 The Carniolan lands were bound informally to the other marches of the southeast of the Empire in what has been termed the "Austrian complex" because of the supremacy which Austria quickly obtained over the others and the way in which they tended to follow her.Due to this informal cohesion, Carniola was more like a geographical part than a whole and it was often combined to its neighbours and granted out as payment for electoral support.Nevertheless, its status as the most southeasterly of the marches helped it retain its marcher privileges well into the thirteenth century and long after the other regions, especially Friuli, had lost theirs.