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The Felsőbüki Nagy family 255
we can see here, is a clear tendency toward the acceptance of the
new aristocrats by the old ones, a trend of social integration. This
picture can be compared to the marriages of the Felsőbüki Nagy
family that stood on the threshold of aristocracy — although, as we
have seen, it did not make the final step.
Tamas Szemethy extends his investigation to seven generations
of the Felsőbüki Nagy from Benedek Nagy, who won the letter
patent of nobility in 1616, to the mid-nineteenth century. He has
found that no fewer than 100 marriage partners out of 105 belonged
to the lesser nobility and only two belonged beyond doubt to the
aristocracy. Moreover, if we look at the spatial exent of the area
which these husbands and wives came from, we see a concentration
in Sopron county and, within this, a clear preference demonstrated
by members of the Felsöbüki Nagy family for Bük (composed of
three separate villages in the eighteenth century). The pattern that
emerges here is in stark contrast to what we have seen in the case of
the new aristocrats. It seems that a concentration on the high-flying
members of the Felsöbüki Nagy family is misleading: most of the
family clearly remained on the level of the county. Tamas Szemethy
sees in them a typical bene possessionatus family that deliberately
concentrated its aspirations on its county: to the preservation of its
landholdings there and its local prestige — instead of being elevated
into the aristocracy that involved high costs.
Chapter 7, the second one written by Janos Nagy in this volume,
explores another aspect of inter-familial relations: the troubles aris¬
ing from the aspirations of the scions of the same gentry family for
the same inheritance (Conflicts within the family: Storm around the
last will of vicepalatinus Istvan Felsöbüki Nagy). In his last will,
vicepalatinus Istvän Felsöbüki Nagy preferred his children from his
second marriage to his children from the first. Erzsebet Felsöbüki
Nagy, daugher of the vicepalatinus from his first marriage, sued
her half-siblings for her maternal and paternal inheritance. This
lawsuit was closed with a compromise in 1746 in the district court
of Köszeg. Then, she sued her cousins, István and Pál Felsőbüki
Nagy. To these she had earlier offered her jointure, 4000 forints,
in exchange for the legal assistance that they had promised her, but
now, she tried to recover this amount from them in court. Later, as
the vicepalatinus’s son, Lajos Felsöbüki Nagy, had got completely
indebted and consequently had lost his assets to his relatives, his
son, capitain Lajos Felsöbüki Nagy Jr., tried to take legal steps in