Meinhard I, a member of the House of Gorizia, was Count of Gorizia from 1231 and Count of Tyrol from 1253 until his death.
Background
He was the son of Count Engelbert III of Gorizia and his wife Matilda, a sister of the Andechs duke Berthold IV of Merania. His father died in 1220, nevertheless he did not come in control over all his family"s possessions around Lienz and Gorizia upon the death of his uncle Count Meinhard the Elder.
Education
About 1237 he married Adelaide (Adelheid), one of the two daughters of Count Albert IV of Tyrol, attended with reasonable succession prospects in the Tyrolean lands.
Career
Meinhard strongly supported the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II in his fierce conflict with Pope Innocent IV and in return was appointed Imperial governor of the Duchy of Styria and the March of Carniola after the last Babenberg duke Frederick the Warlike had died without heirs in 1246. From 1250 onwards also governor in the princeless Duchy of Austria, Meinhard facing the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty did not prevail: his rule in Carniola was challenged by the Carinthian ducal House of Sponheim, and in Austria and Styria he was expelled by the Bohemian prince Ottokar II Přemysl in 1251. On 8 September 1252, he was finally defeated and arrested at Greifenburg.
Both were imprisoned at Hohenwerfen Castle in Salzburg and not released until 1258.
Meinhard and Albert IV of Tyrol also had to pay a compensation and to renounce certain possessions including Mittersill, Virgen, Matrei and Oberdrauburg. Upon the death of Count Albert IV of Tyrol in 1253, Meinhard and his brother-in-law, Count Gebhard of Hirschberg, split Tyrol, of which Meinhard took the southern part with Meran, in constant quarrels with the Trento bishops.
Meinhard I died in 1258 and is buried at Tirol Castle.