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Rh valley from its entrance to Kufstein, and the Kitzbühel region (north-east) were all won from Bavaria; in 1517 Rovereto and several other places on the present south-eastern frontier were acquired from Venice; in 1803 many fiefs in the bishoprics of Trent and Brixen were annexed on the secularization of those two bishoprics; while finally the rest of the Zillerthal, with Windisch Matrei, was obtained in 1816 from the archbishopric of Salzburg. Besides the great railway line over the Brenner, there are other lines from Botzen past Meran to Mals, from Franzensfeste up the Pusterthal to Lienz in the Drave valley, and from Innsbruck, by a tunnel beneath the Arlberg Pass to the Vorarlberg and the Rhine valley.

The majority of the population is devoted to pastoral, and in some degree to agricultural pursuits, the cattle, as in other Alpine lands, being the mainstay of the peasants. In summer they are driven up to the mountain pastures (called here Almen, but Alpen in Switzerland), which are, however, less carefully looked after than in Switzerland, partly because in many cases they have been alienated by the neighbouring hamlets to far distant places. Forestry also employs a certain proportion of the population, but the felling of trees is carried on wastefully, though less so than in former years. A few minerals are found in the district, but in this department the salt works of Hall, near Innsbruck, take the first place. In southern Tirol, silk-spinning is still one of the principal industries, while good local wines are produced near Meran and Botzen. There are also some factories of preserved fruits and tobacco. But, save in the towns, Tirol is above all a pastoral land.

The peasants are famous for their devotion to the Roman Catholic religion, their fervent loyalty to the House of Austria, their excellent marksmanship, and their love of singing and music, the zither being the national instrument. There is a university at Innsbruck, but primary education, though compulsory, does not attain any very high degree of excellence, as in summer the schools are closed, for all hands are then required in the fields or on the mountain pastures. The picturesque local costumes have nearly altogether disappeared, save in the Passeyerthal, near Meran, while the increasing crowds of summer visitors have largely spoilt the simplicity of the natives. Ecclesiastically, Tirol is ruled bgthe archbishop of Salzburg and his two suffragans, the bishops of rent and of Brixen. The country is divided into 21 administrative districts (Bezirke), each composed of a number of communes or civil parishes. Tirol sends 25 representatives to the Austrian parliament at Vienna. Locally it is ruled by an Imperial governor (the Statthalter) who resides at Innsbruck, where, too, meets annually the local legislature or Diet (the Landtag), composed (according to the constitution of 1861) of 68 members; the archbishop of Salzburg, the bishops of Trent and Brixen, and the rector of the university of Innsbruck sit in person, while the great ecclesiastical corporations send four deputies, the chambers of commerce of Innsbruck, Trent and Rovereto each one, the nobles ten, the towns 13, and the peasants 34.

History.—By far the greater portion of the region later called Tirol was inhabited, when it makes its appearance in history, by the Raetians (perhaps a Celtic race, though some still hold that they were connected with the Etruscans), who were conquered (14 ) by Drusus and Tiberius, and were later organized into the Roman province of Raetia. In the 5th and following centuries the north portion was Teutonized, first by the Ostrogoths, mainly by the Baiouarii, but the Teutonic Langobardi who pressed up from the south became Romanized themselves, so that the double character of the inhabitants of the land appears quite early. In 774 the Carolingians conquered the Langobardi or Lombards, and in 788 the Baiouarii. But the officials charged with the rule of these parts gradually became semi-independent, particularly the Bavarian dukes in the region north of Trent. Some time after the break-up of that duchy in 976, the emperor Conrad II. entrusted all temporal powers in the northern region to the bishop of Brixen, and in the southern portion to the bishop of Trent, detaching these southern districts from Italy (to which they had always belonged, save from 951 to 962, when the march of Verona was annexed to the duchy of Carinthia) and incorporating them with Germany. The bishops, in their turn, had to exercise their temporal rights through lay vassals, of whom the most powerful in the course of the 12th century were the lords of Andechs, near Munich. On the extinction of this family in 1248, most of their fiefs were given by the two bishops to the father-in-law of the last lord of Andechs, Albert, count of Tirol. This new family took its name from the still existing castle of Tirol (Later Roman, Teriolis), above Meran, in the upper Adige valley, and is mentioned for the first time in 1140. Albert's elder daughter, Adelaide, married Meinhard, count of Gorz (north of Trieste); their elder son Meinhard (d. 1295) took Tirol, and the younger Gorzg but in 1500 the latter's line became extinct, and the elder line inherited its possessions. Long before that time the senior branch of the elder line had ended in Margaret, nicknamed die Maultasche (the Pocket-mouth), who, in 1342, married Louis of Brandenburg (d. 1361), and whose only child Meinhard died in her lifetime in 1363; Tirol accordingly passed by agreement in the latter year of the junior branch of the elder line, the Habsburgers, dukes of Austria since 1282. In this way Tirol came to the dynasty which has ever since held it (save 1805–1814). From that time onwards till 1665 Tirol was generally entrusted to a cadet of the Austrian house, who ruled first at Meran, and from about 1420 at Innsbruck, as a nearly independent prince; but since 1665 the province has been governed from Vienna. We have noted above the manner in which the limits of Tirol were gradually extended. Several of these additions were due to the archduke Maximilian, who ruled Tirol from 1490 onwards, becoming emperor in 1493 and dying in 1519. His memory is still cherished in the district, for he conferred on it the title of Gefürstete Grafschaft, spent much time in it, and erected in the chief church of Innsbruck a sumptuous monument as his tomb.

