Estates and Constitution: The Parliament in Eighteenth-Century Hungary 2020018307, 2020018308, 9781789208795, 9781789208801

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ESTATES AND CONSTITUTION

AUSTRIAN AND HABSBURG STUDIES

General Editor: Howard Louthan, Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota Before 1918, Austria and the Habsburg lands constituted an expansive multinational and multiethnic empire, the second largest state in Europe, and a key site for cultural and intellectual developments across the continent. At the turn of the twentieth century, the region gave birth to modern psychology, philosophy, economics, and music, and since then has played an important mediating role between Western and Eastern Europe, today participating as a critical member of the European Union. The volumes in this series address specific themes and questions around the history, culture, politics, social, and economic experience of Austria, the Habsburg Empire, and its successor states in Central and Eastern Europe. Recent volumes: Volume 30 Estates and Constitution: The Parliament in Eighteenth-Century Hungary István M. Szijártó

Volume 25 Nationalism Revisited: Austrian Social Closure from Romanticism to the Digital Age Christian Karner

Volume 29 Antisemitism in Galicia: Agitation, Politics, and Violence against Jews in the Late Habsburg Monarchy Tim Buchen

Volume 24 Entangled Entertainers: Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna Klaus Hödl

Volume 28 Revisiting Austria: Tourism, Space, and National Identity, 1945 to the Present Gundolf Graml Volume 27 Empty Signs, Historical Imaginaries: The Entangled Nationalization of Names and Naming in a Late Habsburg Borderland Ágoston Berecz Volume 26 Men under Fire: Motivation, Morale, and Masculinity among Czech Soldiers in the Great War, 1914–1918 Jiří Hutečka

Volume 23 Comical Modernity: Popular Humour and the Transformation of Urban Space in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna Heidi Hakkarainen Volume 22 Embers of Empire: Continuity and Rupture in the Habsburg Successor States after 1918 Edited by Paul Miller and Claire Morelon Volume 21 The Art of Resistance: Cultural Protest against the Austrian Far Right in the Early Twenty-First Century Allyson Fiddler

For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website: http://berghahnbooks.com/series/ austrian-habsburg-studies

ESTATES AND CONSTITUTION The Parliament in Eighteenth-Century Hungary

d István M. Szijártó Translated from the Hungarian by David Robert Evans

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2020 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2020 István M. Szijártó This book was produced under the auspices of the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and with the support of the National Bank of Hungary. All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Szijártó, István M., 1965– author. | Evans, David Robert, translator. Title: Estates and Constitution: The Parliament in Eighteenth-Century Hungary / István M. Szijártó; translated from the Hungarian by David Robert Evans. Other titles: 18. századi Magyarország rendi országgyűlése. English Description: First edition. | New York; Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2020. | Series: Austrian and Habsburg Studies; volume 30 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020018307 (print) | LCCN 2020018308 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789208795 (hardback) | ISBN 9781789208801 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Hungary—Politics and government—18th century. | Hungary. Országgyűlés—History. | Political participation—Hungary—History—18th century. Classification: LCC JN2121 .S9713 2020 (print) | LCC JN2121 (ebook) | DDC British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78920-879-5 hardback ISBN 978-1-78920-880-1 ebook

In memoriam Keith Robbins

CONTENTS

d List of Illustrations

viii

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

Part I. The Frameworks

9

Chapter 1. The Dualism of King and Estates

11

Chapter 2. The Workings of the Machinery of the Diet

29

Part II. The Structures of Politics

77

Chapter 3. The Dualism of King and Estates Dominated by Confessional Questions

79

Chapter 4. Taxes and Privileges

92

Chapter 5. Government and Opposition at the Diet

116

Chapter 6. Career Paths at the Diet

145

Chapter 7. Realignments on the Estates’ Side of the Political Arena

177

Part III. Interpreting Hungarian Politics in the Eighteenth Century

207

Chapter 8. Texts and Discourse

209

Chapter 9. County and Gentry

275

Chapter 10. Historiographical Traditions and European Comparisons

300

Bibliography

312

Index

343

ILLUSTRATIONS

d Figures 0.1. Presenting the infant Joseph II to the Hungarian estates at the diet in 1741 in Pressburg Castle, painted by Franz Messmer and Wenzel Pohl (1768), in the council room of the former Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna. Photo by Bettina NeubauerPregl, BDA. Courtesy of Cantat Heritage & Innovation GmbH.

3

1.1. Count János V. Pálffy (1663–1751), by an unidentified painter, in the Rákóczi Museum, Sárospatak Castle. Hungarian National Portrait Foundation. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

19

2.1. Coronation of Maria Theresa, 1741, Pressburg, painted by Johann Daniel Herz Sr. Bratislava City Gallery. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

34

2.2. Primate of the Hungarian Catholic Church, archbishop of Esztergom, Christian August, Prince of Saxe-Zeitz (1666–1725), engraved by Jeremias Gottlob Rugendas (probably in 1740 or 1741). Courtesy of the University Library and Archives of Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), KEP07665.

37

2.3. A view of Pressburg, engraved by F. B. Werner and I. C. Leopold. Published in Notitia Hungariae novae historico-geopraphica: Tomus primus by Matthias Bel (Vienna, 1735). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

62

2.4. A view of Buda, engraved by Samuel Mikoviny. Published in Notitia Hungariae novae historico-geopraphica: Tomus tertius by Matthias Bel (Vienna, 1737). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

64

Illustrations

3.1. Prince Primate of the Hungarian Catholic Church, archbishop of Esztergom, formerly bishop of Zagreb, Count Imre Esterházy (1663–1745), engraved by Jeremias Gottlob Rugendas (1740 or 1741). Courtesy of the University Library and Archives of Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), KEP07662.

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4.1. Maria Theresa as Queen of Hungary (1740–80) by unidentified painter (1741), in the Castle of Eggenberg. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

100

5.1. Count Antal Grassalkovich (1694–1771) (far left) as an accessory figure in the Maria Theresa monument (1874–88) by Kaspar von Zumbusch, with Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz in the foreground. Vienna, Maria-Theresien-Platz. Photo by Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 3.0. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

119

6.1. Lord Chief Justice Count György Fekete (1711–1788), earlier personalis, by an unidentified painter. Kiscelli Museum, Budapest. Photo by Szilas. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

163

7.1. Lord Chief Justice József Ürményi (1741–1825), earlier personalis, by an unidentified painter. Kiscelli Museum, Budapest. Photo by Szilas. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

185

8.1. Emperor Charles VI, painted by Jakob Michel (1712). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

212

8.2. Portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II in field marshal’s uniform with medals, by an unidentified painter (unknown collection). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

215

8.3. Maria Theresa as Queen of Hungary on the Coronation Hill in Pressburg, painted by C. Hirsch Jr. (c. 1750). Bratislava City Gallery. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

218

8.4. Portrait of Emperor Joseph II, attributed to Anton von Maron. Palace of Versailles. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

220

10.1. New map of the Kingdom of Hungary with its fortresses, engraved by Daniel de la Feuille (1706). Published in Geographisch Toneel of uitgezochte kaarten: Tot gemak der Officieren, Reisigers en Liefhebbers by Johannes Ratelband, Amsterdam, 1747. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

304

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Illustrations

Maps 0.1. The Kingdom of Hungary in 1750. Map by Béla Nagy. Published with permission.

2

3.1. The denominations of the Kingdom of Hungary in the eighteenth century. Map by Barnabás Guitman. Published with permission.

80

9.1. The counties of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1750. Map by Béla Nagy. Published with permission.

276

Table 6.1. Summary of the career paths of “politicians” at the diets held between 1728 and 1765.

156

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

d T

his book is the product of almost three decades of research. My findings concerning the institutional history of the eighteenth-century diet were published in Hungarian in a volume in 2005, and those concerning the political elite will be published in another monograph in Hungarian in 2020 (A diéta. A magyar rendek és az országgyűlés, 1708–1792 [Budapest: Osiris, 2005]; A diéta II: A 18. századi politikai elit társadalom- és kultúrtörténeti megközelítésben [Budapest: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, 2020, forthcoming]). A shortened version of these works was published in 2016 (A 18. századi Magyarország rendi országgyűlése [Budapest: Az Országgyűlés Hivatala—Országgyűlés Kiadó, 2016]). It is this latter volume that has been modified, extended, restructured, and finally translated here into English. I have many colleagues to thank for their assistance. Most of all Kálmán Benda, who taught me for eight years, who was my supervisor, and who entrusted me with exploring the material at the archive of Somogy County that related to the eighteenth-century Hungarian diet, thus setting me along this path of research; and László Péter, whose approach inspired me the most. I am also grateful to those colleagues who have helped the formation of the various parts of this text with their comments and suggestions. I thank Vera Bácskai, Áron Bence, Gyula Benda, Robert Evans, Katalin Fenyves, András Forgó, Gusztáv Heckenast, József Hudi, László Kontler, Attila Magyar, János Nagy, István Pelyach, László Péter, János Poór, Richárd Sebők, Katalin P. Szabó, Barnabás Szekér, József Takáts, Máté Tamás, György István Tóth, Gábor Zoltán Szűcs, and Benedek M.Varga for their advice and observations. The large part of the source material for the book is from the Gyurikovits collection at the Hungarian Parliamentary Library. I owe particular thanks to Erzsébet Séra and Judit Villám for their kind assistance. I am similarly indebted to the staff of Berghahn Books, Mykelin Higham, Ryan Masteller, and Elizabeth Martinez for their friendly professional support. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the book’s three anonymous referees. I

xii

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Acknowledgments

have attempted to incorporate several of their suggestions into the final version of this text. I have been working on my present subject for three decades, something I would not have been able to do without scholarships and other forms of financial assistance. After being a junior researcher at the Hungarian Academic Certification Committee (1990–94), my work was assisted by individual research scholarship 993/94 from the Research Support Scheme (1995–97), then by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1998–2000, 2006–7, 2009–12), the György Békésy post-doctoral scholarship of the Hungarian Ministry of Education (2001–2004), then a scholarship from the Institute of Habsburg History (2004-2005). In Vienna I explored the material of the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv with the support of the Foundation Aktion ÖsterrreichUngarn (2001, 2005) and the Klebelsberg Scholarship (2006). I availed of the international literature on this question in Germany at the Catholic University of Eichstätt and with a scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (1998), and in Paris with a scholarship from the Institut d’Études Avancées—Paris (2011). Finally, I would like to express my gratitude for the financial assistance my research work has received from the Mellon Foundation, from the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund—Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office, from the Hungarian Parliament, and from the Humanities Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In particular, I would like to thank Olga Spilar, István Soltész, László Kövér, István Bellavics, and Pál Fodor. —István M. Szijártó

INTRODUCTION

d “I

t makes little sense to enrage a people used to freedom”: so did King Frederick II of Prussia characterize the political infrastructure of Hungary and the strength of the Hungarian estates at the end of the eighteenth century.1 In a Europe of absolutism, the institutions in Hungary, ensuring comprehensive political rights for the estates, and the breadth of the political participation this brought with it, had few equals.2 This present work seeks to introduce this political system, one that, in the eighteenth century, had the diet—the parliament of Hungary—at its center. As it crossed into the eighteenth century, Hungary entered a new era of its history. The expulsion of the Ottoman forces (1699) brought an end to a century and a half defined by the struggle against the Ottomans; in 1687, meanwhile, the rule of the Habsburg dynasty, hereditary on the male bloodline, over Hungary was entered into law.3 Yet the constitutional and political circumstances of the eighteenth century were determined not only by the events of the end of the previous century, but also by those at the beginning of the eighteenth—most of all by the Rákóczi War of Independence, no longer defined by Protestant selfdefense in the face of the Counter-Reformation, as had been the case for previous anti-Habsburg movements, but in the first instance by a broad dissatisfaction with the situation created by the wars that expelled the Ottomans: the almost impossible burden presented by the liberating imperial army on the one hand and the incursions on the political rights of the estates on the other. The estates had not exerted their right to levy war taxes since 1670; in these circumstances, the nobility was also taxed, as had often occurred since 1526. In a country ravaged by plague, the Rákóczi War of Independence might have suffered military defeat, yet it forced both sides to draw lessons from it: while Hungary’s frustration presented a serious problem for the warring Habsburgs, their eye on their dynastic interests in Western Europe, by tying up so many imperial regiments, also proved that Hungary’s resources were inadequate to win it full independence.

2

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Estates and Constitution

Map 0.1. The Kingdom of Hungary in 1750. Map by Béla Nagy. Published with permission.

The Treaty of Szatmár in 1711 stabilized the position of the Hungarian estates, restoring the dualism of king and estates of the previous era. The diet regained its control of war taxes, while the noble elite was freed from paying them. Hungary’s ruler would no longer be elected, but two documents, the diploma inaugurale (coronation charter) demanded as a prerequisite of his coronation, and the coronation oath that was a short version of it, would inevitably win their final form as the result of a process of negotiation with the estates, thus retaining elements of the earlier conditions for election (Wahlkapitulationen). Within the framework of the traditional system of counties, the estates kept their monopoly over local and regional administration, and their broad rights over governance and the judiciary at the national level. Testament to the success of the Treaty of Szatmár was the diet’s acceptance on 30 June 1722 of the Pragmatica Sanctio, the Habsburgs’ inheritance on the female blood line, enacted in the favorable atmosphere of the optimism embodied by the reforms prepared by the systematica commissio, and in particular of the policy of compromise espoused by Charles VI (as king of Hungary, Charles III), all the while in dread of the appearance of the troops of the Ottoman Empire. This decree determined not only the order of succession for the successors to Leopold I on the throne but also the “indivisibility and inseparability” of Hungary on the one hand and the other provinces of her king on the other.4 The Pragmatica Sanctio paved the way for Maria Theresa to ascend the throne. Her accession was

Introduction

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3

Figure 0.1. Presenting the infant Joseph II to the Hungarian estates at the diet in 1741 in Pressburg Castle, painted by Franz Messmer and Wenzel Pohl (1768), in the council room of the former Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna. Photo by Bettina Neubauer-Pregl, BDA. Courtesy of Cantat Heritage & Innovation GmbH.

4

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Estates and Constitution

even clearer proof of the success of the Treaty of Szatmár. While the Bohemian estates elected Charles Albert, prince of Bavaria, later Emperor Charles VII, as their king, Hungary’s estates remained loyal to Maria Theresa, thereby—at least according to Montesquieu—directly saving her empire.5 In the years that followed, the special treatment Hungary received was the result not only of Maria Theresa’s heartfelt gratitude but also of the fact that by 1741 the treaty of 1711 had proved itself to be workable. The lands of the Hungarian crown had been left out of the reforms introduced by Count Haugwitz following the War of the Austrian Succession, the key goal of which was to increase the military potential of the Habsburg Monarchy to put it in a position to regain Silesia from Prussia. Changes to taxation not only brought in more money from the common people but also forced regular taxation on the clergy and the nobility. Institutional changes attached the seemingly unreliable Czech provinces more strongly to the core Austrian areas.6 Gyula Szekfű points out that the Haugwitz reforms can be seen as the origins of the separate path Hungary followed within the Habsburg Monarchy.7 True, Hungary was always a special case relative to the other provinces and countries in the monarchy, but it was precisely during the early part of Maria Theresa’s reign that its unique character became consolidated into a divergent structure. The ultimate expression of this—and the point to which the Hungarian Sonderweg led—would be the creation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1867. This present volume examines an institution of central importance to eighteenth-century Hungarian history, the diet, between 1708 and 1792.8 After depicting the political chessboard of the dualism of king and estates, it presents the structure and operation of the national assembly. As part of the process of tractatus diaetalis, a negotiation took place between the ruler and the estates, during which the government could usually count on the support of the upper house, on the personalis (who acted as speaker of the lower house),9 on the royal court of justice (fully present at the lower house), on the clergy, and on the envoys of the royal free cities.10 Government initiatives usually faced resistance from a bloc of opposition-minded deputies from the Hungarian counties (vármegyék). Political life in the first decades of the century was dominated by religious divisions within the estates, but in parliamentary history this dualism of king and estates dominated by confessional questions only lasted until 1729; afterward, the question of religion was no longer on the diet’s agenda. This made it possible for the essential political battle lines to be redrawn—for the estates to form a united front against the king to defend lower taxes and noble privileges. In the second half of the century, the estates increasingly saw these questions as ones of a constitutional nature, with no place for compromise; from the diet of 1764–65 onward, politics became decidedly more confrontational. An examination of alterations to the text of the diploma inaugurale, so important to contemporaries, offers an opportunity to interpret these changes from the perspective of legal his-

Introduction

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5

tory, explaining the achievements of the eighteenth-century diet as efforts taken to repair the damage caused by the “joint interpretation clause” (a clause added unilaterally by the government to the diploma inaugurale in 1687). In its clashes with the party of the government, the main opposition force— the county deputies—grew in strength. Their actions were in part motivated by personal ambition. But the generative model based on the political positions taken during the deliberations of the diets in the middle of the century tells us that, when interpreting the second half of our period, and in addition to old confessional considerations and Namierian self-interest, there is a third motivational factor to be discovered: one we could refer to as the tendency toward a dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions. It was with the strengthening of this tendency that the political battle lines between loyal supporters of the ruler and the exponents of the opposition became visibly hardened. While in the previous era—including the first half of the period under investigation—support for government and opposition opinions could easily be mixed, these two positions would later become mutually exclusive possibilities. The development of the diet and its various mechanisms within the flexible common law system of the dualism of king and the estates gave expression to changing political power relationships. Likewise, the eighteenth-century history of decision-making procedures applied by the diet, the evolution of the relationship between the upper and the lower house, and the history of the so-called district session all display the rise of the county deputies to a position of political dominance. Using a social-historical interpretation to provide an explanation of this change, we see in the background the social emancipation of the bene possessionatus nobility—that is, the affluent gentry—and its acquisition of power, first asserting itself in the political life of the counties, then finding expression at the diet. Calling on speeches given at the diet to assist us, we see that by the end of the century the notion of the ancient Hungarian constitution had taken center stage in the interpretation of the historical actors themselves, a constitution that had to be defended at all costs—against the actions of the crown. It was in this fashion that the concept of the common good was downplayed, which seemed at a certain historical moment to present a possibility for cooperation, offering a joint platform for collaboration between the estates speaking the political language of republicanism and the government speaking the political language of enlightened governance. The concept of a constitution quickly became rooted in political parlance and was retrospectively used to describe Hungary’s specific political system—which, ultimately, is the subject of this book. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, the room for cooperation between ruler and estates would be restricted from many sides: the emphasis on the constitution brought with it a distinct decline in the previous potential for compromise in politics and an increase in the confrontational nature of politics at the Hungarian diet. Two opposing political elites were formed, between which

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Estates and Constitution

the possibility for passage became much less than it had been. This was perhaps the most important outcome of the emergence of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions: the high level of political participation seen at the assemblies of the Hungarian counties and at the diet, which a twentyfirst-century historian can think highly of for its emphasis on constitutional traditions and which had few rivals in ancien régime Europe, formed a politics so confrontational as to project the shadow of serious conflict onto the nineteenth century.

