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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 personalis. 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.
