The carinthian sheep is a fairly recent breed, it was around the beginning of the 19th century that local farmers were looking for a sheep with a better wool then what was available. This was rather difficult because the two best breeds were from spain and england and both did not allow to export rams at the time, so they looked south to Italy and crossed their local the old Landschaf breed with the Bergamasca and Paduaner Sheep. The hardy, frugal Brillenschaf can cope with high precipitation and is expert in climbing, therefore it is used for grazing high alpine areas which are inaccessible to cows. By the end of the 19th century this breed was very popular and yearly about 30.000 sheep were exported to France at the time.

During WWI the Brillenschaf was very popular, due to its big size, (lots of meat), fine wool and being frugal. In the 1930