Notes 1. P. von Mitrofanov, Joseph II. Seine politische und kulturelle Tätigkeit (Wien–Leipzig: 1910), 224, cited in H. Haselsteiner, Joseph II und die Komitate Ungarns: Herrscherrecht und ständischer Konstitutionalismus (Wien–Köln–Graz, 1983), 221. 2. On Sweden as a “broad political nation” and on the importance of this, see, for example, J. Scherp, “The Swedish Model, Early Modern Edition: Cooperation and Constitutionalism in the Swedish Parliament,” retrieved 31 July 2019 from https://www.academia.edu/ 13881317/The_Swedish_Model_Early_Modern_edition_cooperation_and_constitution alism_in_the_Swedish_parliament, 2. In Sweden, the Age of Liberty was both preceded and followed by absolutism, but Robert Frost argues that even “absolute monarchy was limited monarchy” in Scandinavia, the consent of citizens being crucial. R. Frost, “Monarchy in Northern and Eastern Europe,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern History, 1350–1750, ed. H. Scott (Oxford, 2015), 2:414. 3. The area of the Temesköz (Temesi Bánság/Banat) was only returned to Hungary by the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718. The complete restoration of the country’s territorial integrity would not take place even after this, however, as the Principality of Transylvania (later the Great Principality) remained separate, while the area of the borderlands to the south was governed directly from Vienna. As the Principality of Transylvania was governed separately and had its own representative assembly, it will not be covered by this study. 4. Gy. Ember, “Magyarország a Habsburg-birodalomban,” in Magyarország története 1686– 1790, ed. Gy. Ember and G. Heckenast (Budapest, 1989), 382–85; Gy. Ember, “Az országgyűlések,” in Magyarország története 1686–1790, ed. Gy. Ember and G. Heckenast (Budapest, 1989), 404. 5. Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. and ed. by A. M. Cohler, B. C. Miller, and H. S. Stone (Cambridge, 1989), bk. 8, chap. 9, p. 119. 6. P. G. M. Dickson, Finance and Government under Maria Theresia, 1740–1780, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1987), 2:267–68; Ch. W. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815 (Cambridge, 1994) 161–63; W. Schulze, “Die Ständewesen in den Erblanden der Habsburger Monarchie bis 1740: Vom dualistischen Ständestaat zum organisch-föderativen Absolutismus,” in Ständetum und Staatsbildung in Brandenburg-Preussen: Ergebnissen einer internationalen Fachtagung, ed. P. Baumgart (Berlin, 1983) 267; J. Barta Jr., Mária Terézia (Budapest, 1988), 94; G. Klingenstein, “Skizze zur Geschichte der erbländischen Stände im aufgeklärten Absolutismus der Habsburger (etwa 1740 bis 1790),” in Ständetum und Staatsbildung in Brandenburg-Preussen: Ergebnissen einer internationalen Fachtagung, ed. P. Baumgart (Berlin, 1983), 346; R. J. W Evans, “The Habsburg Monarchy and Bohe-

Introduction

7.

8.

9.

10.

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mia, 1526–1848,” in Conquest and Coalescence. The Shaping of the State in Early Modern Europe, ed. M. Greengrass (London, 1991), 147. B. Hóman and Gy. Szekfű, Magyar történet, 5 vols. (Budapest, 1935), 4:510. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) Cf. R. J. W. Evans, “The Habsburgs and the Hungarian Problem, 1790–1848,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series 39 (1989), 42. There is currently a debate in Hungarian historiography as to whether the representative assembly of the Rákóczi rebellion can be considered to be the országgyűlés (diaeta) or just the országos gyűlés. Sándor Gebei argues for the latter, pointing to the example of the Polish confederations. (S. Gebei, “A Rákóczi-szabadságharc országos gyűlései,” in Rendiség és parlamentarizmus Magyarországon: A kezdetektől 1918-ig, ed. T. Dobszay et al. [Budapest, 2014], 162–72.) In any case, in this period, the present book limits its scope to the “official” diet, convoked by King Joseph I in 1708. The last diet of the century, that held in 1796, features here only in passing to indicate the survival of some tendencies of the early 1790s after the execution in 1795 of the leaders of the conspiracy of the so-called Hungarian Jacobins. The threat to Habsburg power from the two secret societies organized by Ignác Martinovics was considerably magnified by events in Paris. The 1796 diet focused on the needs of the war waged against revolutionary France; it was short and otherwise quite insignificant. Throughout the text of this book, special terms have been translated when this seemed possible, and not translated if an English version might mislead readers. So, horvát bán or banus Croatiae is rendered as “viceroy of Croatia,” as this expression should give the reader a correct notion of the holder of this office. But translating főispán/supremus comes as “lord lieutenant” would evoke a specific political, social, and cultural context and thus misinform the reader. Therefore the term personalis will also be used in this Latin form. Here I should like to note that I will use obviously anachronistic terms such as “government” and “opposition” without quotation marks, as a simplification of the basic political relations of the dualism of king and estates. The “court vs. country” antithesis was not in use at the time.

Part I

THE FRAMEWORKS

Chapter 1

THE DUALISM OF KING AND ESTATES

d The Estates and the National Assembly

I

nstitutionally, the rights of Hungary’s estates were embodied in the diet,1 which was seen as “the unbreakable bond between King and Country.”2 This is where negotiations—the tractatus diaetalis, in nineteenth-century parlance—between the ruler and the country’s estates took place. The diet of 1790–91 required that it be referred to as the “Honourable, Noble Homeland,”3 for the estates, whose role had been to bargain with the king, did not represent the country (regnum) in the course of continental development so much as form it.4 Neither can we see the eighteenth-century diet as one of the branches of power in Montesquieu’s sense, i.e. as the legislature. It is only after 1790 that the political compromise between the ruler and the estates, as established in the decretum (the law published at the completion of the diet), was considered to be a legislature, under the direct influence of Montesquieu.5 This reinterpretation does not change the fact that the eighteenth-century diet was both a mirror of and a key arena for political developments. For this, as article 104 of 1647 put it, was where the “discussion of the public affairs of the country” took place. Not only was the diet not exclusively a legislative body, it was not even primarily one. For the articles of the decretum did not guarantee fundamental rights or obligations; rather, they merely referenced and recorded existing customs. Moreover, their implementation was not at all automatic. Yet an investigation of the diet is perfectly placed to take stock of the changes in the power relationships both between the country’s estates and the ruler, and also between the various segments of the polity.

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Dualism of King and Estates in Eighteenth-Century Hungary The model of dualism of king and estates posits the king and the country at the two poles of the political system. Their antithesis was described by State Chancellor Anton Wenzel von Kaunitz in 1761: in essence, they participated in a “zero-sum game” in which the players, namely the king and the country, could only profit at one another’s expense.6 The roots of the system of dualism of king and estates lie in medieval times: in case of danger, the ruler had a right to expect consilium et auxilium, that is, counsel and (financial and military) support, just as a vassal had obligations to his sovereign. The primate also offered counsel and support to Maria Theresa in the name of the estates of Hungary, when the queen opened the diet of 1741.7 It was from this that the complementary legal domains of the estates and the prince would develop. Originally, counsel had been an obligation rather than a right for the estates; this was the point of origin of their other obligation, namely to offer support for the implementation of their advice. But while in the medieval period these elements formed a system that obligated the prince and the estates in equal measure, by the eighteenth century the estates and the absolute ruler, as Otto Brunner has established, confronted one another directly. By this time, the ruler demanded the ability to decide the law of the land himself; it was from the ruler’s perspective that the estates became a privileged body, and they were referred to only as estates, not as the country or land, as specifically expressed by Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf at the State Council in 1765 with reference to the Habsburg Monarchy.8 In Hungary, however, not even at the end of the eighteenth century had the range of the rights retained by the estates become insignificant. Hungary was not an absolute monarchy, in which the monarch could pass laws and levy taxes, but an estate polity (Ständestaat) characterized by the dualism of king and estates, where all this required the endorsement of the parliament, that is, the diet. Here, then, sovereignty was shared between the king and the estates. Both sides retained the prerogatives and privileges accorded by common law. Central executive power in this period belonged to the ruler’s quickly growing domain of influence.9 The king could direct home and foreign policy with almost no restraint; the same was true of economic, cultural, and religious affairs. On the other hand, in the fields of legislation, public administration, and the judiciary, he was obliged to cooperate with the estates of Hungary. At his coronation, as we have seen, the king had to take an oath to safeguard the constitution and to sign a similar if longer written charter. Furthermore, the diet had the exclusive right to decide on taxes (and, from the end of the century, on the conscription of new military recruits). Article 12 of 1791 was not the first to make a distinction between reservata, i.e. royal privilege that could be practiced without restriction, and communicata, powers only enjoyed in tandem with the estates: this can be found in Werbőczy’s Tripartitum, which, based on a medieval framework, was

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early modern Hungary’s best-known legal manual, even if not one put into law. Around 1758, Count Miklós Pálffy asked Maria Theresa to implement the separation between the two.10 The two sides were so at odds in this regard, however, that a clear distinction between reservata and communicata never in fact came into being.11 Maria Theresa was herself of the view that the realm of affairs to be managed in cooperation with the estates was broader in Hungary than in her monarchy as a whole, and so in 1748 she made no attempt to introduce Haugwitz’s governmental reform to Hungary. As she writes in her memoirs, “Only in Hungary did I not consider the introduction of any changes to be worthwhile, because there, outside the boundaries of the diet, to attempt to do something according to the law is not advisable.”12 At the crown council held on 19 June 1792, supporting the chancellery’s proposal, the palatine, Archduke Alexander Leopold, claimed that the Hungarian counties might be obliged by royal decree to submit records of tenure-related trials to the Hungarian Royal Council of Lieutenancy for inspection, as this was not a subject that demanded legislation. As someone well versed in Hungarian affairs, chancellery councilor József Felsőbüki Nagy responded that “if there is no law, the counties will not keep and submit these records.”13 The position of the ruler and the ruling class was to accept the status quo, sometimes openly, but more often tacitly. Alongside this, there was also another, entirely “academic,” aulic perspective. The work on public law by György Lakits, dean of the faculty of law at the University of Pest and later director of the university library, was written in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and survives in manuscript form. Lakits claims that the king of Hungary does not share his power with the estates, and that only the fundamental laws of the state can set restrictions on the ruler’s power. He adds that exceptional circumstances and dangers have exempted the king from observing these laws, meaning that in Hungary the king’s power is, to all intents and purposes, unlimited. Furthermore, as this opinion would hold, the only things that apply to the diet are those that the law deliberately places in front of it, while legislative authority is solely in the hands of the ruler. Lakits’s view of Hungarian public law was not that of a mere scholar. From 1795 onward, it was he who introduced the palatinus, palatine Archduke Joseph, to Hungarian history and law. The impact of his views could be felt at the highest levels of the court. Earlier, Anton Pfleger had described his manuscript as a weapon that Joseph II could use to defend his rights as king of Hungary.14 Yet Vienna did not ultimately make use of Lakits’s public law arguments in political debates, which suggests that the king had accepted the genuine sharing of authority and power between the estates: he did not attempt to employ legal arguments to alter this. Rather, it was the estates of Hungary that acted to enlarge their sphere of influence: they did this during the debates concerning commercial grievances

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at the diet of 1751, for example,15 or when, in 1790, they demanded the automatic convention of the diet, or—to mention a successful instance—when, at this same diet, military conscription was included in the diet’s own remit. Even though the ruler was the stronger of the two parties in the eighteenth century, the dualism of king and estates did thus produce a certain division of power. The primary role of the diet was to establish compromise between the ruler and Hungary’s estates.16 Yet this compromise is only weakly reflected in the statute book the Corpus Juris Hungarici, if at all: in the mid-eighteenth century, when the key concern of the states was the protection of their noble privileges, while the ruler—in addition to restricting these privileges—strove to raise the level of annual war tax, the contributio, or contribution, the most important elements of their compromise were the ones that did not enter the Corpus Juris.17 The very fact that a decretum would ultimately emerge from every diet displayed the estates’ and the ruler’s faculty for compromise: the same could not be said of all of Europe at the time.

The Bargain between the King and the Estates The diet’s key task was laid down by the estates in article 15 of 1559. They resisted the levying of taxes for a number of years at a time, arguing that this would mean the diet would be held less often and unable to perform its other duty, namely the addressing of grievances.18 Thus the primary role given to the early modern diet was not legislation but rather the levying of taxes and the rectification of grievances, which were clearly subject to a process of negotiation—and the same was true of diets elsewhere in this period. In 1751 the lower house announced that grievances and tax increases were “naturally connected” and thus could not be discussed by two separate committees.19 Article 3 of 1563 considered the rectification of grievances even more important than the levying of taxes. This approach would also be typical of the eighteenth century. Article 7 of 1723 refers to the diets as “welcome medicine for grievances to be remedied.” The personalis used this same established phrase at the sixteenth session of the diet in 1764–65.20 Contemporary historian and geographer János Tomka Szászky’s geography textbook devotes but a single sentence to the operation of the Hungarian diet, beginning with the words, “The king mercifully attends to the grievances of the country’s estates …”21 It is not only historiographical interpretation that sees the levying of taxes as the weapon of the estates. Paragraph 7 of article 1 of 1583 is an outright threat to the king: the country will not levy taxes in the following year if “his majesty does not completely restore their old freedoms.” This is but half of the picture, however. The king had of course a strong interest in the levying of taxes, and this did indeed take place under each of the eighteenth-century diets. Among the Hungarian documents at the Haus-, Hof-

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und Staatsarchiv can be found a glossary to the memorandum of state councilor József Izdenczy, which concerns the draft of the estates and the four districts for the diploma inaugurale: he criticizes the position taken by the chancellery, very close as it is to the estates. (We will later address in detail the discussions held by the four districts of the country at the diet.) The glossary explains in German the Latin concepts of Hungarian public law—presumably intended for decision-makers less well versed in the subject. As regards the estate position that annual diets were needed to set war taxes, it notes, with resentment, that the estates had congregated for four months without so much as mentioning the contribution.22 The tractatus diaetalis was evidently a bargaining process. When the royal commissioners, representing the absent king, inquired about the levying of the tax on 13 July 1728, they received the answer that the estates insisted on the grievances being submitted first. In August, the bargaining process continued in earnest concerning the “free labor” provided by serfs to keep castles in good condition. In her first response of 1741, Maria Theresa rejected the estates’ grievances. The answer of the outraged estates was that if the queen refused to budge, they would go home.23 In 1751 the lower house stated quite directly that “grievances and the level of the tax are connected by an unbreakable cord.” Thus did they reject the request of the lords that two separate committees be sent to negotiate the royal proposals and the gravamina (grievances) to save time.24 On 17 July 1728 the lords urged that the diet provide for taxes. The lower house responded by asking: is your intention with this that the tax be debated separately? This charge was enough for the lords to feel the need to apologize: they did not want the issue of taxation to be separated from the other grievances, but, they argued, the compilation of the main grievances was partially complete.25 In 1764 the lords stated that they only voted against the tax requested by the queen because to accept them at once would have been at odds with established practice.26 Although, in this instance, the upper house’s unusual antagonism in fact had other causes, the lords at least felt this argument to be a suitable explanation. In the tractatus diaetalis process of negotiations, if one side immediately gave in to the other side’s demands, it undermined its own position. Of course, in this struggle, the ammunition was not only in the estates’ hands: if they did not raise taxes, they could not hope for suitable rectification of grievances—so the (loyal) lords warned the (oppositional) lower house on 21 July 1728.27 Neither was this diet-related horse-trading limited to taxes and grievances. In July 1741 the personalis, Baron Antal Grassalkovich, was accused in Vienna of being responsible for the lower house listing the favorable resolution of certain grievances as prerequisites for the declaration of Maria Theresa’s husband as co-ruler.28 Legislation belonged to the area jointly controlled by the king and the country’s estates—or at least this is how the estates saw it. This was brought into

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question in the eighteenth century from the aulic side (not just in the Lakits document quoted above but also in others, most memorably that written by the historian and court librarian Ádám Kollár), but generally the forces loyal to the government and the court were forced to recognize that the estates’ understanding of this was a true reflection of the practice as formed by existing power relationships. According to the Tripartitum, “The prince cannot establish decrees merely by his own determination and without restriction,” that is, he may do so only with the agreement of the nation, while the prince can add his approval to the nation’s decisions.29 Miklós Pálffy, later to be chancellor, would write in a similar vein in the 1750s,30 while József Boronkay, one of the Somogy County deputies, would, in his final report of the diet of 1790–91, refer to the laws as “made by his royal highness and the nation with their double and equal consent.”31 The right to create a decretum was jointly exercised by the king and the country’s estates as assembled at the diet; in early modern Hungary, this principle was fully observed.32 This is an important difference from Austria, where there was no clear boundary between decree and law, but a similarity with Poland: there, since the end of the Middle Ages, the king was not able to pass laws without the approval of the parliament, the Sejm.33 In Hungary, the best example is given by the deletion of the infamous forged article 22 of the decretum of 1604, “after this was added outside the diet and without the agreement of the residents of the country,” as article 1 of the Peace of Vienna, later made law, put it. According to Jean Bodin’s definition, “absolute rulers” are those who have sovereignty, that is, who have “absolute and perpetual power vested in a commonwealth.” And what is the most important aspect of sovereignty? “Let this be the first and chiefe marke of a soveraigne prince, to bee of power to give laws to all his subiects in generall and to everie one of them in particular … without consent of any other greater, equall, or lesser than himselfe.”34 By this standard, it is clear that the eighteenth-century king of Hungary was not endowed with absolute power. And as for the decrees brought between 1765 and 1790, which Maria Theresa and Joseph II used to bring such crucial reforms into being as the regulation of serfdom or the freedom of religion, only those would later remain in effect that were subsequently put into law by the diet. A manuscript written for the leaders of the Kingdom of Naples describes the constitution of the Habsburg Monarchy and the rule of Joseph II, whose death it was written directly after. It states that the ruler in each province has absolute power (which is not despotic, as the ruler listens to his advisors, takes certain formalities into consideration, and respects privileges). But the manuscript acknowledges that the ruler’s power in Hungary is restricted by the constitution, and that Hungary has to be governed “in harmony with the laws passed by the diet and his majesty.”35 In the Czech lands from 1627, and in Moravia from 1628, the right of legislation belonged to the ruler. In practice, this was also the case in the Austrian hereditary lands (even if, in point of fact, the ruler invited

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the estates to consult with him before passing a law, needing their agreement and later cooperation for the practical implementation of his decision).36

Law and Custom Just as the diet had done in 1708, so too did the exceptional nineteenth-century statesman Ferenc Deák think (referring to article 12 of 1791) that the right of legislation could only be exercised at the national assembly. In addition to the long heritage of this principle, he cited title 3 of part II of the Tripartitum and the scandal of the aforementioned articulus attached to the decretum of 1604.37 This points to the common law nature of the Hungarian constitution: had this guiding principle been laid down in law prior to 1791, then Deák would surely have been aware of it and would have mentioned it. The same is true of the diet’s basic right to levy taxes: this lay not on laws but on customs that the cited articuli merely repeated. Even those involved in politics were not always fully aware of when a custom was supported by a law mutually accepted by the country’s estates and the ruler. In its debate with the lower house in 1764, the upper house expressed the opinion that taxes had to be confirmed with the king from one diet to the next.38 But there is no such law in the Corpus Juris, though this had been the practice from 1722 onward. The real legal foundation was living practice; reference to some antiquated articulus were purely a flourish demanded by the age. Yet if one side were unable to present a strong enough political front in this negotiation at the diet, the custom would fall into decline, however many decreta might stand behind it. Ádám Kollár stated in 1764 that, based on medieval custom, the ruler was able to pass laws without asking permission of the estates.39 Even in this case, it was not just a question of pitting articuli against existing practice, but rather of measuring up the relative strength of the political forces that were citing them. Similarly, it was the prevailing balance of power that decided whether any precedent should be judged a custom to be followed. As in 1735, the concursus was convened to set additional taxes in 1736. On 2 June 1736 the lord chief justice, Count János Pálffy, expressed his wish that the practice of the former concurus be considered guiding, but the deputies did not accept his argument.40 The whole political system was based on custom. In 1790 the members of the lower house considered that the “old custom” could be “thought of as akin to a written law.”41 But it was more than just this. The Tripartitum states that custom undoes an existing law at odds with it, while László Péter emphasizes the fact that the legal system’s dominant legislative source was custom and that consuetudo regni displayed greater vitality than the laws did.42 Under the aegis of the tractatus diaetalis a compromise came into being, one that mirrored the real balance of power between Hungary’s estates and its ruler. The ruler’s efforts were primarily reflected in his propositions; this right of leg-

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islative initiative was effectively countered by the estates’ prerogative to submit its “grievances and desires” (gravamina et postulata). What is striking about eighteenth-century Hungarian politics is not that the ruler was stronger than the estates but that the power of the estates of Hungary proved so durable. True, in the first half of the eighteenth century they were not convened every three years, but in ancien régime Europe this was far from exceptional. What is worthy of note is precisely that, in the case of Hungary, the Habsburgs felt it necessary to return to this so-called constitutional system of government even after a hiatus of five, ten, or even twenty-five years. All this was visibly at odds with the practice seen in the other lands and provinces of their empire.

