I can’t counsl you on style, that’s too much of a personal matter, but I can provide you with a few facts about Kärnten/Carinthia in the 11th century you might find useful, in case you don’t write a comedy:
In around 1100, the most important town in Kärnten would be
Friesach, eminent due to its location on a trade route and nearby silver mines – the first coinage on Austrian territory, a silver penny, was minted at Friesach beginning sometime in the 1120s. If you need an nearby castle, use
Petersberg, mentioned first as early as 1076. An even earlier important Carinthian castle was
Karnburg; both the Prince’s Stone and the Duke’s Chair (see below) were located in a field next to it, on the alluvial plain called
Zollfeld.
The first native Dukes of Carinthia were of the house of
Eppenstein, ruling from 1012. They were deposed in 1035, only to return to power in 1073. In the meantime, Kärnten was ruled by
Berthold von Zähringen. This German
dynasty did originate in Swabia.
A peculiarity of Kärnten is that its Dukes first
ceremoniously installed in the Slovene tongue at the so-called
Prince’s Stone, and only then in the German tongue at the so-called
Duke’s Chair. You could use this for colour I you felt so inclined.
The Slavic, or more precisely Slovenian element was by the way important in Kärnten. You can read a paragrapf or two about the medieval Duchy
here.
