Page 257 [257]
OCR
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 arising 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