The Estates of Hungary The diet was thus made up of Hungary’s estates. According to postcoronation article 1 of 1608, “Hungary’s orders and estates are made up of four types of citizen, namely: the prelates [praelati], the barons or magnates [barones seu magnates], the nobles [nobiles] and the free cities [liberae civitates].” In 1750 János Tomka Szászky’s geography textbook listed the country’s estates as follows: the first is the church estate, including the archbishops, bishops, abbots, provosts, and canons; next are the magnates, that is, the country’s barons and the titled aristocracy; the third is the order of knights, divided into landed and landless armalistae nobles; the fourth is the order of royal free cities and mining towns.43 If we glance at other countries in the region, we see that in the provinces of the southern German area the estates comprised the prelates, the aristocracy (Herren), the knights and bearers of arms (Ritter und Knechte), as well as the cities (Städten und Märkte).44 From Hussite times to the reorganization following the Battle of the White Mountain, the Czech estates did not include the Catholic clergy, but this was only true of Bohemia in the narrowest sense, not of the other countries belonging to the crown of Saint Wenceslas.45 Within Hungary there was some debate as to whether the first estate referred to the whole priesthood or just to the prelates, and as to whom this latter category included. As we have seen, unlike the ideology of the unified nobility, this period made a clear distinction between the lesser nobility and the aristocracy, considering the latter a different estate. Finally, the term “estate” was not always used to mean the same thing. In eighteenth-century practice and use, the formulation “estates of the country / the kingdom / Hungary” refers to the entirety of the estates, while “estates” refers exclusively to the lower house and its members, and those of the upper house might be called “lords.” (Latin sources tend to refer to the former as “status” and the latter as “proceres.”) The sources usually mention the upper house (tabula superior) as the honorable house of lords (excelsa tabula procerum), while the even more prevalent name for the lower house (tabula in-

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Figure 1.1. Count János V. Pálffy (1663–1751), by an unidentified painter, in the Rákóczi Museum, Sárospatak Castle. Hungarian National Portrait Foundation. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

ferior) was the “honorable house of the estates” (inclyta tabula statuum). Sources also mention “orders and estates,” a term that means nothing other than “estates.” Postcoronation article 1 of 1608 maintained the structure of the bicameral diet that had emerged during the sixteenth century: those present in person were in the upper house, the deputies in the lower house. This was not a new practice; as the articulus says of itself, it was created in order to avoid abuses of power, requiring that the negotiations at the diet follow the “old practice.” It set out whom

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the king should invite to the diet, stating that he should only invite those specified.46 Thus this law—unlike the situation in Transylvania, for example—codified the order of the diet that had been established by the end of the sixteenth century, thereby reducing the ruler’s right to send out regalis (royal letters of invitation). This is also reflected in the fact that the paragraphs mostly dealt with settling disputed questions, so the representation of the counties was taken as read in the article. The deputies from the counties were mentioned only as taking up their places, together with the deputies of the chapters, before those deputizing for absentees. While the scope of the country’s estates as defined in 1608 would repeatedly be extended in years to come, the structure of the diet would essentially remain unchanged from its foundation to its end in 1848. The number of participants at individual diets varied over time. There was a tendency for growth, if not an unbroken one, from the end of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth (272 in 1681;47 547 in 1741;48 417 in 175149, 563 in 179250). By the end of the period in question, the diet was significantly larger than the Polish Sejm, where the number of senators had been 139 since 1569 and where the “house of deputies” had around 170 members—true, not only deputies had the right to speak.51

The Upper House The president of the upper house and of the diet as a whole was the palatine, tasked with being an intermediary between the king and the nation. He was chosen by the diet from four candidates proposed by the ruler, two of whom had to be Catholic and two Protestant. By the eighteenth century, the position enjoyed only a shadow of its former prestige, and yet the palatine, as president of the council of lieutenancy and of the court of appeals (tabula septemviralis), remained the most prominent of the king’s officers. If we inspect the position of the palatine from our narrower perspective, it is worth contrasting his role as a key leader of the diet negotiations with the scope of obligation and authority of his German counterpart. The president (Director) of the Reichstag, the imperial chancellor, was the archbishop of Mainz, who in the period after 1663, in which the imperial assembly met in Regensburg on a constant basis, performed this task via his representative (the Mainzer Direktorialgesandte). (Thus the difference is that the palatine presided in person at diets held only periodically, and when he was unable to do so, the task fell not to some representative of his choosing but to another national dignitary.) The archbishop of Mainz could, together with the emperor, convene the Reichstag (which cannot be said of the palatine), and it was to him that participants presented their letters of credence. Every document passed through the hands of the president of the Reichstag and those of the palatine in the same way. The king of Hungary would

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often dedicate an order to him in person rather than to the diet as a whole. As president of the German diet, the archbishop of Mainz was expected to be neutral, and so he strove to keep his distance from the emperor and his policies.52 The palatine should have performed the same intermediary role as his German counterpart, if in a different fashion: toward the king, he represented the diet, while at the sessions of the diet he was the leading exponent of the king’s policies, the leader of his “party.” For all this, what with the diet’s center of gravity shifting to the lower house, his importance decreased sharply, with the personalis coming to the fore in this same function and at his expense. To simplify slightly, the upper house was made up of prelates and lords. As regards the former, postcoronation article 1 of 1608 mentions only bishops when defining membership of the upper house.53 This law makes no mention of the participation or voting rights of elected but not yet ordained bishops (episcopi electi) or titular bishops (episcopi titulares), so these are based on custom that overrides legislation. In addition to bishops and archbishops, the prelates present at the upper house of diets in the eighteenth century included the abbot of Pannonhalma, the grand provost of Zagreb, vicar general of the order of the Premonstratensians, and the general of the Paulite order. Secular lords—those with office and those without—also took their place in the upper house of the diet. The kingdom’s barons (barones regni) included the high dignitaries (palatine, lord chief justice, viceroy [banus] of Croatia, the tavarnicum regalium magister) as well as the dignitaries of the royal court (royal cupbearer, master of the stewards, chief equerry, high chamberlain, master of the janitors, and lord steward) and the Count of Pressburg (Pozsony, present-day Bratislava). The two guardians of the crown and the supremus comes at the top of each county administration are closely related to this group, being bearers of honors or offices who, while not the kingdom’s barons, did belong to the barones rather than the magnates. Finally, thanks to article 6 of 1765, the captain of the Hungarian noble guard was also made one of the high dignitaries.54 In the eighteenth century, the upper house was first and foremost populated by aristocrats. While in this period the prelacy, especially the ordinaries and archbishops, was from a social perspective far more homogeneous than before, and it was now much harder to join this group from outside the aristocracy,55 a significant proportion of prelates was nevertheless from the lesser nobility, and a certain part not noble at all (of the thirty prelates taking up a place at the diet of 1792, nine—that is, almost a third—were not aristocrats56). At this time, we only very rarely encounter a secular lord coming from the lesser nobility. Postcoronation article 1 of 1608 gave magnates a place and voting rights in the upper house of the diet without stating unequivocally who the magnates were. (By this time it was for custom to clarify this: that is, this category comprised the members of the titular aristocracy who held no office, the “magnates de familiis extra officio,” as Gabriel Kolinovics put it in 1741,57 or the “other lords,”

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as the magnates were described by the record of the diet of 1792.58) In principle, only magnates who had come of age (who were over twenty-four) could appear at the diet, for they were sent a regalis;59 in practice, younger ones would also be present to gain experience. When listing the lords in his diary, Pál Prileszky, a deputy at the diet of 1722–23, noted that a number of other, younger magnates had appeared together with their parents.60 Sándor Károlyi took his son Ferenc to the Pressburg diet in 1722 instead of school, but the young count was only allowed to spend the summer there.61 A good many of the magnates did not take part in the whole of the diet.62 In addition to the prelates and the barones et magnates, one of the deputies from Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia63 would sit in the upper house—article 61 of 1625 had guaranteed him this place.

The Lower House The president of the lower house was the personalis, chairman of the royal court of justice (personalis praesentiae regiae in iudiciis locumtenens). That he presided over this house was again set not by decretum but by custom. Postcoronation article 1 of 1608 made it possible for the king to invite the entire royal court of justice to the diet. This in effect became the officer corps of the lower house. It participated as an organization in the diet because the latter had a judicial role: while it was in session, it was considered a form of supreme court.64 The lord members of the royal court of justice took their places in the upper house. The lower house was home to all the others: to the personalis; to the vicepalatinus; to the deputy chief justice; and to five protonotarii (ítélőmesterek, judges): one to the palatine, one to the lord chief justice, one to the viceroy of Croatia, also known as Croatian protonotarius, and two to the personalis; and finally to assessors to the king and to the archbishop of Esztergom (usually four and two, respectively). Postcoronation article 1 of 1608 gave a vote to the diocesan chapters, together with the provost, while the provosts not serving bishops would, if they had their own convent and chapter, also be given a vote, along with their chapter or convent, as was true for the mitred and privileged provosts and abbots. In 1741 fifteen chapters were sent a regalis: those of Esztergom, Eger, Nagyvárad, Győr, Nyitra, Veszprém, Pécs, Zagreb, Szepesvár, Vasvár, Pressburg, Zengg, Kalocsa, Csázma, and Csanád.65 The appearance of the deputies of the counties at the lower house is only mentioned in passing by postcoronation article 1 of 1608. Article 62 of 1625 held that the counties must be represented at the diet by landed nobles of widely respected nobility. This made it possible for several judges at the royal court of justice to occupy positions as county deputies; neither did it prevent aristocrats from becoming deputies for counties, and at the end of the eighteenth century

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there were quite a few examples of this. The usual practice, however, was for each county to send two deputies; one of them would usually be the ordinarius vicecomes (deputy of the supremus comes, and actually directing the county administration) or his deputy, the substitutus vicecomes of the county. The deputies were given a per diem allowance to cover their expenses. After the royal court of justice, the clergy, and the county deputies, we find another two groups in the lower house: the representatives of the absentees and those of the cities. Behind the representation of absentees lay the legal principle of Quod omnes tangit: the law obliges all those who have contributed to it, and so the establishment of laws applicable to all must enjoy the agreement of all. Those who received personal invitations, whether as magnates or as prelates, and who for some reason could not attend, were obliged to be represented by envoys. Widows or orphaned children of magnates could only represent themselves and their families in this fashion—they were not permitted to attend in person. According to article 62 of 1625, the deputies of absentee magnates had to be landed nobles of certain nobility. The law held that one envoy could represent at most two absentees, but eighteenth-century practice varied. In the development of the French estates, and in line with the pays d’états system also found in Hungary, it is only at the periphery of the kingdom that we encounter the provincial estates, while from the end of the fifteenth century onward, in the central areas of France (as part of the états généraux), the estate of the royal free cities was transformed into the third estate of the citizens and the peasants.66 There was no sign of any such progress in Hungary. Instead, by developing the thesis of the Holy Crown, individual royal free cities would be treated as noble personages—as they were members of the Holy Crown and could participate in legislative activity—rather than as representatives of a separate estate.67 In the eighteenth century most cities sent one or two deputies. The deputies from Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia (with the exception of one, who sat in the upper house) appeared in the lower house, usually two of them, and took their seats at the “presidential” table of the royal court of justice. Alongside them, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia were also represented at the diet by the protonotarius of the viceroy of Croatia and sometimes the count of Túrmező.68 The Croatian towns, meanwhile, would sometimes not be part of the group of the royal free cities and instead appear on the lists independently, perhaps alongside other representatives of Croatia.

Notes 1. József Hajnóczy lists the thirty-three various names used to describe the national assembly of Hungary from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. In the eighteenth century the terms most often used were diaeta, regni comitia, and diaeta regni. J. Hajnóczy, “Magyarország országgyűléséről és annak szervezetéről szóló közjogi értekezés” [De comi-

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2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

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tiis Regni Hungariae deque organisatione eorundem dissertatio iuris publici Hungarici. s.l, 1791.], in Hajnóczy József közjogi-politikai munkái, ed. A. Csizmadia (Budapest, 1958) 189–90. H. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1907), 1:18. Naponként-való jegyzései az 1790dik eztendőben felséges IIdik Leopold tsászár, és magyar országi király által, szabad királyi várossába Budára, Szent Jakab havának 6dik napjára rendelt, ‘s Szent András havának 3dik napjára Posony királyi várossába által-tétetett, ‘s ugyan ott, következő 1791dik esztendőben böjt-más havának 13dik napján bé-fejezett magyar ország gyűlésének; mellyek eredet-képen magyar nyelven írattattak, és az ország gyűlésének fővigyázása alatt, hitelesen deák nyelvre fordíttattak (Buda, 1791) 11. This narrower sense of “country” (regnum), in which it is synonymous with the estates, was created when the estates negotiated and bargained with the ruler. (O. Brunner, Land und Herrschaft: Grundfragen der Territorialen Verfassungsgeschichte Österreichs im Mittelalter, 5th ed. [Darmstadt, 1973], 414.) The first example in Hungary of king and nation becoming separate legal entities and establishing a contract with one another is from 1439; then, from the election of Ulászló I, this became a matter of course, in the form of the capitulatio, the election conditions. (G. Ferdinandy, A rendi elemek a magyar alkotmányban. Székfoglaló értekezés. Fölolvastatott a M. Tud. Akadémia 1907. évi márczius hó 11-én tartott ülésén (Budapest, 1907), 37–38.) In Hungary, the estates considered themselves members (commembra) of the Holy Crown. As Otto Brunner sees it, the basis for membership of the estates was power, which included primal judicial authority. (Brunner, Land und Herrschaft, 396–402.) On the problems of early modern power and the latest literature on the subject, see H. Carl, “Herrschaft,” in Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 2007), 5:399–416. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 1:194. Quoted by J. Poór, Kényszerpályák nemzedéke, 1795–1815 (Budapest, 1988), 25. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.477: Diarium diaetae anni millesimi septingentesimi quadragesimi primi per suam maiestatem sacratissimam Mariam Theresiam dei gratia Hungariae, Bohemiae, Dalmatiae, Croatiae, Sclavoniae reginam, archiducem Austriae, Heturiae et in liberam ac regiam civitatem Posoniensem pro die decima quarta menis maii indictae, 208. Brunner, Land und Herrschaft, 415, 426–27, 438–39. Royal prerogatives formed a broad and ill-defined category that, beyond governing the country, included the donation of noble and other privileges, the nomination of bishops, the leveling of taxes and customs as well as the minting of currency, the leadership of the military, decisions on issues of war and peace, the oversight of education and religious life, and much else. Furthermore, the reservata also comprised the entire system of connections existing with the other provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy. (L. Péter, “Die Verfassungsentwicklung in Ungarn,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie, 1848–1918, vol. 7: Verfassung und Parlamentarismus 1. Teilband Verfassungsrecht, Verfassungswirklichkeit, zentrale Repräsentativkörperschaften, ed. H. Rumpler and P. Urbanitsch [Wien, 2000], 249–50, 259.) H. Marczali, Gróf Pálffy Miklós főkanczellár emlékiratai Magyarország kormányzásáról: Adalék Mária Terézia korának történetéhez, vol. 11, no. 9, Értekezések a történelmi tudományok köréből (Budapest, 1884), 10. L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung” (manuscript version), 81–82. Cited in J. Barta Jr., A meg nem értett királynő: Mária Terézia, az uralkodó (Budapest, 1994), 79.

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13. E. Mályusz (ed.), Sándor Lipót főherceg nádor iratai (Budapest, 1926), 525. 14. Cited in Poór, “Király és rendiség Lakits György Zsigmond magyar államjogában,” Levéltári Közlemények 71(1–2) (2000): 54–61. 15. J. Nagy, “Rendi ellenzék és kormánypárt a 18. századi országgyűléseken: Politika- és társadalomtörténeti elemzés az 1751. évi országgyűlés példáján” (PhD diss., Budapest, 2017), 69–100. 16. That the estate assemblies of the early modern period were home to confrontation and cooperation between the ruler and the estates is clearly shown by the fact that the hereditary provinces of the Habsburg Holy Roman emperor were not originally represented at the Reichstag. (V. Press, “The System of Estates in the Austrian Hereditary Lands and in the Holy Roman Empire: A Comparison,” in Crown, Church and Estates: Central European Politics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. R. J. W. Evans and T. V. Thomas [New York, 1991], 8.) 17. In the eighteenth century the levying of tax was not recorded in the book of statutes as had been the case in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An interesting justification for this is given by personalis Baron Ferenc Koller in his manuscript on constitutional law in 1760: tax “was never included in laws or the constitution, lest it be considered permanent.” (Cited in Dickson, Finance and Government, 2:255.) 18. I cite laws of the period from the following collection: D. Márkus, Magyar törvénytár, vols. 1–5. (Budapest, 1899–1901). 19. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.469: Acta universa diaetae anno MDCCLI in libera regiaque civitate Posoniensi celebratae, 11. 20. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N55 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1764–1765], vol. 6: Acta diaetae anni 1764 et 65, 115. 21. J. Tomka Szászky, Introductio in orbis hodierni geographiam … (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1750), 499. 22. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv [House, Court and State Archive, Vienna], Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 410, fol. 319. 23. G. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz gróf és kora, 1705–1758: A grófi nemzetség levéltárának adatai alapján (Budapest, 1893), 1:540–41. 24. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N54 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1751], vol. 3: Diarium et acta diaetae anni 1751, 35. 25. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.482: Acta diaetae 1728/9 anni, diarium diaetae 1751, acta concursuum regnicolarum anni 1734, anni 1735, anni 1736, anni1737 … collecta per Georgium Gyurikovits Posonii, 88–89. 26. M. Horváth, “Az 1764-ki országgyűlés története,” in Horváth Mihály kisebb történelmi munkái, 2 vols. (Pest, 1868), 1:398. 27. 700.482, 90. 28. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 534–35. 29. I. Werbőczy, Tripartitum: A dicsőséges Magyar Királyság szokásjogának hármaskönyve. An extended edition of the 1894 translation by Kálmán Csiky (Budapest, 1990), pt. 2, title 3, p. 286. 30. Marczali, Pálffy Miklós emlékiratai, 9.

