of the Brenner. In fact, the German count of Tyrol remained for many centuries, on a formal level, a simple advocatus of the legitimate prince of the territory, i.e. the bishop of Trento, even if in fact most of the latter's prerogatives over South Tyrol were progressively usurped.
🇮🇹🧐The topic of the progressive Germanization of South Tyrol is complex, controversial and at least partially obscure. An attempt at a very brief synthesis could be the following. (part II) V] The fourteenth century. The fourteenth century was a crucial century in the Germanization of South Tyrol. Again Dante at the beginning of the century, also due to the influence of the definition of Italy in Roman administrative geography, fixed the borders of the Italian nation at Nice to the west, on the Carnaro to the east ("Si com'a Pola, presso del Carnaro, ch 'Italia closes and its terms wet"), on the Brenner to the north: "Suso in beautiful Italy lies a lake, at the foot of the Alpe which encloses Lamagna above Tiralli, which has the name Benaco". Germany therefore began for the Poet in the north of "Tiralli", of Tyrol, which was therefore included in the Italian area. The "Black Plague" epidemic which hit the whole of Europe in a very hard way in the middle of the fourteenth century (beginning in 1348) led to the collapse of the population in Alto Adige, which was partly filled with the influx of German settlers from regions in which the disease had less raging. Furthermore, in 1364 the Habsburgs took over the dominion of the region from the counts of Tyrol, intensifying the process of Germanization through their own feudal lords and clergymen, who, owners of huge estates in South Tyrol, transplanted German settlers. Furthermore, the Habsburg rule facilitated the immigration of traders from Germany to the small urban centers south of the Brenner Pass. VI] Maximilian I of Habsburg. Maximilian I (1459-1519) established the seat of his court in Innsbruck, in the historic Land of Tyrol (at least formally the ecclesiastical principality of Trentino existed south of Brenner, which included all of present-day Trentino-Alto Adige). It was under his sovereignty that the transition from an Italian majority in South Tyrol to a German one took place. This is what is claimed, among others, by a scholar of capital importance such as Carlo Battisti, author of many monumental studies on the region, on the Ladins, etc. In fact, he argued only at the end of the fifteenth century that the Germanic population became prevalent over the Italian one (Trentina and Ladin) in the Adige valley. Until the mid-fifteenth century, Bassa Atesina and Bolzano itself remained with strong Italian presences. At the end of the reign of Maximilian I, however, the territories of Ora, Fiè, Tires, Laion and the Val d'Ega certainly appeared to be Germanised, which had instead still been populated by Ladins in the recent past. The administrative measures and legal norms in force under this emperor contributed to the regression of the Italian element in the region. The territory of Ladinia was divided into a series of "judgments", administrative units that followed the previous communities: Judgment of Gudon; Judgment of Selva; Judgment of Ciastel; Judgment of Mareo-Badia; Judgment of Tor; Judgment of Fodom; Judgment of Fassa; Judgment of Fiemme; Judgment of Ampezzo. The official language used in the "Judgments" was German, so that the toponymy was also reported in that language and, frequently, the onomastics itself was distorted and Germanized. VII] The Counter-Reformation. After the period of Maximilian I, during which there had been intense Germanization and for the first time the Germanic group had outnumbered the Italian one, the latter began to grow again, almost to the point of balancing the German one. At the beginning of the 17th century Ladin was still spoken in the "judgment" of Castelrotto, in Val di Fiemme, Val di Non, Val Pusteria, Neva Ladina, Zoldo, Agordo ..., while this language was as strong in Val Venosta as it is today in Val Gardena. In the 16th-17th centuries there still existed a territorial continuity between the Ladin areas of Alto Adige and the Romance areas of Switzerland, especially through the upper Venosta valley and its links with the Swiss valleys of the Monastery and the Engadine, whose language was practically the same at the time. This contiguity was broken by imperial policies. The Habsburg Empire, i.e. the hereditary possessions of the house of Austria (distinct from the German Reich in the proper sense) was at the time, as it always remained, highly differentiated and multi-ethnic within. One of the tools used to try to found some cultural unity of his domains, which was not pre-existing at all, was a policy aimed at forced conversion to Catholicism. The Habsburg possessions appeared before the Thirty Years War to be very diversified even religiously within them and the Protestant presence was very strong even in the region from which it then completely disappeared. The Austrian and Hungarian aristocracies themselves appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century to a large