PETER STIH, "ALPINE COLONIZATION AND MIGRATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES WITH SLOVENIA AS AN EXAMPLE"
At the beginning of the 7th century a great part of the Eastern Alps became Slavonic settlements, which left to the territory settled by the Slovenes that linguistic identity which it still maintains in our days. Slavonic colonization took in regions already previously settled, but the new settlers took over only one economic sector - the Alpwirtschaft - from the older ones. The agrarian colonization embraced the higher alpine regions not before the 13th and 14th centuries. Linked to middle and late medieval colonization were migrations of German-speaking peasants. This led at first to the creation of a language mixed territory, from which there emerged at the end of the Middle Ages two homogeneous ethnical blocks: the Slovenian in the South and the Germanic in the North. Between them was set up a language frontier which remained stable up till the 19th century.
GERTRUD THOMA, "SPACIAL MOBILITY AS A CONSEQUENCE OF MEDIEVAL SCATTERED OWNERSHIP: THE RELATIONS OF THE BISHOPRIC OF FREISING WITH ITS ALPINE PROPERTIES"
The preservation, administration, extension and exploitation of the typical medieval scattered property led to mobility of many kinds, mobility of persons and goods, over great distances or in close proximity, temporary, regular or long-term changes of sites. As can be seen from the example of the Freising manorial land ownership for the 12th till the 14th century, the most varied groups of persons were involved in this mobility: the bishops themselves, the prebendaries of the varied foundations both in Bavaria and in the Eastern Alps, the ministerials, administrators, messengers and, last but not least, the peasant settlers, too. Neither the long distances nor the alpine character of the countryside were thereby apparently regarded as a hindrance. The decisive factor in the landowners’ putting up with such expenditure for journeys and transports in alpine regions was, apart from their political presence, the economic profit. In the alpine regions there was still at that time new, fertile land to be had and exploited. Furthermore, the possibility of