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31. Cited in Gy. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye a rendi országgyűléseken (Veszprém, 1906), 130. 32. The last occasion the king and the royal council passed a law without the diet was in spring 1518. (A. Kubinyi, “A Jagelló-kori Magyarország történetének vázlata,” Századok 128 [1994]: 288–89.) 33. K. Benda, “Az országgyűlések az újkori magyar fejlődésben,” in K. Benda and K. Péter, Az országgyűlések a kora újkori magyar történelemben (Budapest, 1987), 7; É. Ring, “Lengyelországot az anarchia tartja fenn? ” (A nemesi köztársaság válságának anatómiája) (Budapest, 2001), 135; W. J. Wagner, “May 3, 1791, and the Polish Constitutional Tradition,” Parliaments, Estates & Representation 15 (1995): 48. 34. J. Bodin, The Six Bookes of a Commonweal, trans. R. Knolles [1606], ed. K. D. McRae (Cambridge, MA, 1962), 159. 35. Cited in D. Beales, “Was Joseph II an Enlightened Despot?” Austrian Studies 2 (1991): 10. 36. J. Bérenger, Finances et absolutisme autrichien dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1975), 135–36. 37. F. Deák, Adalék a magyar közjoghoz. Észrevételek Lustkandl Vencel munkájára: “Das ungarisch-österreichische Staatsrecht.” A magyar közjog történelmének szempontjából (Pest, 1865), 127–28. 38. M. Horváth, “Az 1764-ki,” 1:398. 39. A. Csizmadia, K. Kovács, and L. Asztalos, Magyar állam- és jogtörténet, 2nd ed. (Budapest, 1975), 216. (The author of the cited passage is Andor Csizmadia.) 40. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.479: Acta concursus anni 1736 Posonium pro die 28 mensis may indicti, 13. The concursus, a conference of the estates of Hungary, convened to levy taxes, will later be discussed in detail. 41. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N56 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1790–1791], vol. 3: Diaeta anni 1790–91, 45. 42. Werbőczy, Tripartitum, introduction, title 12, 47–48. L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung,” 242–44. 43. Tomka Szászky,, Introductio (1750), 497. 44. Brunner, Land und Herrschaft, 405; Klingenstein, “Skizze,” 374. 45. J. Van Horn Melton, “The Nobility in the Bohemian and Austrian Lands, 1620–1780,” in The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. H. M. Scott, 2 vols., (New York, 1995), 2:111; R. J. W. Evans, “Introduction,” in Crown, Church and Estates: Central European Politics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. R. J. W. Evans and T. V. Thomas (New York, 1991), xx. 46. From this time onward, the king could only alter the order established in 1608 with the consent of the estates, that is, with laws. 47. Acta Comitialia Soproniensia, 57–73. 48. G. Kolinovics, Nova Ungariae periodus, anno primo gyneaco-cratiae Austriacae inchoata, sive comitiorum generalium quibus defuncto Carolo VI Austriacorum Caesarum, ultimo ejus primogenita filia Maria Theresia in Reginam Ungariae Posonii anno 1714 inaugurabatur, ipsas quaternorum Regni Statuum et ordinum de nomine adnotatorum sententias, et suffragia in gravioribus negotiis sub consessu viritim lata, cum aliis emnibus circumstantiis oculari, et aurita praesentis ubilibet fide libris novem resensens absolutissima narration, ed. Martinus Georgius Kovachich (Buda, 1790), 652–73.

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49. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.467: Acta seu diarium comitiorum regni, anno millesimo septingentesimo quinquagesimo primo Posonii celebratorum, 1–11. 50. Naponként-való jegyzései az 1792. eztendőben felséges Ferentz magyar és cseh országi király által, szabad királyi várossába Budára Pünkösd havának 20dik napjára rendelt, ‘s ugyan ott azon esztendőben Szent-Iván havának 26dik napján bé-fejezett magyar ország gyűlésének; mellyek eredet-képen magyar nyelven írattattak, és az ország gyűlésének fő vigyázása alatt, hitelesen deák nyelvre fordíttattak (Buda, 1792), viii–xxiv. 51. Ring, Lengyelország, 136. 52. K. O. von Aretin, Das Alte Reich 1648–1806, 4 vols. (München, 1993–2000), 1:133–34. 53. Initially this only applied to Roman Catholic bishops and archbishops, but at the diet of 1790–91 and 1792 two Greek Catholic bishops were present. Finally law 10 of 1792 also allowed for places at the diet for Orthodox Greek bishops. 54. Lesser noble royal councilors were also given a place at the upper house in 1608, but they were no longer to be found at the diets of the eighteenth century. 55. J. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat und österreichische Monarchie: Von einer Partnerschaft zur Konfrontation (1686–1790) (Stuttgart, 2005), 127. 56. Naponként-való 1792, viii–x. 57. Kolinovics, Nova Ungariae, 652–73. 58. Naponként-való 1792, 112, 115. 59. T. Dobszay, T. and Z. Fónagy, “A rendi társadalom felbomlása,” in 19. századi magyar történelem, 1790–1918, ed. A. Gergely (Budapest, 1998), 89. 60. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.486/1: Acta diaetalia pro die vigesima mensii junii anni millesimi septingentesimi vigesimi secundi per sacratissimam romanorum imperatoriam ac Germaniae, Hispaniarum, Hungariae ac Bohemiaeque regiam maiestatem Carolum VI in liberam ac regiam civitatem Posoniensem indictae diaetae per nobilem Paulum Prileczky in subinsertis regalibus titulatae dominae principissae ad hanc diaetam ablegatum, inter status et ordines in tabula absentium locum et sessionem habentem, conscripta, 1:21. 61. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 127–28, 147–48. 62. 700.486/1, 25. 63. In the eighteenth century the “associated countries” of Hungary were usually listed in this order. In what follows, however, I will employ the usual simplification that refers just to “Croatia.” At this time, because of the administrative separation of the military border zone, this would usually refer only to Zágráb, Körös, and Varasd Counties, to the shortlived Severin County (that is, to Croatia in the narrower sense), and, from the 1740s, to the three counties of (Lower) Slavonia: Pozsega, Verőce, and Szerém. Although these last three counties were placed under Hungarian authority by article 50 of 1741, were taxed in the same way as Hungarian counties, were subject to the decrees of the council of lieutenancy, and were invited to the diet, their deputies were also present at the Croatian provincial assembly in Zagreb, the sabor, and fell under the governance of the viceroy of Croatia and under the jurisdiction of the Croatian courts. The largest part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia was administered by the Hofkriegsrat in Vienna, however, as the military frontier with the Ottoman Empire. 64. As we are investigating the political role of the diet, I will not expand on this here. 65. 700.482, 233.

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66. O. Brunner, Neue Wege der Verfassungs- und Sozialgeschichte, 2nd ed. (Göttingen, 1968), 195–96. 67. Naponként-való 1790, 296; Á. Timon, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténet: Különös tekintettel a nyugati államok jogfejlődésére, 6th ed. (Budapest, 1919), 657; M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 3rd ed., 8 vols. (Budapest, 1873), 7:306. 68. He was leader of the free noble district of Túrmező. At the diets of the eighteenth century, his right to attend was questioned, and he was only rarely present.

Chapter 2

THE WORKINGS OF THE MACHINERY OF THE DIET

d The Convocation of the Diet

C

ustom—“the continuous practice that had almost become law”—also dictated the arrangements of the diet.1 The convocation of the diet in Hungary was the privilege of the ruler; should the throne be vacant, given the hereditary right of succession of the House of Habsburg from 1687 onwards, the heir to the throne would convoke his own coronation diet.2 The addendum to Izdenczy’s memorandum in 1790 concerned the position of the estates, namely that the diet had to be convened every three years on 1 May as an abrogation of royal privilege.3 Everyone who had the right to appear in person (or be represented) at the diet was invited by a royal letter: the prelates, the church bodies, the high dignitaries, the magnates, counties, and royal free cities.4 (The letters of invitation to those with a right to appear at the diet were sent out by the chancellery in Lower Austria and in Bohemia as well.5) After arriving at the diet, the first task for members of the parliament was to present or hand over their letter of credence6: delegates from the chapters, counties, and cities would show them to the palatine, the primate, and the personalis, while the lords, according to a contemporary observer, only reported to the first two of the three.7 In the case of those attending in person, credentionales meant the letter of invitation itself. At the start of the diet, at any event, the lords greeted the leaders of their house. The letter written in this vein by Count György Széchényi on 25 June 1722 mentions the palatine, the primate, and the tavernicum regalium magister.8

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On 27 April 1741, a single letter was written to serve as the credential for József Rudnyánszky, judge at the royal court of justice, and for János Zlinszky, deputy vicecomes, at the assembly of Pest County, in Vác, signed by the chief notary. The deputies from Pest County spent the first three days presenting their credentials and greeting the magnates.9 Sometimes they would do some of this only after the start of the diet, as in the case of the deputies from Nagyszombat—chief justice Mihály Nádassy, senator András Árokszállásy, and deputy notary János Endrődy—in March 1708. On the morning of the day the diet was opened, they visited the cardinal, then the palatine; then, two and three days later, when there was no session of the diet, they sought out the other “pillars” of the country: the lord chief justice, the viceroy of Croatia, and the tavernicum regalium magister.10 For 1741, we know who presented their credentials, and when; from this we can approximately infer how late various members of the diet arrived. By 13 May, more than a quarter the deputies from the counties, and almost half of the deputies from the cities, had done so; the same was true of a quarter of the clergy in the lower house, but only a tenth of the envoys of absentees. The diet had been announced for the following day, 14 May. By evening, almost half of the county deputies and more than three-quarters of those from the cities had submitted their credentials, along with almost half of the clergy and less than 15 percent of the deputies of the absentees. The first session was held on 18 May: by the previous evening, the proportion of the county deputies to submit their invitation letters had risen to 95 percent, which increased to 100 percent on the eighteenth; for the city deputies, the figures were 90 percent and 95 percent. Of the representatives of the clergy, almost half had done so by the previous evening, and slightly more than half would do so by the end of the day. Of the envoys of absentees, almost a third had presented their invitations by the night before, and just more than a third had done so by the end of the first day.11 The king insisted on retaining the royal privilege to send out the regalis or invitations to the diet. A good example of this is an occurrence at the diet of 1728– 29. The Croatian royal free cities did not receive regalis letters. As it was clear that this had been no more than an administrative error, on 9 June 1728 the diet decided to grant them a place after all. Five days later, a letter from Charles VI to the palatine was read out in the lower house that decreed that only those who received royal invitation letters could participate in the diet—the deputies of the Croatian cities could not attend, after all. Another four days later, however, the diet nevertheless welcomed the deputies of the Croatian royal free cities, as they had by then received substitute letters of invitation.12 Custom would ultimately dictate the list of participants; with the sending of regalis, the ruler insisted on having at least formal control of who could appear at the diet. Status as a royal free city was not in itself enough to guarantee an appearance at the diet; the same was true of a lordly rank. The letters of invitation composed

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at the conference of 2 March 1722 were discharged in Laxenburg on 1 May, but more than a week passed before they were distributed. Many invitations were only delivered once the diet had already been opened, while the last was sent as late as 7 October of that year. The 1790 diet denied a seat and voting rights in the lower house to Sándor Papanek, envoy of the absent magnate Count Károly Dietrichstein, on the basis that the count had not been sent a royal letter of invitation, even though, in this instance, the chancellery had committed the error.13

The Royal Commissioners If the diet were not a coronation diet, the ruler would often be represented by royal commissioners. They, too, would confirm their status with letters of commission. This is what happened on 2 April 1708, at the tenth session.14 In 1728, envoys of Charles VI, on the afternoon of their arrival in Pressburg, had court councilor Johann Georg Mannagetta take to the palatine their letters of invitation that had been dated 9 May and addressed to the palatine, letters that would later be read out in advance of the ceremonial delivery of the royal submissions (or propositons, propositio).15 A royal rescript dated 17 July 1722 similarly informed the diet that royal commissioners had been sent in the persons of Count Thomas Gundaker von Starhemberg and Count Franz Ferdinand von Kinsky.16 It was the custom of Charles VI to send two representatives (usually two lords) in his place in part because this had been the case for the Reichstag from the era of Charles V onward: in the last third of the seventeenth century, everyone had been represented at the imperial assembly by deputies, thus the emperor by the imperial chief envoy.17 Leopold I would consistently be represented by church eminences; in 1717 and 1723 this function would be undertaken by no less than Christian August, prince of Saxe-Zeitz, who bore the title of archbishop of Esztergom.18 In eighteenth-century Hungary, however, it was always secular lords who were the personal representatives of the emperor and the king at the diet. A much more significant difference is that, in contrast to the immerwährender Reichstag constantly in session during the eighteenth century and to the national and regional assemblies of the hereditary territories19 (with the exception of Lower Austria, with Vienna as its center), the ruler would on a number of occasions be present at the eighteenth-century diet of Hungary, a clear sign of the diet’s genuine political significance. Charles VI appeared at the 1722 diet, but he was only in Pressburg for ten days. As soon as the question of succession on the female line had been settled, he set off for home, leaving envoys to represent him. Although his first statement after his departure promised that he would soon return, and that he would leave Count Gundaker Stahremberg and Count Ferdinand Kinsky as his representa-

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tion “pro confirmatione verbi regii” (to affirm the words of the king),20 the nomination of these royal commissioners was in fact a guarantee not that the king would make a speedy return, as he claimed, but rather that he would not make a return at all. In the case of Hungary, as for other lands, the suitability of royal commissioners depended on their talents, their local knowledge, and particularly their loyalty. Their orders would dictate the direction to be followed. They had to disarm opposition with “thorough argument,” which gave them a certain leeway, but they did have to send reports to Vienna. Their diplomatic negotiations had to achieve their goals with the minimum of concessions.21 The diet maintained relations with them as with the king himself when he was present: it sent deputations, submitted petitions to them, accepted rescripts from them, and announced these at mixed sessions (mixta sessio).22 Their presence brought evident advantages. Although, for example, there was for many months no royal reply to the petition of grievance submitted on 30 July 1728, the royal commissioners already provided a provisional response on 4 August—presumably in person—on the first point concerning freedom of trade.23 The commissioners made regular reports on the activity of the diet and received instructions from Vienna. On account of the royal commissioners’ limited jurisdiction, the Hungarian estates would often go over their heads, and the diet would send a deputation to the king himself. On 13 August 1728, the members of the lower house urged the diet to turn directly to Charles VI in the debate over taxes; then, when the commissioners refused to accept the diet’s final position on this, the lords agreed. The commissioners were informed of their intent. The viceroy of Croatia was asked to lead the delegation. They also turned to Eugene of Savoy in Moravia. On 18 September the general feeling in the lower house was that there was no need to beg the royal commissioners and that they should instead petition the king for a resolution. The royal commissioners no doubt felt slighted that the diet no longer wanted to communicate with them.24 The relationship with them was not entirely one of tractatus diaetalis; the estates could always leave and turn directly to the ruler. The real negotiations would always be between the diet and Vienna. This is why things were only little affected when Maria Theresa, in contrast to her uncle and her father, no longer sent royal commissioners to the diet. Her approach was continued by her successors (with one exception). As long as there were royal commissioners, however, they would, ex officio, partake in all the substantive Vienna decisions that involved the Hungarian diet. Thus, on 10 January 1723 Starhemberg and Kinsky were present at the meeting held with Eugene of Savoy.25 We should also stress their influence in preparing decisions. Count Hermann Hans Johann von Nesselrode would submit the opinion of the royal commissioners to the petition of grievances of the estates a mere five days after it had originally been submitted on 30 July 1728.26

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The Opening of the Diet At the first diet of the period under investigation, on 2 March 1708, a preparatory “particularis conferentia” was held with the participation of the palatine, the primate, and a few magnates.27 According to the deputies from Nagyszombat, the diet only began the following day with the first mixed session, but an anonymous diary reveals that the four estates had deliberated in the so-called “Green House” as early as 2 March.28 (This building stood on the corner of the main square and Green House Street, and was also often home to the assemblies of Pozsony County.) On that day the assembled estates sent a deputation to invite Joseph I, but the king sent only commissioners in his place. The diary tells us that the royal commissioners arrived from Hainburg at four in the afternoon of 1 April.29 They were awaited by a delegation representing both houses of the diet. Count Imre Esterházy, bishop of Vác, gave a welcome speech, to which Prince Liechtenstein gave a brief response, expressing gratitude for their kind welcome. Together with the country’s high dignitaries who had come before them, they entered Pressburg in fifteen carriages, each drawn by six horses, amid the firing of forty cannons. When the procession reached the city gate, János Paksy received the royal commissioners on behalf of the city. Six hundred armed German soldiers stood on the market square, “paying their respects with unravelled flags and a drum-roll.” The delegation from the diet escorted the royal commissioners as far as their accommodation.30 Two days later, the Veni Sancte, or starting mass, was held.31 They proceeded from the church to the Green House: representing the four estates, Count László Ádám Erdődy (bishop of Nyitra), Count Péter Zichy (master of the stewards), István Felsőbüki Nagy (protonotarius to the lord chief justice), and András Rösler (director of royal legal affairs, causarum regalium director, akin to an attorney general), departed to invite Prince Liechtenstein and Count Otto Honorius von Abensperg-Traun. They went in carriages to meet them and escorted them to the Green House, at the entrance to which another delegation was waiting for them; there the high dignitaries of Hungary welcomed them at the top stairs: the cardinal, the palatine, the archbishop of Kalocsa, the lord chief justice, the viceroy of Croatia, the tavernicum regalium magister, as well as bishops, counts, and barons. The previous day they had built a dais on which stood a portrait of Joseph I atop a throne decorated with silk cloth and golden tassels, while two ornate chairs awaited the royal commissioners (under a red velvet baldachin32). The prince took the chair on the right; the count that on the left. The former delivered a speech in Latin, telling the country of the king’s intentions, then related the royal submissions and handed over the document containing these.33 Count Abensperg-Traun also said a few words before the primate replied to the royal commissioners in the name of the estates.34

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Figure 2.1. Coronation of Maria Theresa, 1741, Pressburg, painted by Johann Daniel Herz Sr. Bratislava City Gallery. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

The king would of course certainly attend the diet if it involved a coronation (either of himself or of his wife); he would also sometimes be present to submit his own propositions. He might attend for the entire duration, or perhaps just at its closing, or, more likely, at its opening. On his arrival he would usually be met by a delegation; for example, Charles VI was welcomed on 19 May 1714 by a group led by Cardinal Count Imre Csáky, archbishop of Kalocsa.35 The general procedure is described by an unnamed church deputy to the diet of 1764–65: when the ruler announced his arrival, a delegation would go to greet him at the country’s border, welcome speeches would be given, and the Hungarian estates would approach the ruler to kiss his hand.36 A detailed description of his grand entrance on 7 July 1722 was provided by György Széchényi, a participant in the celebration. The following day the estates visited the king in the castle for a public audience.37 Another report tells that, at nine in the morning in the chapel of the royal castle in Pressburg, of those appearing at the diet, the king, magnates, and a few of the members of the lower house were listening to the Veni Sancte. After this, also in the castle, the propositions were announced in front of the whole diet. At the request of Charles VI, the chancellor read these in Hungarian before returning them to the king, who handed them to the archbishop of Esztergom.38 The estates then went to the king to kiss his hand.39 In 1751 the royal family arrived in Pressburg on 5 May. According to the account of Márton Biró of Padány, bishop of Veszprém, they were welcomed at the border in a tent. Maria Theresa

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responded to the welcome speech of the archbishop of Kalocsa with an oration in Latin, then allowed the members of the welcome committee to kiss her hand. There would then again be a welcoming ceremony under the gate of Pressburg Castle, and the archbishop of Kalocsa celebrated a thanksgiving mass in the castle chapel.40 The ceremonies for the opening of the diet bore a great many resemblances to those of the Reichstag. The procedures of the Hungarian diet presumably became consolidated in the knowledge of and under the influence of those of the Reichstag. Since 1526 such influences were clearly helped by the fact that the ruling dynasty was the same in both countries. The opening of the assemblies of the Lower Austrian estates at the Hofburg in the second half of the seventeenth century (and probably into the eighteenth century) could have taken place in similar fashion. There were four elements to the proceedings: a short speech by the ruler, a “political speech” by the chancellor, the reading of the (financial) propositions, and a response speech on behalf of the estates.41

Grievances With the royal propositions, the ruler gave a direction to the diet—the right to this initiative gave him numerous advantages in the course of the tractatus diaetalis process. Custom did also provide the estates with a similar right: they could submit their grievances and desires (gravamina et postulata), that is, the “burdens and grievances of the country.”42 This brought a number of subjects before the diet in line with the wishes of the estates. In practice, it was not only the various grievances that formed a single group, for in the eighteenth century the desires were not separated from them, and wishes for the proposition of new laws were also presented as grievances. Not even the notable legal thinker of the late eighteenth century, József Hajnóczy, made any distinction between gravamen and postulatum.43 If we judge the custom of the submission of grievances in the light of international comparison to measure its real significance, then again we turn to the early modern Reichstag. There, the ruler’s hand was slightly tied as regards the convening of the assembly and the selection of subjects: before invitations could be sent, he had to arrange with the prince-electors as to the location and time of the imperial assembly and the key subjects to be debated. Alongside royal submissions, the requests of the estates could be put on the agenda; indeed, requests could even be submitted to the imperial assembly from outside.44 The grievances the Hungarian estates collected and submitted together, behind which they stood as one body and the resolution of which was part of a bargain involving the implementation of royal submissions, presented a much more effective weapon than the individual claims submitted at the Reichstag.