extent adherent to the Reformation. It was in the interests of both the imperial government and the Austrian Catholic Church to promote a progressive elimination of the Protestant elements. This guideline, consistently and decisively practiced throughout the "iron century" of the wars of religion, also involved the Ladins of South Tyrol. These were all Catholics, but they bordered directly and were difficult to distinguish at the time from the Romansh Swiss, inhabitants of the valleys of the Monastery and the Engadine, who instead had converted to Protestantism. The fear of an infiltration of the Reformation into South Tyrol through the cultural continuity of the Rhaeto-Romance area led to a policy of Germanization of the imperial border territories with the Swiss confederation. VIII] Maria Theresa of Habsburg. During the Teresian reign, entire Ladin valleys and most of Val Venosta, which had remained Romance-speaking until the beginning of the eighteenth century, were forced to Germanize. First, the authorities imposed a series of repressive measures, which imposed the exclusive use of German in a number of areas: in public meetings; in sermons in church, in confessions and in pastoral activity in general, etc. Secondly, discriminatory measures were promoted against those who used Ladin in their domestic and family life, limiting their civil rights, such as the possibility of exercising some professions or even of contracting marriages. Thirdly, many characteristic Ladin customs were prohibited, again with the aim of losing their identity. Fourthly, the Empress Maria Theresa herself issued a secret decree, which imposed the Germanization of the Ladin surnames of South Tyrol, making use of the work of the clergy, usually imposed in German and loyal to the empire. Even today there are many Ladin surnames so Germanized, by adding a final -er (as happened for Elemunt which became Elemunter, or Melaun, which became Melauner), or by translating them into German (for example, by making Costalungia a Kastlunger , Granruac a Großrubatscher etc.). Most of Val Venosta was thus Germanized under the government of the "enlightened" kings Maria Theresa and Joseph II, considered the most tolerant and open-minded rulers of the house of Austria. The Ladins who had managed to resist this Germanizing pressure were gradually assimilated during the 19th century, so that very few Romansh groups remained in Val Venosta at the beginning of the 19th century. An enthusiastic supporter of the Germanization of Ladin and Romansh in the Theresian era was the abbot of the convent of Santa Maria in upper Val Venosta, Mathias Lang. Similar Germanizing behaviors were common to the government activity of Maria Theresa, who became responsible for initiatives similar to those described above, or even worse, in different parts of her empire, such as Bohemia, Croatia, Hungary and Romania. The empress also issued an edict in which she authorized the kidnapping of children of gypsy families, in order to raise them in a German environment and thus make them of Austrian culture: the cases of rape thus authorized were many thousands.
Nice view
Thanks for watching and commenting 💐
Merci bon jour formedabl
Merci d'avoir regardé et commenté. Je vous souhaite une bonne journée🙏
Czech auto SKODA OCTAVIA?
yes 💯
Like from me. Baku.
Thank you very much for the like. (From beautiful Baku) 🙏
@@solotraveleruae5027 YOU DO EVERYTHING FOR US. CITIZENS OF THE WORLD. BOW. JUST A HUGE AMOUNT OF WORK. NEXT I WILL ALSO WATCH AND LIKE. BEAUTIFUL AND YOUR COUNTRY. BEST REGARDS TO YOU FROM BAKU
@@elshadjafar2437 Thank you very much for your appreciation. I appreciate this. I love travel, happy moments, and beautiful scenery. I would love to be shared with someone. That's why I have a RUclips channel. (I visited Azerbaijan in 2016 Baku and ganja qbala) a beautiful country and the most beautiful were the kind people) Thank you very much for watching and commenting 🙏
@@solotraveleruae5027 I read everything you wrote. Thank you for your warm words addressed to us.
@@elshadjafar2437 It's all right. You're welcome
That's "Bozen".
South Tyrol is not Italy!
Tyrol is a common territory in southern Austria and northern Italy, Bozen is the German name, and Bolzano is the Italian name. It is the largest city in northern Italy .. Thank you very much for watching and commenting .. 🙏🙏🙏
@@solotraveleruae5027 The last thing I need is a Saudi Arabian trying to explain my homeland to me. South Tyrol is a land occupied and stolen by Italy.
@@namenlos40 💐💐💐💐💐
🇮🇹🧐The topic of the progressive Germanization of South Tyrol is complex, controversial and at least partially obscure.
An attempt at a very brief synthesis could be the following. (part I)
I] The very long Italian spirit of South Tyrol. From prehistory to the 5th century after Christ.
It should be stated immediately that the question of settlement in South Tyrol after the fall of Rome is considerably delicate and complex, since this region has undergone substantially continuous changes in its ethnic composition, which however are difficult to reconstruct, especially for the early Middle Ages.
