Career
He also held the offices of a Count palatine in the Duchy of Carinthia as well as Vogt governor of the Patriarchate of Aquileia and of Street Peter Abbey in the March of Istria. The Meinhardiner noble family was of Bavarian origin. Meinhard"s father Meginhard is documented as a count in the Bavarian Puster Valley in 1107.
The dynasty had been able to acquire large estates in the newly established Patria del Friuli, among them the castle of Gorizia (Görz) as their new ancestral seat.
In 1102 he also assumed the office of a Vogt of Millstatt Abbey from the Aribonid dynasty related by marriage. In 1122, Meinhard succeeded Engelbert I as Count of Gorizia.
At that time, his estates consisted of the Upper Puster Valley estates, from Innichen Abbey to below Lienz in the west, and the lands around Gorizia in Friuli, which later formed the core of the immediate County of Gorizia, as well as parts of Istria, including Pazin.