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In the seventeenth century there had already been great debate as to whether the royal propositions or the grievances should be discussed first. The practical suggestion of palatine Count Miklós Esterházy back in 1637 was that the grievances be quietly (!) compiled before the king made an appearance at the diet and that this petition be submitted as soon as the royal rescript containing propositions arrived—thus, while the Hungarian estates debated the royal propositions, the ruler could contemplate the country’s grievances, and deliberations could proceed more quickly.45 Article 1 of 1662 holds that the diet begin debate with the propositions, but this was not laid down as a general rule, just as a record of a given case, as the articulus included a “guarantee clause” according to which the estates retained their right to continue their usual procedure at future diets. In the English (later British) parliament, the principle of the priority of grievances won out: redress of grievances has to precede supply.46 While in Hungary, in line with article 25 of 1495, it was clear that the diet had to debate the royal propositions first, the issue would be subject to great debate at the diets of the eighteenth century. On 12 and 13 March 1708, thus before the royal propositions had been received, the personalis recommended that the grievances start to be compiled and elaborated.47 On 14–15 July 1728 the county deputies insisted on the submission of the petition on grievances, no matter how much the personalis tried to bring forward the question of taxes at the insistence of the royal commissioners. (The raising of the annual level of tax was usually the most important point in the royal proposition.) On 16 July the lords sent word to the lower house that while they were still on the reading of the proposed petition on grievances, the lower house should deal with the question of taxes. In the debate emerging in the lower house, the county deputies insisted that they would not discuss the tax issue until the grievances were submitted. In the end, at the suggestion of the royal commissioners and the urging of the personalis and the upper house, they would debate the level of taxes before the submission of the petition on grievances on 30 July, even if they did not get very far with this.48 The lords attempted to interpret the position of the members of the lower house—namely that “the taxes are inseparable from the grievances”—in their own interests (and those of the court), stating that they did not want the tax question to be broken away from that of the grievances but that the most important grievances had already been partially elaborated, and while they were being finalized, the lower house should state their position on the tax issue.49 In 1741 the personalis recommended that separate deliberations be held under his leadership to compile grievances before Maria Theresa arrived in Pressburg. After the estate objected, however, this task was given to the sessions of the districts. A bit less than two weeks later, a mixed deputation (mixta deputatio) was established, made up of delegates from both houses of the diet, to discuss grievances and the diploma inaugurale at the same time. This deputation looked through the preliminary work of the districts, sharing its findings at plenary ses-

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Figure 2.2. Primate of the Hungarian Catholic Church, archbishop of Esztergom, Christian August, Prince of Saxe-Zeitz (1666–1725), engraved by Jeremias Gottlob Rugendas (probably in 1740 or 1741). Courtesy of the University Library and Archives of Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), KEP07665.

sions of the diet, together with its suggestions for changes. These tended to be appendices more than corrections, and usually they would earn the support of the lower house, even though the plenary session insisted on the version of the districts as regards the text of the coronation oath to be taken by Maria Theresa.50 In 1751 the lower house demanded that grievances and desires be discussed first, “in line with the procedure of the old diets,” and the royal proposition afterward—on this occasion they were able to have their way.51 At the twenty-sixth session of the diet on 3 September 1764, the personalis recommended that the diet first debate the royal propositions.52

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In 1790 the district of the Cisdanubian counties (north of the Danube River, i.e. Northwest Hungary) and the district of the Tibiscan counties (on both sides of the Tisza River, that is, Eastern Hungary) proposed a diploma inaugurale. These bills included this old demand that the grievances be debated first. As the former bill put it, “It was a considerable problem that so far at the diets the royal propositions were debated first; once these were agreed, grievances were then not remedied. Henceforth we must begin with the grievances.”53 From all this we see not only that the procedure of the eighteenth-century diet gave a certain preference to royal propositions but also that the estates had distinctly improved their standing by 1790. In any case, the tractatus diaetalis demanded the redress of certain grievances in return for satisfying some of the king’s wishes: an entirely asymmetric exchange of concessions was not likely, as this would reflect a similar asymmetry in power relations, just when the key message of the Rákóczi War of Independence for the Habsburg government had been the need to respect the positions of the estates. While in principle the king could close the diet at any time—that is, after the propositions were dealt with in a manner that suited him and before the grievances could begin to be debated—in practice the real bargaining to set out the political position of the estates would discuss the grievances and the royal propositions essentially in parallel. Thus the demands of 1790 were raised not because it had previously been the case that the concessions made by the estates regarding the royal propositions were not settled by the redress of a single grievance; rather, the bringing forward of the discussion of grievances within the agenda meant the demand for the redress of all grievances before the diet would even begin to debate the king’s wishes. The estates might have desired this substantive alteration of the tractatus diaetalis in their favor because they sensed a similar change in political relations. When it transpired that the political climate that was so favorable to them was but a fleeting phenomenon, they were forced to return to the traditional tractatus diaetalis that represented the status quo ante. Article 13 of 1791 would ultimately state that the discussion of the royal proposition should enjoy priority over grievances while also prescribing that the diet would always have to deal with the redress of grievances, in line with article 14 of 1715 and article 7 of 1723. Yet this did not prevent the demand that the tractatus diaetalis should begin with the discussion of grievances from constantly being mentioned at later diets.54 The very existence of this problem displayed the strong position of the diet: at the German imperial assembly, the emperor’s propositions could also determine the order in which the debates took place,55 while the Hungarian estates, despite the oft-repeated doctrine, usually set about debating grievances as soon as the diet began. Their most convenient explanation for so doing was that it occurred in a private capacity, as preparation. The diet would submit more than one document of grievances. Alongside “Hungary’s grievances,” we would on most occasions also encounter the griev-

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ances of the royal free cities and the mining towns, of the associated countries of Hungary, and of the clergy. In 1728 the grievances of the associated countries and of the clergy would appear separately from those of the country.56 They were not submitted together with the country’s grievances: five days after the latter were submitted, the grievances of the clergy were still being read out, while the Croatian grievances were handed over by a separate Croatian delegation, led by Bishop Gábor Patachich, whose members were all Croatian.57 It is also clear, meanwhile, that the grievances submitted by these groups alongside the country’s grievances did not mean their affairs were entirely separate, for these also had to be read in plenary session. Indeed, on 30 August 1728 the estates intervened in the grievances of the clergy. On 2 June 1728, following the collection of grievances in the district sessions, these were read out in the lords and in the lower house. In the debates that followed, some members of the lower house, at odds with the lords, took the view that these should not be seen by a mixed committee, and should not be altered, but should instead be edited by a judge. On 16 July the protonotarius to the palatine went to the upper house for the last revision of the “public grievances”—that is, the country’s general grievances—and would return the following day, while the lower house strove to be finished with the military grievances (i.e. ones associated with keeping soldiers). In late July the bargaining between the two houses took the form of the grievances petition, having been debated at the upper house, returning to the lower house, where it was debated again. Finally, the petition was read out again at a mixed session, after which it was stamped. The final grievances text was submitted on 30 July: this did not include the grievances of the clergy, the discussion of which continued into the following day.58 On 3 September 1764 the personalis again outlined the order of events for debating grievances as follows: district session—committee debate—plenary debate.59 In this year, the edited and condensed list of the country’s grievances ran to no less than 118 items.60 The most important point to note about the process of their debate is that, for all the textual and preparatory work of the mixed committee, the last word was always given by the plenary session—that is, it was formed by the debate between the entirety of the lower house and the upper house. By no means did they simply rubber-stamp the text on grievances: they made a thorough inspection of the document produced as a proposal of the mixed committee and made changes to it.

The Exchange of Messages The two houses considered themselves to be a single body. Public sessions were only held by the two at once, the only difference being that the lower house, which had the right to initiate such a session, would convene half an hour or an

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hour before the upper house did so. The two houses informed each other about motions: on these occasions a new issue would be brought to light, and the deputations would halt the negotiations in progress at the other house; as a result, two or three items were on the agenda at any given time.61 While there are some examples of this, the two houses of the diet would only rarely deviate from the custom of parallel sessions. So much did the diet regard sessions taking place in parallel as a foundation for its work that on 27 March 1708, when the palatine received a rescript from the court sent by messenger and so was unable to hold a session with the lords, the session of the lower house was also dissolved.62 On 9 September 1741 the upper house simply ran out of steam. They closed the session, and the lower house did likewise.63 On 17 June 1792 the opposite occurred. Following the mixed session, the members of the two houses retreated to their own debating chambers, but the lower house sent word to the lords that as they were not aware that there would be a separate session that day and they had left the necessary documents at home, they would like to end their session at once. At this, the palatine, Archduke Alexander Leopold, likewise brought the session of the lords to a close.64 But the relative progress that the two houses made on debating the issues sometimes made it necessary for only one of the two to be in operation: when the lower house was not yet able to send a proposal to the upper (as, for example, on 14–16 April 1708), then the latter was not in session; when, on other hand, the lords needed more time to discuss the material they had been sent (on 20–22 July 1741, to name but one occasion), then they alone would be in session. On such occasions, the lords continued their session even after that of the lower house had come to a close, as on 28 June 1728.65 Before the diet could start bargaining with the ruler regarding grievances or the level of taxes, or indeed on any other matter, the two houses first had to come to agreement among themselves. With no such agreement, the process was stuck. On 23 July 1712, for example, the members of the lower house thought it better to leave out the part of the text under debate that the upper house had twice refused to agree to.66 As the personalis said on 3 August 1712, achieving something “is not possible without the agreement of the honourable lords.”67 Agreement was reached by the exchange of messages. On 19 June 1741, for example, the lower house submitted to the lords its “considerations” concerning the diploma inaugurale. They expressed their agreement while suggesting some minor alterations, which the lower house accepted. As part of the process of accepting the petition of grievances, the members of the lower house submitted the first points to the upper house on 19 July; on the following three days they were not in session, only the lords, as they dealt with the grievances. These were returned to the lower house on 24 July, and a message went to the lords on the same day with the response. The lords replied on 26 July and received a further response the following day.68

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At the Reichstag (which had three chambers, not two houses, like the diet) the process of negotiation between the chambers of the assembly and the elaboration of the resolution of the whole assembly might at first glance seem more complex. The first step in this negotiation was for the two more prestigious chambers, that of the prince-electors and that of the imperial princes, to come to agreement (in our period, indeed, this took place at the combined session held in the great hall of the Regensburg town hall); only at the second stage were the deputies of the imperial cities brought into the discussions and given a hearing.69 It was only the negotiation and agreement between the prince-electors and the imperial princes that had real significance: the vote of the chamber of the cities was incidental, if recognized at all by the other two councils. In the provincial assembly of Lower Austria, however, the views of four chambers (the clergy, the lords, the knights, and the cities) had to be harmonized when establishing the united position of the estates.70 In the Hungarian diet the messages and responses to messages (nuncium and renuncium) between the two houses were usually taken by a deputation. The messenger deputation of the lower house was commissioned by the personalis. The leader and spokesman of the deputation would in all cases be a church figure. In addition, every force in the lower house would be represented. According to a description from a contemporary, these deputations would consist of a protonotarius and a further judge of the royal court of justice, a representative of Croatia, one county deputy (or, if the significance of the issue justified it, two or three deputies) from each district, as well as a deputy of the absentees and another of the royal free cities.71 This would be the ideal formulation—one that was realized with increasing frequency in the second half of the century. The two deputations sent by the lower house during the first two sessions of the diet of 1790–91—one of twelve, the other of eleven—were composed as follows: in the first, from the royal court of justice, a protonotarius, and an assessor; in the second, the deputy lord chief justice, a protonotarius, and an assessor. In each, one individual would represent Croatia and the clergy, and four the counties. In the first, there were two representatives of absentees and of the royal free cities; in the second, there was just one representative of each.72 Many lower house messenger deputations of very different compositions emerge from the sources, especially from the first half of the century. One such deputation, on 16 March 1708, was composed of one church figure, one county deputy, one deputy for an absentee, and a city deputy; of the groups in the lower house, one was not represented: the royal court of justice (and thus the associated countries of Hungary).73 There were also occasions, as on 3 August 1709, when the message of the lower house would be taken to the lords by a deputation, but one made up only of those who sat in the royal court of justice: protonotarii Ádám Meskó and István Nagy and Croatian deputy György Czindery.74 On 22 May

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1728 the deputation greeting the lords was made up of the spokesman, the canon of Esztergom, and protonotarius to the palatine Ádám Zichy; the lords, meanwhile, sent a five-strong deputation to greet the members of the lower house.75 As we learn from an unnamed participant at the diet of 1764–65, the members of the deputation of the upper house were appointed by the palatine: its leader and spokesman was a prelate, and its members were two high dignitaries, the supremus comes and a magnate. They were greeted at the door to the lower house, taken within the balustrade, and given a seat. After the prelate’s speech, the lords received either an immediate response or one taken to them later by a deputation from the lower house.76 Although this source claims that deputations from the upper house would always have four members, at the first and second sessions of the 1790–91 diet (on 10 June and 11 June), the upper house dispatched six-member deputations to the lower. In these, alongside a bishop and a high dignitary, four further magnates would take their places; in 1751, when the two houses greeted each other by means of deputations—and those participating in the lower house’s deputation, alongside the protonotarius to the palatine and the deputy of the chapter of Esztergom, included two county deputies for each district, two deputies of the absentees, and two for the cities—the greeting of the lords would be conveyed by a bishop, two supremi comites, and six other magnates.77 The delegates sent alongside the spokesman acted as witnesses and guarantors of what the leader of the deputation would say.78 This was not a mere formality; it had genuine significance, as there would be cases in which the spokesman did not pass the message on faithfully, even when others from the lower house were standing next to him.79 The risk of this would have been even greater in the absence of the other members of the deputation. For all this, on 13 October 1722 protonotarius Gábor Kapy carried the messages between the two houses on his own;80 at the 1 July 1723 session, meanwhile, at which the contribution was being debated, the protonotarius to the palatine Ferenc Szluha twice crossed to the upper house alone, as a messenger, in lieu of a deputation. On this same day the lords sent their proposals by messenger deputation, according to custom, and the lower house also sent a deputation on the subject of salt, but “then the decision was taken for protonotarius Szluha to report the decisions of the lower house.”81 On 17 September 1728, too, a protonotarius was going to and fro with messages in place of a deputation, but on the next day, when a high important subject was broached, other delegates were sent alongside him.82 We can see the same on 30 June 1722: news of the acceptance of the Pragmatica Sanctio by the lower house was taken to the lords by a deputation, but immediately afterward it was Ferenc Szluha who went back and forth between the two houses of the diet.83 On 24 July 1741 judge Zsigmond Péchy carried the various versions of the grievances text to and fro between the chambers of the two

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houses.84 The custom of replacing messenger deputations with protonotarii would also appear at the diet of 1764–65.85 The change from this custom to the assurance provided by deputations, then, in 1790–9186—on account of distrust toward the lords—to the introduction of the written exchange of messages is at once an example of the diet’s common law structure and thus its ingrained flexibility, and of the direction in which things were heading. It also meant the end to the exchange of messages in Hungarian, a point raised by personalis György Majláth in 1830: written messages were in Latin.87 Yet neither can we say that this transformation had been fully implemented by the end of the eighteenth century: we can still encounter the phenomenon of a messenger deputation being replaced by a protonotarius as late as the sessions of 20 and 24 July 1792.88 Thanks to the exchange of messages, or many such exchanges, the two houses would usually be able to come to agreement on a given question. Yet there were also examples of them failing to do so. If this were the case, they might even—in unusual, rare instances—send separate petitions to the ruler.89 The diet would fail to be unified when, for example, the estates were more strongly divided by the issue of religion than they were united in their opposition to the government; it was thus that on 8 April 1715 Pál Ráday, in the name of those protesting against what would be article 30, turned to the king in a private audience.90 The planned annexation of the Muraköz region to Croatia made the practice of religion impossible for the Protestants resident there. In such cases, as we will later discuss in greater detail, the division of the diet was not along the line between the two houses.

The Mixed Session The procedure based on the exchange of messages was not the only method of attaining agreement between the upper and lower houses. Such agreement could, on occasion, happen at a mixed session of the two houses. At the Reichstag the chambers would sometimes hold a joint session as a part of the Re- und Correlationsverfahren, or their finding agreement: first would be the prince-electors and the imperial princes; then, in a second stage, the deputies of the imperial cities would also be included.91 At the eighteenth-century Hungarian diets, on the other hand, mixed sessions with the participation of both houses were not principally held to make decisions; rather, they were convened when mixed committees were sent out, when their results were heard, when royal propositions, rescripts, or the decretum were announced, when petitions were submitted, or when the palatine or the guardians of the crown were elected, among other ceremonial occasions.