In any case, it is necessary to put forward some essential data on what must be considered as "the starting point". The oldest known human population of the region was that of the Rhaetians, a pre-Indo-European people closely related to the Ligurians, the Etruscans, in short, the so-called "Mediterraneans", who constituted the most remote inhabitants of the Italian peninsula, even before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans around to the 2nd millennium BC The Raeti initially inhabited all of north-eastern Italy and extended to the east to include most of present-day Austria. The Veneti replaced them in the plain lands of the current Veneto and Friuli, however mixing with them, while the Rhaetians continued to be the majority in the Alpine lands and to live in the central and eastern Alps, both in the Cisalpine and transalpine ones. The ethnic configuration of South Tyrol and in general of the north-west of the peninsula on the eve of the affirmation of Rome was therefore analogous to that of the rest of Italy, with a substantial fusion between the very ancient Mediterraneans (such were the Rhaetians), descendants of the groups of Homo sapiens sapiens who replaced the Neanderthals in Italy, and the more "recent" Indo-Europeans, who however lived in the peninsula from the 2nd millennium BC. Despite the undoubted differences, a growing cultural affinity had been established, which made the different peoples of the peninsula very similar to each other: it is the condition that has been defined as "pan-Italianism".
The subsequent Roman political, juridical and linguistic unification was grafted onto this common cultural basis. Present-day Alto Adige was included, in the Augustan organization of Italy, in the X Region "Venetia et Histria" (which included the current Triveneto from Brennero to Carnaro) and locally, in the "Districuts" having Tridentum (Trento ). This region was therefore already considered part of Italy in the Augustan era and its inhabitants were Roman "cives", i.e. their complete Romanization was recognized.
By way of confirmation, Romansh, Ladin and Friulian, i.e. the Rhaeto-Romance languages, are certainly local languages with their own specificities, but they are usually recognized by glottologists as belonging to the linguistic group called "Italo-Romance", which includes almost all existing local languages in Italy, with the exception only of the tiny German-speaking, Slavic-speaking, francophone and Greek-speaking minorities. In other words, Romansh, Ladin and Friulian are not only Neo-Latin languages, but belong to the typically Italian Romance stock, distinct from those beyond the Alps or Eastern Europe. However, Rhaeto-Romance groups, i.e. Romanised Rhaetian groups or rather Romans of Rhaetian origin, existed along the entire north-eastern Alpine arc, where they actually made up the majority of the population, even in present-day Austria.
II] The genocide of the Rhaeto-Romance in the transalpine lands.
As is well known, the Danube remained the boundary between the Latin and Germanic worlds approximately until the fall of Rome. The breaking of the limes of the empire led to an irruption of Germanic peoples into present-day Austria as early as the 5th century AD. and then, from the late sixth century, of Slavic tribes in present-day Slovenia and then in the eastern Alps. It is very difficult to reconstruct the ethnic changes exactly, indeed according to my knowledge it is currently impossible. However, there is no doubt about what happened in broad terms: the Latin speakers were practically exterminated in what is now eastern Austria, partly by the Germans, partly by the Slavs. A greater survival occurred in western Austria, where, on the other hand, it seems that Roman refugees from the east took refuge, but this did not however prevent a Germanization of the Austrian transalpine region, which had begun at the beginning of the sixth century and was already completed in the Upper Middle Ages.
The Rhaeto-Romance settlements in the Eastern Alps had a longer duration. Even in the late Middle Ages, in the fourteenth century, there were "Italian" Rhaeto-Romance speaking communities on the upper and middle Isonzo, near Postumia and on Mount Nevoso, therefore in areas that centuries later appeared compactly Slavicized. The compact Slovene population on most of the eastern Alps is therefore historically very recent and was only achieved with the cancellation of the pre-existing Italian and romances communities, many of which still survived well into the fourteenth century.
The Latins of Noricum, of central Helvetia, of the eastern Alps, romanized and descended from the Rhaetians, were therefore either killed or brutally assimilated. Some found refuge by moving west, where they joined their compatriots living there. The fate of the Romans of these regions was therefore comparable, mutatis mutandis, to that of the inhabitants of Illyria, who were mostly exterminated by the invading Slavs, while the survivors took refuge in Dalmatia.
III] The phase of the Germanic invasions in South Tyrol
If the Germanization of ancient Noricum (present-day Austria) and the Slavicization of the eastern Alps (upper and middle Isonzo valley, Monte Nevoso, etc.) took place relatively quickly and in a very violent way (in eastern Austria the Latins were practically exterminated), on the contrary in the central Swiss Alps and in Alto Adige it was a much longer and slower process. Certainly throughout the early Middle Ages the Latins remained the majority in the northern basin of the Adige and in the lateral valleys.