Owing to its position astride of the Alps, and so commanding the road across them, Tirol has often been the scene of sharp fighting. In 1499 the Swiss won a victory in the Calven gorge (near the head of the Adige valley) against Maximilian, which resulted in the Swiss gaining their practical independence of the empire. In 1703 the Bavarians and French, during the War of the Spanish Succession, took Innsbruck, but were then driven back. In 1805, by the peace of Pressburg, Napoleon forced Austria to hand over Tirol to his ally, Bavaria, which held it till 1814. On the outbreak of war (1809) between France and Bavaria, the people rose in revolt. Their leader was Andreas Hofer (b. 1767), a small innkeeper of the Passeyerthal, and under him the peasants repeatedly defeated the Bavarian, French and Saxon troops. Three times (April 13, May 29 and Aug. 13) did they drive the foe out of Innsbruck. On the 15th of August, Hofer, yielding to the popular wish, assumed the government of Tirol. But in October the ill-success of the Austrians against the French elsewhere forced them to conclude the peace of Vienna, by which Tirol was definitely secured to Bavaria. The peasants refused to believe in the bad news, and continued to resist the French, but were at last overpowered by numbers. The French occupied the Passeyerthal on the 23rd of November, and Hofer was obliged to seek shelter in a hut on the mountain pastures. Here he was betrayed by a neighbour to the French (Jan. 27, 1810), who took him captive to Mantua, where, by express order of Napoleon, he was shot (Feb. 20, 1810) for the sole offence of being loyal to his emperor and his native land. His bones now lie in the great church at Innsbruck, side by side with those of his two chief supporters, the Capuchin friar and army chaplain, Joachim Haspinger (d. 1858), and the peasant, Joseph Speckbacher.

See in general vol. xiii., Tirol (Vienna, 1893), of the great official work entitled Die oesterreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild. The following more special works may be consulted: A. Achleitner and E. Ubl, Tirol und Vorarlberg (Leipzig, 1825); J. Alton, Die ladinischen Idiomen in Ladinien, Gröden, Fassa, Buchenstein, Ampezzo (Innsbruck, 1879); F. Arens, Das tiroler Volk in seinen Weisthümern (Gotha, 1904): W. A. Baillie-Grohman, Tirol and the Tirolese (London, 1876), Gaddings with a Primitive People (2 vols., London, 1878), Sport in the Alps (London, 1896), and The Land in the Mountains (1907); Miss R. H. Busk, The Valleys of Tirol (London, 1874); E. H. Compton and W. A. Baillie-Grohman, Tyrol (London, 1908); J. Egger, Geschichte Tirols (3 vols., Innsbruck, 1872–1880); J. Gilbert and G. C. Churchill, The Dolomite Mountains (London, 1864); Max Haushofer, Tirol (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1899); J. Hirn, Tirols Erhebung im Jahre 1809 (Innsbruck, 1909); Alfons Huber, Geschiehte d. Vereinigung Tirols mit Oesteweich (Innsbruck, 1864); A. Jäger, Geschichte d. landständischen Verfassung von Tirol (3 vols., Innsbruck, 1882–1885); W. D. McCrackan, The Tyrol (London, 1905); E. Oefele, Geschichte der Grafen von Andechs (Innsbruck, 1877); L. Purtscheller and H. Hess, Der Hochtourist in den Ostalpen, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (Leipzig and Vienna, 1903); E. Richter