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The chairman of the mixed session was the president of the upper house, usually the palatine. There was only debate as to the chairman of the mixta sessio if it was unclear who should stand in for the palatine if the lord chief justice was absent: on 21 June 1741, for example, the viceroy of Croatia and the tavernicum regalium magister vied for the role. The result was that no mixed session was held; the royal propositions were published separately, first in the upper house, then in the lower.92 Mixed sessions were mostly held in the chamber of the upper house, so that it was the members of the lower house who had to cross to the lords, and not vice versa. On 23 June 1741, the lord chief justice did not agree to the lower house’s request for the election of the guardians of the crown to take place in their chamber, as this ceremony, by long-established custom, would occur at a mixed session.93 With the exception of the last session that closed the diet, the mixta sessio would all be in the upper house, even in 1792, when the diet was exceptionally in Buda.94 There were times when the two houses would stop their own sessions to have a mixed session more than once on a single day: on 23 August 1751 the members of the lower house were invited to join the lords for a “customary” reading of a rescript, the response to which was read out the same day, also at a mixed session.95 Mixed committees were sent out from such sessions, for example on 22 May, 27 July, or 17 or 26 August 1728, and their reports were heard at these sessions too, for example, on 13 or 27 July 1722, or 30 June 1764.96 There were exceptions too: on 14 April 1708, for example, the mixed committee compiling grievances made a report first to the upper house, then to the lower house; also on 23 July 1728 it was not a mixed session at which the report of the mixed committee was heard.97 We can equally find counterexamples to the overwhelmingly valid rule on occasions when the decretum or the resolution of the ruler was proclaimed, or when petitions were submitted.98 But the royal propositions tabled in the first period of the diet would in all cases be heard at a mixed session.99 Moments of celebration—like the famous “Vitam et sanguinem!” scene—also provided a pretext for combined sessions. The location for these sessions would not be the usual one, but rather Pressburg castle, where Hungary’s estates were invited, via a notice hung on the door of the parliament, to come at eleven in the morning on 11 September 1741.100 They were already in the chamber when Maria Theresa entered and took her place on the black velvet throne. On her right—as a journal noted—stood Count Ferenc Esterházy, chief equerry; on her left, “some German.” In the chamber, the Hungarian estates had to stand; only the primate and the palatine were given a seat.101 In his speech, Count Lajos Batthyány, the chancellor, summarized the empire’s predicament: the ongoing Bavarian and French attacks, the fact that the enemy had its sights not just on the hereditary lands but also on Hungary. He introduced the queen’s request to call the noble levy. The primate responded as speaker for the country, then Ma-

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ria Theresa gave a speech in Latin. She left herself at the mercy of the estates of Hungary. To this, “the estates all loudly offered her their lives and their blood.”102 Following this, the estates proceeded down from the castle to the parliament building, where they listened to the royal propositions at the mixed session held at the lords.103 On 30 June 1722, the recognition of the female line of succession of the Habsburg dynasty provided the opportunity for a similar scene: after the speech of the protonotarius to the palatine Ferenc Szluha—according to the report of the participating deputies from Ugocsa—“the whole country unanimeter nemine cogente [unanimously and of its own accord] was most happy to accept the primogeniture (in defectu masculini) [if the male bloodline died out] of the succession of the honourable House of Austria.” This scene did not take place at a mixed session, however. Pál Prileszky tells us that the speech was followed by cries of “Vivat!” before a deputation took the news to the lords. The two districts of the counties on the Tisza River, the Cistibiscan and Transtibiscan districts, the so-called “thirteen counties” with Protestant majorities, announced to the lower house that it accepted succession on the female line “voluntarily, with good grace, and with full agreement (nemine cogente).” The other two districts, that of the Cisdanubian counties and that of the Transdanubian counties (together making up Western Hungary), made the same declaration.104 Szluha did not work on the text of his speech alone: so too, in Vienna, did Charles VI himself; then in Pressburg, from 26 June to the morning of 30 June, did court councilor Mannagetta, Count György Erdődy, Count László Ádám Erdődy, and Count Sándor Károlyi; and, led by the palatine, meetings held on 26, 28, and 30 June dealt with the way in which female succession would be recommended.105 In short, this event was anything but spontaneous. Last but not least, there would occasionally be real debate at the mixed sessions, and decisions would be taken. Such sessions are not spread evenly across the period under investigation—1708 to 1792—but their appearance displays clear tendencies. We see mixed sessions of the diet at the start of this period: it is no accident that the lords objected to the diet taking substantive decisions at this forum. After the diet had a hiatus of a quarter of a century, most of the sessions at the diet of 1790–91 were mixta sessio. At this diet, mixed sessions were held to elect the palatine; to hear the royal propositions; and to decide on the report of the mixed committee, on the issue of the diploma inaugurale, on the matter of the compilation of the grievances and the response to be given to the royal propositions, on the occasion of the royal rescripts being announced, and when the finalized articles were accepted—as well as at many other times.106 For example, a mixed session would first send out a mixed committee; then, the next day another mixta sessio would approve the minutes of the former session before the bill proposed by the mixed committee would be read out and its points agreed to, sometimes with amendments, sometimes

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not. The official record only mentions two points on which there was debate, and only one that required a vote.107 The two houses held all of the first nine sessions separately, then five of the next nine; after this, separate sessions suddenly became much more rare, with the mixed ones the norm. From the thirty-ninth session onward, all become mixed; overall, forty-seven of the sixty-five sessions were mixed, almost three-quarters, while only eighteen were separate. That the diet came to decisions at mixed sessions was a particularly important innovation.108 The next diet, in 1792, also had mixta decisions: on 3 June, at the discussion by a mixed committee of both propositions and grievances, the subsidium, or one-off war subsidy, to be paid by the privileged to serve the repulsion of the French advance was determined; on 11 June a decision in principle was brought. With reference to this, the personalis stated at the session of 16 June that in general it was preferable to hold separate sessions but that they could make decisions in a mixed session because there had already been a decision as to the payment of the war subsidy—and it was at this mixed session that they decided to offer five thousand soldiers, one thousand horses, and four million forints in cash.109 The importance of decisions brought at mixed sessions (which had previously only very rarely occurred, and mostly concerned personal affairs) is hard to overstate, writes Henrik Marczali: contemporaries saw the influence of the French model in this, a step toward the creation of an assemblée constituante. In 1790 the lower house wanted to debate the proposed bill of the mixta deputatio at a mixed session at all costs. On 12 August the opposition relented on the question of inviting Leopold II to the diet but continued to insist on the mixta sessio. By 14 August the debate had turned into a furor, after which the members of the opposition crossed to the upper house en masse to support their cause.110 The agreement of the lords to controversial issues being decided at mixed sessions is seen by Elemér Mályusz and others as tantamount to complete surrender.111 The mixta sessio was not always the tool of the triumphant opposition. After July 1790 and the settlement with Prussia—the signing of the convention of Reichenbach—Leopold II no longer had the threat of a Prussian invasion lingering over him; this led, too, to a fundamental readjustment of the power relationship between the Hungarian estates and the ruler. At the mixed sessions meanwhile, with the clergy, the lion’s share of the magnates, and a few county deputies, and with those from the cities, a government majority emerged.112 At the brief diet of 1792, which represented the honeymoon period for the relationship between the next ruler, King Francis I (as Holy Roman emperor, Francis II; later, as emperor of Austria, Francis I113), and the Hungarian estates, the lower house was reluctant about allowing decisions to be made at mixed sessions. On 21 June Count Károly Zichy, lord chief justice, made the suggestion that the mixed session could decide on certain issues to settle them more quickly, as Francis I would soon be leaving, but the members of the lower house were still in favor of the traditional form of deliberation.114

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Agreement between the Ruler and the Estates When the two houses of the diet had come to agreement, they addressed a petition (humillime repraesentatio) to the ruler. In 1764–65, according to the description of a participant of the diet, in the case of grievances, legislative amendments, and private submissions, a protonotarius would edit the text of the petition, which was then given to the members of the lower house, then to the lords, for approval. When the diet had reached agreement, the text was read out, signed by the palatine and the primate, and sent off.115 (Being a signatory brought responsibility. In some cases, the ruler would blame the tone of the petition on the person who had drafted it or on those who had signed it.116) In 1790–91 the procedure was one step longer: when protonotarius István Aczél prepared the petitions, these were debated and approved by the mixed committee before being submitted by its chairman, the lord chief justice, to the diet. Some petitions would be accepted by the diet unaltered—“there being no question concerning this”—while others would be modified.117 (On such occasions, that is, the diet did not send a single unified petition but a separate one for each issue that was still under discussion.) The royal response was received by the palatine as chairman of the diet in the form of a royal rescript (benigna resolutio)—more often than not through the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery. Petitions would also be submitted to the forums at which real decisions were taken, together with the opinion and comments of the chancellery. Sometimes it would be a good while before a response arrived. The response to the petition of grievances submitted to the royal commissioners on 25 June 1708 would only be forthcoming on 28 May 1709—true, the diet was hardly in session in the intervening time.118 Royal rescripts could be published in a number of ways: at mixed sessions, perhaps, or separately in the two houses. At the session of 19 May 1741, Palugyay, secretary to the lord chief justice, read the resolution that Maria Theresa had written a week before in the upper house; it was then taken to the lower house by a deputation of six.119 On 20 September 1764 two royal resolutions were spoken of at the same time: as in the case of the petitions of the diet of 1790–91, the ruler responded to particular questions (issues that would later become individual articles of law) in separate resolutions.120 In 1792, in a rescript that the diet debated on 23 June, Francis I gave his provisional approval of a number of issues.121 A (“favorable”) royal resolution in agreement with the petition was considered a royal assent, even if final approval (of the decretum as a whole) might take years. In early August 1712 the estates debated the royal rescript, deciding to put those questions on which the two sides had agreed into the form taken by articles of law.122 Thus a petition would often be submitted in the form of an article, if the earlier steps in the tractatus diaetalis made agreement seem likely. If the resolution contained a rejection, then the discussion of the question was postponed, perhaps indefinitely, but most often the tractatus diaetalis process would begin again from the

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start: if Hungary’s estates did not accept the king’s observations, another petition would simply be submitted. On 15 October 1714 a rescript was read out, and the diet was disappointed to discover that the king had only given his approval for the smaller part of the submitted bills or had returned them with considerable amendments. So the diet returned to its debate on the grievances on 19 October, then submitted its observations.123 This was how the bargaining at the diet proceeded between king and country. At the diet of 1722–23 the whole procedure can be outlined as follows: after the royal propositions were made, the grievances were submitted. Alongside the grievances of Hungary’s estates (formulated as articles) were the particular grievances of the clergy (bishopric by bishopric) and of the royal free cities and the mining towns. The first royal response was to the grievances of the clergy and the cities. The diet then sent a petition to Charles VI concerning the systema or reform proposals included in the propositions. A resolution responded to this, inviting a further petition in response on the same issue. The royal response to Hungary’s grievances only arrived on 18 February 1723, and the diet replied in a petition eleven days later. After the deputations had given their reports and debated the issue of the price of salt, the king gave his approval of the decretum thus produced.124 There are plenty of examples of these formalities being treated in a distinctly casual fashion. In 1712 the chancellor wrote to the palatine and the primate on Charles VI’s behalf. The palatine informed the lower house via the personalis that either he would send the letter from the session of the upper house or the members of the lower house should cross to the Green House to listen to it. They did not do so, as the message would be taken to them in the end by a delegation led by the bishop of Nyitra. They discussed the matter and sent word of their position to the lords with a different delegation. As the latter agreed, the archbishop of Esztergom immediately composed the proposed petition in his own hand, which at the same session they sent to the lower house, where it was accepted.125 The petition would then be sent to Vienna. The informal elements in all this are the chancellor’s letter (in lieu of a royal rescript), the persons it was addressed to (the leaders of the upper house, not the diet itself, or the palatine as its representative), and the fact that the palatine allowed the lower house to choose whether to hear the letter at a mixed session or to learn of it in a message. Furthermore, the primate, not simply a protonotarius, formulated the text of the petition, and the initiative came from the upper house, not the lower one. In this period—especially the first half of the century—it is clear that the framework in which the tractatus diaetalis proceeded was a flexible one. This provides us with an opportunity to use an analysis of the various institutional and procedural changes to judge the tendencies of the internal development of the politics of the eighteenth century.

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The Committees After the coronation of Charles VI, the diet started to deal with grievances, and the majority was unwilling to accept any reforms. At the king’s instigation, those in favor of change suggested the deployment of a committee, led by Cardinal Imre Csáky, to prepare legislation. The opposition was concerned that if Charles VI were to approve the plan of this commissio, the diet would be confronted with a fait accompli and would not be able to amend the reforms.126 On 29 May 1712 the diet finally agreed to send out a committee that would, led by Csáky, develop the interim systema, the reform proposal.127 As in 1709, the upper house had requested to send a committee to investigate the evidence presented by the lower house on the matter of the incorporation of the order of the Teutonic knights into the estates of Hungary—even if this committee was not ultimately sent out, because of the opposition of the members of the lower house, this fact makes it likely that the sending of committees was already part of the customary procedure of the diet even before 1712.128 The preparation for decisions by committees was not an unusual occurrence at the national assemblies of the early modern period. At the Reichstag, committees would assist in making increasingly difficult decisions regarding more and more complex problems: the imperial assembly could have been a model for the Hungarian diet in this regard too. The variety of committees seen at the Reichstag was unknown in Hungary in the eighteenth century. The committees of the diet were all mixed; at the German imperial assembly, on the other hand, there were committees recruited from a single chamber, mixed committees (with members from all three chambers), as well as joint committees that also included the emperor’s representatives.129 Here, the committees had been doing the large part of the work since the sixteenth century.130 In Hungary this was still not the case in the eighteenth century. At the seventeenth-century Polish Sejm, agreement became increasingly difficult to attain, and committees proliferated to ease this state of affairs.131 At the Hungarian diet too, one of the main reasons to send out committees was to achieve agreement between the two houses. According to the record of the diet, on 12 July 1712 the goal of the deployment of a committee was to attempt to achieve agreement between the upper house and the clergy, on the one hand, and the deputies on the other. This committee met “in the presence of the palatine.”132 The establishment of joint committees was, thus, a further way— alongside the exchange of messages and the mixed session—to encourage reconciliation between the two houses. Of course, there could be other reasons for the authorization of diet committees. On 30 June 1728 the diet sent out committees to debate legal and economic issues explicitly to hasten the pace of its operation.133 Every committee sent out by the Hungarian diet performed its duties on a one-off basis, and, with few exceptions, their activities were restricted to a very

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narrow brief. In 1792, for example, a mixed committee drew up the details offering the king a war subsidy, but after these had received plenary approval, the task of levying the subsidium fell to another committee established by the diet.134 The remit of the first did not extend to this, and neither was it extended in retrospect. In 1712 the “six-day” systema merely outlined the attempts at reform to include the legal system, the economy, the military, and the world of politics.135 The preparatory work of the regular committees established by the decretum of 1715 to pursue detailed investigations would only start in full in spring 1722 to prepare the articles of 1723. This would represent the zenith of a reform program over a quarter of a century, begun with the recommendations of palatine Prince Pál Esterházy in 1688 and with the so-called Hungarian Einrichtungswerk established by a committee of the estates in September of that year.136 The reason that these reform efforts were continued in 1722 was that the court conference meetings in March 1722 thought of this as a way to prepare for the acceptance of female succession.137 Of the committee’s substantive suggestions, reform of the judicial system and the creation of the Hungarian Royal Council of Lieutenancy were to be implemented—on the model of the Bohemian central government body established after the Battle of the White Mountain.138 The better-known committees formed in 1791 came to be known as systematicae commissiones, or regular committees; their activities proper began only in late 1792.139 These two groups of regular committees operated not during the diet but after it, unlike the committees of the Reichstag, which were only in session when the Reichstag was.140 (In the eighteenth century, during which the Reichstag was constantly in session, this made little real difference). These Hungarian committees were the exception to the usually very narrow remit the committees had: they were mandated with developing a comprehensive reform agenda. As there were prolonged periods in the eighteenth century in which the diet was not convened at all, there was, in principle, the possibility that the committee of the diet could step into the diet’s place at these times.141 Similar cases existed in the representative assemblies of the time: as the Württenberg regional assemblies grew increasingly rare, for example, the so-called narrower and broader committees would become the main vessels in which the rights of the estates were invested, exercising as they did permanent control over the financial funds of the estates and overseeing the bureaucracy of the estates, while the increasingly oligarchic narrower committee established a powerful position for itself vis-à-vis the regional assembly.142 Yet we do not encounter this at the Hungarian diet. The rule for the composition of the committees of the diet was usually that every element of the lower house would be represented, rather like the mixed committees of the Reichstag, to which imperial counts, imperial prelates, or imperial cities were also always able to send representatives.143 At the Hungarian diet, this meant the representation of the royal court of justice, of Dalmatia, Croatia, and

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Slavonia, of the clergy (sitting in the lower house), of the counties, of the absentees, and of the royal free cities. The lords always delegated both prelates and secular lords, usually both magnates holding and not holding office (usually both counts and barons); indeed, at the end of the century, the associated countries of Hungary achieved separate representation in the committees through the upper house too. As an example, on 12 July 1790 the lower house of the diet, at its seventh session, sent into the committee to draft the diploma inaugurale four members of the royal court of justice (the deputy lord chief justice, the protonotarius to the lord chief justice, and two assessors), two members from Croatia (next to the deputy, the protonotarius to the viceroy of Croatia), five representatives of the clergy, fifteen deputies from the counties, two of the deputies of the absentees, and five deputies from the cities.144 The representation of the various elements of the lower house was almost always characterized by proportionality. For example, when at the session of 23 September 1728 three members were chosen from the district of the Cisdanubian counties for the committee on the proportional distribution of war taxes among the counties and cities of Hungary, it was taken as read that the other three districts should each be represented by three members. One member was chosen from the deputies of absentees, while again three were chosen from those representing the royal free cities.145 In 1764–65 the lower house would usually send into committees two delegates from the royal court of justice; one each from Croatia, the clergy, the deputies of absentees, and the cities; and four or eight from the counties.146 The one change in this regard was that the two districts on the Tisza River might sometimes be taken as one; this was particularly prevalent in the early part of the century. For example, in the committee established on 11 July 1722 to compile grievances, the two districts of the Danubian counties were each represented by four deputies, and districts of the Tibiscan counties by a total of six.147 The composition of certain mixed committees in the eighteenth century displays, first, the declining numerical weight of the lords (from 31 percent to 22 percent between 1708 and 1792), and, second, the growing dominance of the county deputies (from 27 percent to 39 percent).148 The personalis would either nominate the members of the committee or make recommendations for their nomination. At the upper house, on the other hand, the nomination of the deputation was more the rule than the exception. The lower house sometimes objected to this, claiming that the delegates of the palatine could not operate with the same authority as if they were delegated by the entirety of the upper house.149 The journal for 21 June 1792 states of the members of a commission that “the following were ordered to the concertatio with the Hungarian court chancellery”: the turn of phrase does not make election sound very likely. On 3 June 1792 the palatine “ordered” the members to the mixed committee, while the lower house selected them. Two weeks later we learn from

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the selection of another committee that a regular group of the delegates from the lower house made up of deputies from the royal courts of justice were “ordered,” unlike the others, who were chosen “by votes.”150 We can also observe how the county deputies, the main force within the lower house, attempted to extend their influence through election to committees. In 1790 the lower house selected the members of a mixta deputatio on the basis of the recommendations of the personalis. This could engender the paradoxical situation in which the clergy sitting in the lower house did not want to see provost Count Kajetán Sauer (on account of his oppositional views) in the committee, despite him being from their ranks; indeed, Dávid Zsolnay, chapter deputy from Veszprém, spoke out against him. His election was pushed through by Protestant county deputies.151 At the start of this same diet, the personalis made the concession to the members of the lower house that the districts be able to delegate notaries alongside the assessor from the royal court of justice who would usually record the official journal of the diet. The districts of the Tibiscan counties not only suggested two candidates for this but also, in the place of the personalis, even recommended someone from the royal court of justice as well.152 On 16 June 1792, when setting up a mixed committee, the selection of the members from the lower house was left to the district session. At this same mixed session, the members of the lower house attempted to interfere in the choice of delegates the upper house would send: of the ten members from the lords, there was a supremus comes from each of the four districts. Some of the county deputies from the district of the Transtibiscan counties (north of the Tisza River, i.e. Northeast Hungary) were not pleased with the nomination of Pál Almássy, supremus comes of Arad. They argued that the committee needed a supremus comes who knew the situation and load-bearing capacity of the district. For this reason, they requested that János Haller be nominated, but the lords would not tolerate the besmirching of their right to delegate.153 The conclusions reached by deputations would always be brought under plenary scrutiny, where amendments would often be implemented.154 This is in line with the German practice: the committees of the early modern Reichstag generally only performed a preparatory function and could not bring any final decisions.155 In 1792 the diet established a committee on the proportionate distribution of the subsidium. Given the urgency, the lord chief justice recommended that the committee complete the repartitio after the diet had been closed, to which others raised the objection that the findings had to be put to a plenary session.156 This scrutiny thus took place at the plenary debate of the committee’s conclusions. The plenary revision of the committee’s work on the “six-day” systema would take place in the summer of 1712, for example.157 On 4 July 1741, however, the committee commissioned to revise the suggestions made by the districts presented its findings first at the upper house, then at the lower one. In practice, this meant that once they had read out their report at the lords, they crossed to