The invasions of the Ostrogoths and the Lombards did not significantly change the population of the area, since both these populations were numerically very scarce compared to the "Italians" of the time (see, for example, the excellent study by the medievalist Stefano Gasparri, Prima delle Nazioni ). Furthermore, the former disappeared from the peninsula after their defeat in the Gothic-Byzantine war, while the latter gradually assimilated without leaving anything but very few traces in the later Italian culture: some names and surnames, some toponyms, some terms of the Italian language, very rare folk heritage .
To see the beginning of the Germanization of South Tyrol, one must call into question the Baiuvari, ancestors of the Bavarians. They invaded the region and managed to control it only after a fierce resistance from the Latins, led by their bishop Ingenuino. That of the Baiuvari is the first real Germanic settlement in South Tyrol, but it essentially consisted of a small circle of soldiers who dominated the local enslaved population. The situation did not change under Frankish rule. Until around the year 1000, the Germanic presence in South Tyrol was therefore very scarce.
IV] After the year 1000.
Instead, it was with the Ottonian dynasty that there was a first real impulse to the Germanization in depth of the upper Adige basin, with a very slow and "patchy" process, which began approximately at the turn of the year One thousand.
An event of particular gravity in terms of Germanization was the decision of Emperor Conrad II (1024-1033) to grant territorial powers to the bishops of Bressanone and Trento. This decision in fact broke the traditional, very ancient administrative unit of north-eastern Italy, which rested on a cultural continuum dating back to prehistory or at least to Roman times. The expression "Triveneto" sometimes still used today in fact approximates this previous cultural unit.
The nobility and clergy beyond the Alps were the main drivers of this Germanisation, which was now no longer superficial and limited (for the most part) to the ruling class as it was in the past, but extended to all social classes. By granting lands and fiefdoms to their faithful, the German emperors facilitated the transplantation of entire Germanic communities in South Tyrol, which, however small, were "organic" and included soldiers, clergymen, artisans, traders, peasants.
The government of the region formally fell to the episcopal principality of Trento, which existed until 1802 and was usually represented by Italian bishops and residents of an Italian city in the heart of an Italian region. However, in fact a gradual usurpation of his rights in South Tyrol had occurred by the counts of Tyrol starting from the 12th century, whose Land however was, on a strictly legal level, existing only and solely north of the Brenner. In fact, the German count of Tyrol remained for many centuries, on a formal level, a simple advocatus of the legitimate prince of the territory, i.e. the bishop of Trento, even if in fact most of the latter's prerogatives over South Tyrol were progressively usurped.
🇮🇹🧐The topic of the progressive Germanization of South Tyrol is complex, controversial and at least partially obscure.
An attempt at a very brief synthesis could be the following. (part II)
V] The fourteenth century.
The fourteenth century was a crucial century in the Germanization of South Tyrol. Again Dante at the beginning of the century, also due to the influence of the definition of Italy in Roman administrative geography, fixed the borders of the Italian nation at Nice to the west, on the Carnaro to the east ("Si com'a Pola, presso del Carnaro, ch 'Italia closes and its terms wet"), on the Brenner to the north: "Suso in beautiful Italy lies a lake, at the foot of the Alpe which encloses Lamagna above Tiralli, which has the name Benaco". Germany therefore began for the Poet in the north of "Tiralli", of Tyrol, which was therefore included in the Italian area.
The "Black Plague" epidemic which hit the whole of Europe in a very hard way in the middle of the fourteenth century (beginning in 1348) led to the collapse of the population in Alto Adige, which was partly filled with the influx of German settlers from regions in which the disease had less raging.
Furthermore, in 1364 the Habsburgs took over the dominion of the region from the counts of Tyrol, intensifying the process of Germanization through their own feudal lords and clergymen, who, owners of huge estates in South Tyrol, transplanted German settlers. Furthermore, the Habsburg rule facilitated the immigration of traders from Germany to the small urban centers south of the Brenner Pass.
VI] Maximilian I of Habsburg.
Maximilian I (1459-1519) established the seat of his court in Innsbruck, in the historic Land of Tyrol (at least formally the ecclesiastical principality of Trentino existed south of Brenner, which included all of present-day Trentino-Alto Adige). It was under his sovereignty that the transition from an Italian majority in South Tyrol to a German one took place.
This is what is claimed, among others, by a scholar of capital importance such as Carlo Battisti, author of many monumental studies on the region, on the Ladins, etc. In fact, he argued only at the end of the fifteenth century that the Germanic population became prevalent over the Italian one (Trentina and Ladin) in the Adige valley. Until the mid-fifteenth century, Bassa Atesina and Bolzano itself remained with strong Italian presences. At the end of the reign of Maximilian I, however, the territories of Ora, Fiè, Tires, Laion and the Val d'Ega certainly appeared to be Germanised, which had instead still been populated by Ladins in the recent past.
