Oldal 254 [254]
252 Istvan M. Szijarto
Jözsef Felsöbüki Nagy did not immediately succeed his father, Pal
Felsöbüki Nagy, as a judge of this court of justice — and we learn that
this practice did not bring unworthy office-holders into position. In
these three scholarly investigations, the main emphasis on these three
outstanding members of the Felsébuki Nagy family is replaced by a
partial prosopography of the judges of the Royal Court of Justice.
Similarly to Chapter 3, also Chapter 4 (Office-holding at the
Royal Chancellery as a sign of success: József Felsőbüki Nagy and
the rise of the lesser noble office-holding elite in the eighteenth
century) is focussing on the history of a central administrative
institution. Andras Vamos takes his starting point as the role of
Jozsef Felsöbüki Nagy’s office-holding in Vienna in the Hungarian
Royal Court Chancellery in his following appointment as persona¬
lis. Through a set of other examples, he proceeds to prove the great
role of holding office especially here, among all royal government
organs. Office-holding in the Chancellery counted as a position of
confidence, as here — in contrast to other Hungarian government
organs - royal decisions were prepared, i.e. an important phase of
political decision-making took place.
Andras Vamos sets out to analyze the professional career of each
of the councillors of the Royal Hungarian Court Chancellery from
its organization in 1690 to 1808: 99 persons altogether Two thirds
of them were of lesser noble birth: it is on them that the focus is
directed. This group is subdivided first into those who held earlier
county offices and those who did not (the bureaucrats’), and second
into those who were the first in their families to hold royal office
and those who were not, i.e. to first-generation and second or more
generation office-holders. This full prosopography demonstrates
that the Chancellery, as the most prestigious royal office, employed
only those Hungarian nobles who had already proved their talent
in other, less prestigious, royal offices. There was no straight road
from the counties to the Chancellery in Vienna — as demonstrated
by for example Jözsef Felsöbüki Nagy’s career.
> The Transylvanian councillors serving in the united Hungarian-Transylvanian
Chancellery (1783-1791) are not considered here.