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the lower house, where the archbishop of Kalocsa handed over the written account, which, once the upper house members of the committee had left, would be read out by protonotarius Péchy. Following this, the lower house would set about debating the findings point by point.158 In June 1728 the committee compiling grievances held its sessions in the morning, usually from seven until ten; then, when this was over, the plenary sessions would begin, at a later time than usual.159 It seems that this was an entirely new schedule and work routine, one that would often be followed in later years. On 26 August 1751, however, the plenary session held a break at lunchtime, from one until four, during which only committee work took place.160 Later on, the most common solution could have been that the plenary session did not meet at all on days that committees sat, instead waiting for the deputation to table its findings. A number of committees could be in session at once.161 In the summer of 1712, when the diet was debating the “six-day” systema, parallel sessions of the deputations were established to investigate naturalized aristocrats of foreign origin and the matter of reducing the tithe and the price of salt, as well as the more proportionate division of contribution, not to mention the inspection of various customs duties.162 The members of the committees did not in all cases tend to their obligations with enthusiasm. Ádám Mecséry, a member of the committee for compiling grievances commissioned by the diet in 1708, must have been telling the truth when he wrote that only two or three of the county deputies delegated to the committee were actually present at a session.163 During the work of the political-military-economic committee preparing the reforms of 1722–23, the chairman, Count Imre Csáky, archbishop of Kalocsa, only attended the first and last sessions, and the other members were also often absent. The large part of the work fell to Count Sándor Károlyi and to Pál Prileszky, attorney in Nyitra—if the journal written by the former is to be believed.164 In the course of the eighteenth century, committee work, mixed sessions, and the district sessions were in a certain sense in competition with each other to be the primary forum of the diet for the preparation of decisions. The mixed committees, which debated matters of great importance, and which could also work independently from the diet when it was not in session, were highly significant not only in the early part of the century (like the reform committees in late May 1712 or in early 1722) but also directly after the end of our period (with the work of the reform committees after 1792). The committees for compiling grievances or articles were always established. But the committees were invariably under the direct control of the plenary session, while their propositions would become the subject of thorough debate, amendment, and bargaining at the two houses of the diet. The mixed sessions essentially performed ceremonial tasks; their importance suddenly increased in 1790, allowing them to become a genuine forum for decision-making, initially, indeed, under the dominance of the county depu-

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ties. This did not prove to be an irreversible trend, however, and the district sessions, which grew in significance in the middle of the century—and whose remit broadened with the advance of the members of the lower house in 1790—would ultimately represent the institutional form that came to be of crucial importance in the age of reform (1830–48) as the embodiment of the dominance at the diet of the lower house and of the county deputies.

The Concertatio One of the diet’s most important committees was entrusted with preparing the articles of the decretum. At the Reichstag, too, it was always a mixed committee that drafted items of legislation: one made up of deputies from the Reichstag and from the emperor. While the committees of the Reichstag were produced according to need, this compilation committee, like the committee for petitions, would always be authorized. (The Reichabschied or decretum was not published in the eighteenth century, as the Reichstag was never closed; instead, the emperor would ratify decisions [Reichsschlüsse] one by one.)165 In the second half of the seventeenth century the final decisions of the provincial assembly of Lower Austria or the Bohemian diet, as approved by the ruler, would be drafted into their definitive form by the chancellery.166 We can see a difference in the practice of legislative preparation of the Hungarian diet between the seventeenth and the eighteenth century: earlier, compilers from the lower house drafted acts of legislation.167 They did not harmonize their version with the chancellery; rather, the plenary session of the lower house bargained directly with the chancellor, or, with the chancellor’s mediation, with the king. According to eighteenth-century custom, however, at the close of the diet, a commission composed of members of both houses would agree and finalize acts of legislation with the delegates of the chancellery on issues on which the tractatus diaetalis took Hungary’s estates and the king toward agreement. The completion of the tractatus diaetalis process did not always mean complete agreement. In October 1714 the approved version of the royal resolution that would become article 8 was significantly different from the one that had been submitted. After two weeks of deliberations, Hungary’s estates requested the amendment of this article, but they were not successful.168) Sometimes the concertatio went quickly. On 26 August 1751 the palatine sent word to the lower house that the deputies should attend the concertatio, and the plenary session was suspended from one until four o’clock to allow the conciliation of articles with the chancellery, then each articulus would be read out first at the lords, then in the lower house.169 At such times, agreement took merely a few hours, but in this case the concertatio did not yet mean the very end of the tractatus diaetalis; this would continue with the question of the privileges of the four new royal free cities. The response of the

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royal commissioners to the diet on 8 August 1729 (probably by word of mouth) could have referred to another, perhaps earlier practice: in the interests of saving time, they urged the estates not to compose another petition but instead—“as they had so honourably done at previous diets”—to convene the committee for concertatio.170 On this occasion (and perhaps only on this occasion) the royal commissioners were able to participate in the concertatio—presumably alongside the delegates of the chancellery. According to István Ereky, each articulus would be created from the words that corresponded with one another in both the petitions and the rescripts,171 and, as such, would often be made up of the text of the grievances of the estates and the royal responses given to these. The decreta from before the eighteenth century reflect this: the final articulus sometimes retained its form as a petition, complemented by its royal approval, or its form might have been that of a resolution—that is, it could have been made in the name either of the estates or of the king. The crown council debated the rescript on 19 June 1792, and personalis József Ürményi said of the exchange court that if there were merely a single word of disagreement, then its amendment could easily be left to the concertatio.172 But as a general rule—as evidenced by the directions Charles VI sent to the royal commissioners via the chancellery—the articuli could only include the points that the estates had accepted, “with all others omitted.”173 According to Hajnóczy, after the concertatio the articles would last be seen by the estates, and they left out what they did not like. Afterward they requested royal approval.174 This means that the plenary session of the diet retained the right of scrutiny and again only really delegated trivial legwork to the committee. Evidence of this scrutiny can be found in a journal of the diet of 1728–29, which records the process of harmonizing the articles of law as follows: three columns stand alongside one another on the paper, and, for each articulus, the first column contains the remarks of the representatives of government on the text as edited by the estates, the second contains the proposed amendment to the article as suggested by the representatives of Hungary’s estates, and the third contains “the final statement” of the royal commissioners.175 In September 1729 the lower house debated the articles one by one—that is, it performed a proper role in overseeing them.176 Neither did this provide a comprehensive guarantee against unpleasant surprises. At the diet of 1687–88 in Vienna, they had asked for amendments to the submitted decretum text, but this text was not returned to the diet; it was printed, and at a closing session on 24 January 1688 it was given royal approval in this form.177 In 1741, it was only during the concertatio that it was discovered that the word “native” was omitted from article 11 (on Hungarian affairs being taken care of by Hungarians), and so the final version did not preclude the possibility of foreigners governing the country, an issue important to the estates. The lower house wanted to form a deputation to see the word “native” added before “Hun-

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garians” in the text. At the session on 26 October, as we learn from a journal of the diet, the lords argued that other clauses provided adequate guarantee, as they demanded of those taking up government office that they be landowners in Hungary and that they be aware of the country’s laws and customs. The members of the lower house should not doubt the ruler’s good intentions. In the end they conceded to the demands of the lower house; when the session of the diet ended, it sent a deputation to Maria Theresa in the castle.178 In his letter dated 29 October 1741 to Count Sándor Károlyi, Márton Szuhányi tells how, for each article of law in which “native Hungarians” were mentioned, the word “native” was deleted. For this reason, the diet sent a deputation to Maria Theresa, who asked its members, listlessly, “Why are you distrusting? ”179 The estates should have more trust in their ruler, she said, according to the report of the committee of the following day.180

The Adjournment of the Diet Although the laws of the land restricted the length of the diet, which, aside from emergencies, should only have been allowed to last for two months (a stipulation in line with the already-cited article 7 of 1723), the ability to adjourn the diet was as much a royal privilege as convening it—just like in Poland. Yet the Hungarian assembly could not just be scattered as the Short Parliament of England might. Legally, the Hungarian king’s hands were tied by the oath he swore to govern the country in line with its customs and laws, and, politically, by the significant positions of power the estates had. In the eighteenth century, for example, there was need for the decisions of the diet to increase annual contribution. Yet there were examples of this: outside the period discussed here, in 1807, Francis I—dispensing with the tradition of the tractatus diaetalis—disbanded the diet as soon as it voted for twelve thousand new recruits and a sixth of the income of landowners, as well as 1 percent of their personal property, as a war subsidy, without the grievances having been debated and dealt with. This caused such a furor that the palatine struggled greatly to calm things down.181 The court insisted on the royal privilege to adjourn the diet at any time, for example in 1790, when this privilege was attacked by the estates.182 The closing of the diet did not usually happen from one day to the next, however: this had been ordered by 23 August 1751, for example, but the last session would be on 27 August.183 Generalizing from the experience of the diet of 1764–65, a contemporary report emphasizes the following moments from the adjournment of the diet: the articuli are read out; the palatine and the primate sign and stamp the text of the decretum, which they submit to the ruler, who approves it, and closes the diet. The country’s estates bid farewell to the king, then are themselves seen off by the palatine and the primate (and the personalis) and disperse.184 This depiction has

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probably merged the final approval of the diet of the already-agreed articles (the approval of which was requested by the estates) and the announcement of the already-approved decretum, which is thereby left out of the portrayal. Following the approval of the articles, they were handed to the estates at the celebratory closing session of the diet and then read out at the mixed session.185 The publication was particularly important, even if there was little opportunity for objection, as became clear in 1688. If we take a look at two concrete examples of the adjournment of the diet, we see that there was a great deal of variety hiding behind this general scheme of things. A mixed session on 21 October 1729 bid farewell to the two royal commissioners with the usual speeches: Kinsky and the primate were the ones to speak. They read out the articuli, and the primate stated his objection on the question of religion. This was noted in the record but did not affect the validity of the legislation. The two houses held the second part of the session separately, in their own chambers. The following day, the personalis bid farewell to the members of the lower house in unusual fashion, by pinning a note on the gate of the assembly hall warning them not to go against the king concerning the decretum favoring “heretics.” The diet thus came to an abrupt end. Afterward, the dictation of the text of the legislation took a further two days.186 The sixty-first and last session of the diet was held on 27 August 1751. The circumstances were unusual: they started particularly early, as their understanding was that Maria Theresa would leave in the morning, though in the end she only did so in the afternoon. They worked hard from five in the morning until noon. With the personalis being ill, the deputy palatine presided over the lower house. When the petition with the articuli was read out, an article emerged on naturalized aristocrats of foreign origin that had not been agreed. This article was reported at both houses. Then mixed sessions were held, in which the articuli could be written up before they were then read out publicly. The petition including the final text was signed by the palatine and the primate. At noon the diet marched up to the castle in unison, where, after speeches by the chancellor and the primate, Maria Theresa gave the following warning to the estates: “The estates should kindly put an end to their distrust in their prince, so they can partake in the queen’s favour and forgiveness that they have lost.” The royal approval of the decretum took place, and it was published and dictated at the mixed sessions. After this the two houses held separate sessions; the members of the lower house bade farewell to the lords via a deputation, then welcomed the deputation that had played this role. The royal court of justice took its leave from the lower house, and a few members formed a deputation that bade farewell to the personalis, the speaker of the house.187 One of the closing moments of the diet was the sending of the decretum to counties and cities. For the diet of 1764–65, royal approval took place on 9 March 1765, and the council of lieutenancy sent the decretum to Somogy County on 23 June.

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Precedence and Seating Arrangements As they did everywhere in the eighteenth century, issues of precedence would often emerge at the sessions of the diet; the early modern period placed great emphasis on dignity reflected in a seating plan. The seniority of the individuals present could immediately be read from the order of seating, which was a clear reflection of the place the various elements of the diet enjoyed in Hungarian society. Conflict would thus emerge not just between individuals but also between county deputies. Seating arrangements were crucial in a system in which the order of speeches and votes strongly influenced the way these were valued, for votes were usually considered, rather than counted, as we will see. Article 10 of 1687, which regulated the seating plan for the upper house, determined that the prelates had already established the order of seniority among themselves, while the secular lords set the following order: first the palatine, chairman of the house, followed by the lord chief justice, the viceroy of Croatia, then the tavernicum regalium magister and the dignitaries of the royal court in the order of their appointment. After them came the count of Pressburg, then the two guardians of the Holy Crown of Hungary, the hereditary supremi comites in order of their inauguration, and finally the other supremi comites and the royal councilors in the order of their appointment. The legislation did not affect the seating of the magnates. It might seem that this legal regulation, unusual in the mostly common law system of the diet, left no room for dispute—yet this was not the case. On 23 July 1741 Maria Theresa requested advice from the estates of Hungary on the precedence question of Count József Bethlen, supremus comes of Máramaros. This led to disagreement among the lords. For Bethlen had occupied the post of supremus comes from 1717 onward, but this was only officially recognized in 1734. Should he take his place in the upper house on the basis of his original appointment or on that of its confirmation? The estates of the country were reluctant to commit themselves on this point.188 Imre Wellmann showed that precedence in the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century was determined by one’s place in the social system, while within any particular estate two principles came into collision. The attention paid to official positions and honors, rooted in baroque attitudes, was at odds with the practice and self-interested principle of seniority among the court authorities. The advance of seniority was slow and restricted, and at the diet it was only at the upper house and within certain groups that it became the organizing principle from the 1680s onward: first among the dignitaries at the court, then the royal councilors and the supremi comites, and finally among the bishops. In terms of right to speak, the palatine, the lord chief justice, the tavernicum regalium magister, and the viceroy of Croatia took precedence over everyone except the archbishops. Aristocrat diocesan bishops came before secular lords—with the

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exception of the four high dignitaries mentioned above—and the titular bishops came only after the lords holding offices of state. Finally came the other secular lords: first the counts, then the barons. Only within these two rigid categories could custom play a role and notability and seniority define precedence.189 While this order of precedence was quite clear to the component parts of the lower house—namely the royal court of justice, the clergy, the county deputies, the deputies of absentees, and finally the city deputies—within these groups there was considerable scope for rivalry and claims on and debates about precedence. On 8 March 1728 a conflict ensued as to the precedence of the diocesan chapters of Eger and Nyitra,190 then on 14 July of the same year a similar debate concerning Vas and Trencsén Counties.191 At the opening of the diet in 1751, the presidential table in the chamber of the lords, at which the primate would usually sit on the right, the palatine on the left, remained empty, as neither office had been filled. On the right side of the long table there followed the archbishop of Kalocsa, the other diocesan bishops, and the titular bishops, in chronological order of their ordination. On the other side, in line with articulus 10 of 1687, sat the lord chief justice, the viceroy of Croatia, the tavernicum regalium magister, then the dignitaries of the royal court, in order of their appointment to their office, then one of the guardians of the crown, and the supremi comites, in order of their inauguration. The other magnates either stood or sat next to the wall.192 Another source states that at the long table the supremi comites took their seats after the prelates, also enumerating the counts and barons on the left side after the high dignitaries.193 As there were always many fewer of the religious lords, it is very easy to imagine that there was no hard division between the two sides of the table in practice and that some of the secular lords crossed to the right side. The first source, in another description, reports that the secular lords all appeared on the left, with the Croatian deputy being the last on the long list of names.194 In other words, seating arrangements primarily record precedence, and do not precisely describe the real situation. The palatine was chairman of the diet and of the upper house; and yet, in a certain sense, we can compare the chairman of the Reichstag, the archbishop of Mainz, not only to the palatine but also to the primate, who effectively performed the function of co-president. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the title of archbishop of Esztergom was held by Cardinal Christian August, prince of Saxe-Zeitz, who was a prince of the Holy Roman Empire just as palatine Pál Esterházy was. On 9 December 1714, at his request, Charles VI endowed the primate’s official successors with this same title, an act that was put into articulus 111 of 1715. Common law retained many functions for the primate, giving him a sort of quasi-co-presidential role, but these were mostly just protocol-related tasks. The primate was not allowed to stand in for the palatine if he were away— this was the job of the lord chief justice.