The administrative measures and legal norms in force under this emperor contributed to the regression of the Italian element in the region. The territory of Ladinia was divided into a series of "judgments", administrative units that followed the previous communities: Judgment of Gudon; Judgment of Selva; Judgment of Ciastel; Judgment of Mareo-Badia; Judgment of Tor; Judgment of Fodom; Judgment of Fassa; Judgment of Fiemme; Judgment of Ampezzo. The official language used in the "Judgments" was German, so that the toponymy was also reported in that language and, frequently, the onomastics itself was distorted and Germanized.
VII] The Counter-Reformation.
After the period of Maximilian I, during which there had been intense Germanization and for the first time the Germanic group had outnumbered the Italian one, the latter began to grow again, almost to the point of balancing the German one. At the beginning of the 17th century Ladin was still spoken in the "judgment" of Castelrotto, in Val di Fiemme, Val di Non, Val Pusteria, Neva Ladina, Zoldo, Agordo ..., while this language was as strong in Val Venosta as it is today in Val Gardena. In the 16th-17th centuries there still existed a territorial continuity between the Ladin areas of Alto Adige and the Romance areas of Switzerland, especially through the upper Venosta valley and its links with the Swiss valleys of the Monastery and the Engadine, whose language was practically the same at the time. This contiguity was broken by imperial policies. The Habsburg Empire, i.e. the hereditary possessions of the house of Austria (distinct from the German Reich in the proper sense) was at the time, as it always remained, highly differentiated and multi-ethnic within. One of the tools used to try to found some cultural unity of his domains, which was not pre-existing at all, was a policy aimed at forced conversion to Catholicism. The Habsburg possessions appeared before the Thirty Years War to be very diversified even religiously within them and the Protestant presence was very strong even in the region from which it then completely disappeared. The Austrian and Hungarian aristocracies themselves appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century to a large extent adherent to the Reformation. It was in the interests of both the imperial government and the Austrian Catholic Church to promote a progressive elimination of the Protestant elements.
This guideline, consistently and decisively practiced throughout the "iron century" of the wars of religion, also involved the Ladins of South Tyrol. These were all Catholics, but they bordered directly and were difficult to distinguish at the time from the Romansh Swiss, inhabitants of the valleys of the Monastery and the Engadine, who instead had converted to Protestantism. The fear of an infiltration of the Reformation into South Tyrol through the cultural continuity of the Rhaeto-Romance area led to a policy of Germanization of the imperial border territories with the Swiss confederation.
VIII] Maria Theresa of Habsburg.
During the Teresian reign, entire Ladin valleys and most of Val Venosta, which had remained Romance-speaking until the beginning of the eighteenth century, were forced to Germanize. First, the authorities imposed a series of repressive measures, which imposed the exclusive use of German in a number of areas: in public meetings; in sermons in church, in confessions and in pastoral activity in general, etc. Secondly, discriminatory measures were promoted against those who used Ladin in their domestic and family life, limiting their civil rights, such as the possibility of exercising some professions or even of contracting marriages. Thirdly, many characteristic Ladin customs were prohibited, again with the aim of losing their identity. Fourthly, the Empress Maria Theresa herself issued a secret decree, which imposed the Germanization of the Ladin surnames of South Tyrol, making use of the work of the clergy, usually imposed in German and loyal to the empire. Even today there are many Ladin surnames so Germanized, by adding a final -er (as happened for Elemunt which became Elemunter, or Melaun, which became Melauner), or by translating them into German (for example, by making Costalungia a Kastlunger , Granruac a Großrubatscher etc.).
Most of Val Venosta was thus Germanized under the government of the "enlightened" kings Maria Theresa and Joseph II, considered the most tolerant and open-minded rulers of the house of Austria. The Ladins who had managed to resist this Germanizing pressure were gradually assimilated during the 19th century, so that very few Romansh groups remained in Val Venosta at the beginning of the 19th century. An enthusiastic supporter of the Germanization of Ladin and Romansh in the Theresian era was the abbot of the convent of Santa Maria in upper Val Venosta, Mathias Lang.
Similar Germanizing behaviors were common to the government activity of Maria Theresa, who became responsible for initiatives similar to those described above, or even worse, in different parts of her empire, such as Bohemia, Croatia, Hungary and Romania. The empress also issued an edict in which she authorized the kidnapping of children of gypsy families, in order to raise them in a German environment and thus make them of Austrian culture: the cases of rape thus authorized were many thousands.