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The Felsőbüki Nagy family 253 IN THE FOCAL POINT OF HUNGARIAN POLITICS: THE DIET To county assemblies, held a few times a year, all noblemen were invited in theory, but it was the gentry, especially the bene posssessionati, together with the local representatives of the aristocrats’ great landholdings, who mostly participated. Similary, the diets held intermittently in the eighteenth century® were the forum for political discussions and decision-making attended by the lay and ecclesiastical lords as well as representatives of the gentry. The latter had the right to participate in parliamentary discussions, most importantly as county deputies sent to the lower house, but not only as those: they could become MPs when absent peers delegated them as personal representatives, and the complete Royal Court of Justice participated at the diet, too: the personalis acted as chairman of the lower house and the judges, the protonotarii, did all the paperwork —a crucially important task. Besides county assemblies, sessions of the diet provided the second real political arena in Hungary - and on the national level. Thus, in Hungary, there was no need for public opinion to be articulated in coffee houses, salons and reading societies, that were slowly transformed in the long run from representing a literary public into a political public, a process that took a decisive turn in the case of France only after 1789.’ In Hungary, politics was discussed directly, similarly to eighteenth-century England,’ and a relatively wide stratum of society had access to participation in political decisions. This breadth of political participation was almost exceptional in the Europe of the ancien régime. We can say that the three basic features in Hungarian political life in the eighteenth century, the conservation of the old dualism of king and estates, the significant role played by the estates in politics, and the important positions held vis-a-vis the ruler, all these represented political anachronisms in the eighteenth century. If we add to these the possibility of regular participation in political life, open to a significant section of society, we arrive at a noteworthy achievement of Hungary in the eighteenth century. In this respect, the Kingdom of Hungary is, however, not wholly unique. Certain ° Inthe eighteenth century, diets were held in 1708-1715, 1722-1723, 1728-1729, 1741, 1751, 1764-1765, 1790-1791, 1792 and 1796. 7 Habermas 1990: 122-141. Habermas 1990: 126-133.