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As for the seating arrangements for the lower house, it is worth looking at both the fairly stable positions of its constitutive elements relative to each other and also the places taken by individual members within these elements, which reflected the pecking order but were more controversial. The royal court of justice formed a sort of upper platform in the lower house. In 1741, at their table, the vice-palatine took his place on the left of the personalis; if the latter were absent, he would also act as speaker of the lower house, followed by the deputy lord chief justice, then the protonotarii to the palatine, to the lord chief justice, to the personalis (two of these), and to the viceroy of Croatia. On the right sat the two deputies from the associated countries of Hungary (i.e. the Croatian deputies), then the four royal assessors and the two archiepiscopal assessors.195 This arrangement remained more or less unchanged over the century. In the summer of 1790 the diet was in session in Buda. The deputies of the counties, royal free cities, chapters, and absentees sat on red leather chairs around four green baize tables. The presidential table of the royal court of justice was on a dais, separated from the rest of the chamber by a railing. The youth of the diet sat up in the gallery “from which Emperor Joseph II said that the Hungarians can throw down their curses.”196 Throughout the century the young noblemen working as clerks alongside the county deputies always participated at the sessions, but others were increasingly present too: the young lawyers doing apprenticeships at the royal court of justice, the student youth of Pressburg, and the noble volunteers sent by the counties in 1790 to guard the crown. Indeed, from 1790, women could also take their places in the gallery of the chamber of the lower house.197 The journal of the diet and other writings were dictated to the noble clerks, who thus played a key role in their publication.198 Every official text at the diet was written in Latin: the royal propositions and resolutions, petitions on grievances and other matters, and the decretum. From 1790, however, the official journal was kept in Hungarian; this was translated into Latin, and it was printed in both languages thereon. The private journals were either in Latin or partly in Hungarian and partly (or mostly) in Latin. Our sources give us only sporadic information as to what language the debate itself was in. The rule must have been to use Latin for discussions at the diet, and for those contemporaries documenting the debates, it was deviations from this rule that seemed noteworthy. The youth of the diet provided the main but not the only source of unruliness during sessions. Sometimes the participants could not be persuaded to work due to the the general dissatisfaction in the diet. In the summer of 1741 Márton Szuhányi, a participant, referred to the session as the “session of moaning and grumbling” on account of the constant complaints and loud interjections.199 The chief equerry was responsible for maintaining the general order of the diet, while the janitors were under the authority of the master of the janitors. The other task of the chief equerry at the diet was to act as quartermaster, as detailed in article 123 of 1647. Prelates and Hungary’s barons and magnates were entitled

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to accommodation in the inner city of Pressburg, and county deputies and deputies for absentees could stay in the upper part of the outer city, while all the others stayed in other parts of the city, the outer city by the Danube, and the hillside surrounding the castle—and without charge.200 In 1792 each county deputy was entitled to four rooms; if both deputies from a county stayed in the same house, then together they were given seven. A supremus comes would be given seven rooms in his own right.201 This was no mean task, as a great many people came to the diet, unlike the Reichstag, at which only some 37–49 people were present in the late eighteenth century.202 In 1722, for example, Count György Széchényi asked the palatine for permission for the accommodation of his ill son-in-law Count László Ebergényi to be given to someone else, as the Hungarian estates were being placed in the outskirts of the city because of the participants coming from Vienna. The only ones who could keep their earlier places of accommodation were those who had long been in Pressburg as members of the reform committee—and those who had their own house in the city.203 The most common threat to the order of the diet came in writing, however: a consistent characteristic was the regular publication of pamphlets, abusive documents, and pasquils. Pasquil literature flourished in both its wittier and more popular varieties. Given the unusual intensity of division, the diet of 1764–65 bore a great many diet poems, pamphlets, and satirical writings. Outraged, Maria Theresa spoke to chancellor Count Ferenc Esterházy of “seditious writings” and “crimes.”204

The Time and Location of Sessions With the exception of the first part of the 1790–91 diet and the diet of 1792, the location for eighteenth-century diets was always Pressburg. Given its proximity to Vienna, it seemed obvious that the diet should not return to Buda even after it had been taken back from the Ottomans and rebuilt. After all, the tractatus diaetalis meant dialogue with the ruler, and not even the presence of the royal commissioners would rule out direct contact with the king himself. It was also significant whether the city that was home to the diet was able to provide the accommodation, services, and provisions for its participants and their entourages.205 Yet as early as article 106 of 1723 there was mention of the intention to relocate the national assembly, together with the council of lieutenancy, the court of appeals, and the royal court of justice, to the center of the country. From this time on, demands for diets in Buda had political overtones. In the list of grievances submitted by Hungary’s estates in 1764, the second point was for the diets to be held in Buda;206 this wish found its way into the Corpus Juris as well. Article 2 of 1765 speaks of Maria Theresa’s decision that if possible, in future, the diet should also be held in Buda. The convention of the next two (in practice less than

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Figure 2.3. A view of Pressburg, engraved by F. B. Werner and I. C. Leopold. Published in Notitia Hungariae novae historico-geopraphica: Tomus primus by Matthias Bel (Vienna, 1735). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

one and a half )207 diets in Buda in 1790 and 1792 was clearly a political gesture. According to his brother, the palatine, it was Francis I himself who chose to have his coronation in Buda at the latter occasion.208 In Pressburg, the custom prevailing until the early seventeenth century held that the lords met at the palace of the palatine or of the primate, while the members of the lower house would gather in the Franciscan monastery.209 Article 62 of 1609 introduced a tax for “the purchase and construction of houses for the diet.” The history of the houses of parliament in Pressburg almost certainly dates back to this time. In article 93 of 1715 Charles VI instructed, at the request of Hungary’s estates, that the houses of the diet be returned to them, waiving any need to repay the cost of reconstruction covered by the treasury. According to this—and certainly related to the two-decade hiatus of the diet at the turn of the eighteenth century—the unused building was taken over by the treasury. Further evidence for this is that, at the session of 12 August 1709, rather than the personalis (who had a vested interest), it was the protonotarius to the palatine who suggested that the personalis should be able to reside in the assembly building constructed from state funds—which, “with the end of the diets,” was generally used by the Hungarian Chamber, a financial authority—and that the national archive be kept

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here. The lower house supported the request, and the secretary to the palatine was sent across to the chamber, but was given the reply that this question could only be answered at a higher level.210 It was perhaps because it was accepted practice for the lords to gather at the residence of the palatine that the suggestion that the personalis use the house of the diet as his own lodgings did not elicit surprise. On 20 July 1712, by means of a deputation, the diet asked the Hungarian Chamber to mandate delegates to implement the king’s resolution that the assembly building be put at the disposal of the estates, then sent a deputation to the negotiation two days later.211 It is certain that the lower house held its sessions in the house of the diet from 1712, while the upper house did so in the Green House.212 The lodgings of the chairman of the upper house would by then only be home to the sessions when absolutely necessary, e.g. in the event of illness. Article 106 of 1723 gave instructions as to the repair of the assembly building while setting the long-term goal of constructing a new home for the diet “in the centre of the country” (i.e. in Buda). The diet of 1722–23 met in the house of the diet in Pressburg (here termed domus regnicolarum): the upper house in the building by the city wall, the lower house in that overlooking the street.213 In the words of another journal: in the houses of parliament (domus regni) the lords held their sessions in “the inner palace, looking south, overlooking the outer city by the Danube,” and the lower house in “the outer or older building, looking north, overlooking the street.”214 By all accounts it was here that the next diet, in 1728– 29, was held. Mátyás Bél might have described it as the most beautiful building in Pressburg, but in the 1730s he still referred to it as under reconstruction.215 According to a description of the assembly building from 1741, it stood at the southeast corner of the inner city of Pressburg. To the south, it looked over the city wall toward the Danube; to the north, over Hosszú Street. The upper house held its sessions in the wing by the city wall, the lower house in that overlooking the street. A sizeable courtyard stretched between the two, from which a wide set of stairs led straight to the first floor.216 As our sources from 1712 describe the palace of the lower house as old but that of the upper house as new, it is clear that the latter was constructed to house the lords, who at the first diet of the century were still squeezed into the Green House. From 1722 the lords could also hold their session in the new assembly building—in the new wing by the city wall— and this remained the case until 1765. After this, the diet would not be in session for a full quarter of a century. Joseph II did not once convene it but was preparing to do so, as shown by his decision to allow a wing to be built in the former Poor Clare monastery in Buda, according to plans by Franz Anton Hildebrand, to serve as a new assembly building. Construction on this was finished by the end of 1785, and it was here that the first phase of the diet of 1790–91, as well as the diets of 1792 and 1807, were held. On the ground floor, in two rooms, was the national archive, the Archivum Regni.217 A smaller hall next to that of the lower house served as the debating

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chamber for the lords.218 The hall of the lower house was not only larger but also much more ornate, as it had been completed in 1784 before Hildebrand’s ideas were constricted by austere savings measures.219 The eighteenth-century diet was not always in session: not only was it not convened on an annual basis, but there was not even any defined order to when the diets took place. In this sense it held an interim position between the two extremes of the always active Reichstag and the assembly of the French estates, which did not operate at all until 1789. The German imperial assembly, after being convened in 1663, had become permanent; this had not been planned, but it did follow from the logic of the arrangement laid down by the Peace of Westphalia, as the emperor’s hands were tied on all important questions of foreign and domestic affairs and on legislative issues by the obligation to cooperate with the assembly of estates.220 The neglect of the assembly of the French estates was not a unique phenomenon. In Württenberg, only two assemblies were held between 1699 and 1797.221 The practice of the Austrian hereditary provinces, where the provincial diets were convened annually, was closer to the other extreme.222 As far as Hungary is concerned, the Corpus Juris contains a number of stipulations as to how often the diet ought to be convened. According to József Hajnóczy, triennial diets were argued for by articles 94 of 1635, 154 of 1647, 3 of 1649, 49 of 1655, and 58 of 1681, as well as—with the remark that the diet should be held earlier if need requires it—articles 14 of 1715 and 7 of 1723. On the basis of all this, Hajnóczy, the eminent public legal thinker of the late eighteenth century Figure 2.4. A view of Buda, engraved by Samuel Mikoviny. Published in Notitia Hungariae novae historico-geopraphica: Tomus tertius by Matthias Bel (Vienna, 1737). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

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considered it obvious that a diet be held every three years.223 Although the idea of an annual diet had been raised in 1790, the court argued against it, saying that it would be too much of a burden on taxpayers and would have an adverse effect on the judicial system, as many judges from the various courts (and all judges from the supreme courts) would have to attend the diet, not to mention the fact that Hungarian law only demanded the diet be called every three years224—though the court did not keep to this. If we consider the German example, it becomes clear why in the eighteenth century the demand for an annual diet could not be met, and similarly why it was never suggested that the diet become a permanent parliament of the estates: Hungary’s estates were not strong enough for this, and there was no external factor (like the Peace of Westphalia in the German case) that might have forced the ruler to accept it. Yet it is a sign of the strength of Hungary’s estates that it was not possible to bypass the diet entirely. The convening of the diets was a litmus test of the real prevailing power relations, for while the ruler’s hands were in principle tied by law, the calling together of the diet belonged to the royal privileges, and ultimately it was at the whim of the ruler when he convened the diet, if at all—and he would call for it not when the law obliged him but when the government felt it to be necessary. The diets of our period were held in 1708–15, 1722–23, 1728–29, 1741, 1751, 1764–65, 1790–91, and 1792. Not even their length displays any kind of consistency. If we look around at the neighboring region, we see that the Reichstag assemblies of the sixteenth century generally lasted for eleven to twenty weeks, the shorter ones five to ten weeks, the longer ones twenty-one to forty-three weeks;225 that is, all finished their work within the space of a year, and most would hardly exceed the two-month timeframe urged by Hungarian law (but almost always flouted in the eighteenth century). (The length of the Polish Sejm, set in law as six weeks, was pretty similar to this.226) One of the Bohemian assemblies of this period met from 12 October 1770 to 20 August 1771—that is, for more than ten months.227 This was more akin to the eighteenth-century Hungarian diet. Between 1660 and 1700 half of the Lower Austrian provincial assemblies lasted between seven and nine months (eight were shorter; twelve, longer), while the Bohemian diets were usually somewhat shorter, with 65 percent of them lasting between four and six months. If it is possible to say of these European estate assemblies that their length per se could be a sign of whether there was genuine dialogue, that their being held was not a mere formality, and that their length might just be a measure of the oppositional nature of the estates,228 then this is all the more true of the Hungarian diet. The pace of its activities was in large degree decided by the government, as much depended on how quickly responses would be given to petitions. Sometimes the government’s interests were in making the diet drag on, as the government assumed, as it had always done, that the deputies would be increasingly keen to go back home, thereby dampening their resistance.229 Ferenc Rosty was a

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county deputy in 1764–65; it is clear from his letters that he was very keen to get home to his family and his domains. He observed with bitterness that in Vienna they would sometimes spend ten to twelve days debating a single response.230 And sometimes it would be the other way around: on 8 August 1729 the royal commissioners announced to the estates that Charles VI demanded the deliberations be sped up.231 In the eighteenth century it was only the diets of Francis I that satisfied, to some degree, the stipulation in article 7 of 1723 that, unless there were a state of emergency, the diet was to be in session for at most two months. The diet convened on 20 May 1723, opened on 24 May, and adjourned on 27 June, hardly lasting longer than one month. The dates of the ceremonial opening and closing of the other diets were as follows: 3 March 1708232 to 3 April 1712 (to be opened again after a two-year recess caused by plague on 19 October 1714, then closed again on 10 June 1715), 20 June 1722 to 19 June 1723, 17 May 1728 to 20 November 1729, 14 May to 20 October 1741, 18 April to 27 August 1751, and 17 June 1764 to 19 March 1765. The penultimate diet of the period under investigation was convened on 6 June 1790, opened on 10 June, then adjourned on 13 March 1791.233 The diets always began in the spring or early summer: every assembly between 1708 and 1792 was convened on a day in March, April, May, or June. The annual diet planned at the end of this period would always have begun on 1 May. The diet of 1722–23 held 214 sessions in the space of 373 days: an average of four a week. The diet of 1764–65 held 91 sessions, or almost two and a half a week, on average. In 1751 the diet held 61 sessions in 128 days, while in 1792 the diet was distinctly brief, just 36 days, with a total of 18 sessions. Both these diets, that is, held sessions every two days, on average. The diet of 1790–91, with its 64 sessions, hardly exceeded an average of a session and a half a week.234 The diet tended to observe feast days and Sundays: only very rarely was there a sessio, as for example on 24 July 1708, when the thirty-ninth session of the pro-Habsburg loyalist (labanc) diet was held. This was a particularly long session, ending after midnight.235 Few sessions stretched over into the following day like this. It was not uncommon, however, for two sessions to be held on a single day. Usually one of these would be a mixed session. The plenary sessions would often be in recess if other important bodies were very actively at work. On 15–17 May 1751, for example, there was no general session, as the districts were holding sessions at which they were compiling grievances.236 If we weigh up the work done at the diets of the eighteenth century, the average stretches from little more than one session a week to four a week, and there were some extended periods of even more intense activity than this. The workload of the diet can be compared to that at the Reichstag, which in 1663 had four sessions a week, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday (unless one of the confessions had a feast day on one of these), then later held two sessions a week, usually on Monday and Tuesday.237

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Notes 1. I. Ereky, Jogtörténelmi és közigazgatási jogi tanulmányok, 2 vols. (Eperjes, 1914–18), 1:389. 2. The convening of the delayed diet of 1710, which had been requested by Joseph I, would, following his death, be initiated exceptionally by the palatine. (Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.497: Acta publica comitiorum annis 1708, 1709, 1710 Posonii celebratorum vigilantissima industria et sumtibus Georgii Gyurikovits collecta, 727.) 3. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 410, fol. 319. 4. Hajnóczy, “Magyarország országgyűléséről,” 215. 5. Bérenger, Finances, 125. 6. A Dunamelléki Református Egyházkerület Ráday Levéltára [Ráday Archives of the Dunamellék Calvinist Diocese], A Ráday család levéltára. IV. Ráday I. Pál iratai IV.f Politikai iratok. 3. szám: Ráday Pál diáriuma az 1712. évi országgyűlésről, 9–13. 7. I. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica temporibus Mathiae de Hunyad regis Hungariae. Pars I. Specimen praevium diplomaticum historico-criticum de electione regis ejusdem (Vienna, 1767), 312. 8. L. Bártfai Szabó (ed.), Gróf Széchényi György levelei báró Ebergényi Lászlóhoz, 1697– 1724, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1929), 1057–60. 9. 700.477, 3–16. The full name is not Pest County, but Pest–Pilis–Solt County, as these were united. 10. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.499-IV: Diaria diaetae annis 1708, 1709, 1710, 1712, 1714/5. Posonii celebratae. IV. Tyrnaviense, anno 1708. a die 1. martii—25. junii, anno 1709. a die 17. maii—13. augusti, anno 1710 a die 10. februarii—8. aprilis, anno 1714. a die 27. septembris—25. novembris deductum.—Diarium diaetae Posoniensis anno 1708 die 29. februarii … inchoatae, annis 1709, 1710, 1712, 1714. continuatae, anno 1715. conclusae, 185–87. 11. 700.477, passim. 12. 700.482, 76–79. 13. Naponként-való 1790, 73. 14. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.498: Acta diaetae inclyti regni Hungariae …—Diarium diaetae Posiniensis, anno 1708 pro die 29. mensis februarii … conscriptum et connotatum per me Adamum Mecséry inclytorum Pest, Pilis, et Sold [!] comitatuum ablegatum et Strigoniensis vice comitem, 111. Cf. 700.497, 79–80. 15. 700.482, 69, 72–73. 16. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.485: Acta diaetalia. Die 20ma mensis junii anni 1722 per sacratissimam romanorum imperatoriam ac Germaniae, Hyspaniarum, Hungariae, Bohemiaequae etc. regiam maiestatem Carolum VI in liberam ac regiam civitatem Posoniensem indictae diaetae, 96. Cf. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.489: Acta publica diaetae Posoniensis in diem 20am junii 1722 indictae ac die 19a junii 1723 conclusae collecta per Georgium Gyurikovits, 55–56. 17. H. Neuhaus, Das Reich in der frühen Neuzeit (München, 1997), 39.

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18. A. Schindling, Die Anfänge des immerwährenden Reichstags zu Regensburg: Ständevertretung und Staatskunst nach dem westfälischen Frieden (Mainz, 1991), 234–35. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 124. 19. Bérenger, Finances, 131. 20. Bártfai Szabó, Széchényi György, 1066. 21. See the directions given to the royal commissioners sent to the Bohemian diet. Bérenger, Finances, 131–32. 22. See, for example, Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.484: Diarium occasione generalis regni Hungariae diaetae in anno 1728 et 1729 continuative celebratae privato labore ac solerti industria confectum, 121, 147. 23. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 406, Konvolutt A, fol. 31, 128–29. 24. 700.484, 110–50. 25. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv [House, Court and State Archive, Vienna], Ungarische Akten, Allgemeine Akten, Fasz. 209, fol. 7. 26. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 406, Konvolutt A, fol. 111–21. 27. 700.499-IV, 185. 28. Ibid., 187; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.499-I: Diaria diaetae annis 1708, 1709, 1710, 1712, 1714/5. Posonii celebratae. I. Anonymi anni 1708 a die 2. martii usque 23. junii synoptice deductum—Diarium diaetae regni Hungariae in diem 29 februarii anni 1708 per Josephum I regem indictae compillatum, 2. 29. A letter from Sir Philip Meadows, British ambassador, states that it was on the second. (E. Simonyi [ed.], Angol diplomatiai iratok II. Rákóczi Ferencz korára, 3 vols. [Budapest, 1871–77], 3:375.) 30. 700.499–I, 6. 31. The diary claims that everyone was present at this, but this can hardly be true of the Protestants. 32. M. Zsilinszky, Az 1708-ki pozsonyi országgyűlés történetéhez. (Olvastatott a M. Tud. Akadémia II. osztályának 1888. máj. 7-ki ülésén.) (Budapest, 1888), 59. 33. 700.499–I, 7. 34. Simonyi, Angol diplomatiai iratok, 3:373. 35. Ö. Málnási, Gróf Csáky Imre bíbornok élete és kora (1672–1732) (Kalocsa, 1933), 150. 36. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 314. 37. Bártfai Szabó, Széchényi György, 1061–63. 38. 700.486/1, 7 and 78, 80–89; Bártfai Szabó, Széchényi György, 1063. 39. 700.486/1, 80–89. 40. K. Hornig (ed.), Padányi Biró Márton veszprémi püspök naplója: Függelékül Birónak Rómába tett két jelentése 1752 és 1757-ből (Veszprém, 1903), 36–39. 41. Bérenger, Finances, 129. 42. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 315. 43. J. Hajnóczy, “Közjogi értekezés a királyi hatalom korlátairól Magyarországon” [Dissertatio politico-publica de regiae potestatis in Hungaria limitibus. s.l., 1791.], in A. Csizmadia (ed.), Hajnóczy József közjogi-politikai munkái (Budapest, 1958), 105. 44. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 39–40. 45. F. Salamon, “Rendi országgyűléseink jellemzéséhez,” in F. Salamon, Kisebb történelmi dolgozatai, 2nd ed. (Budapest, 1889), 415–16.

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46. Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 2:61. 47. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.500: Diarium diaetae anni 1708 a 7. martii usque 27. maii, anni 1712 a 2. maii—4. augusti, 1714 17. septembris 13. decembris, anni 1715 m. jan. per deputatos comitatus Bihariensis concinnatum per Georgium Gyurikovits descriptum.— Diarium diaetae anno 1708 Posonii celebratae per deputatos comitatus Bihariensis Georgium Csipkés Komáromi ordinarium vice comitem, Adamum Bakay ordinarium juratum notarium concinnatum, et eidem comitatui relatum, 17, 19. 48. 700.484, 64–92. 49. 700.482, 87–89. 50. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.478: Diarium diaetae anni 1741 continuatum usque ad diem 27 julii, desunt augem menses augustus, september, october et respective november, 36–53; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.476: Acta diaetalia pro die 14ta mensis may anni 1741 per sacram regiam majestatem dominam donnam Mariae Theresiae Hungariae, Bohemiae, Dalmatiae, Croatiae etc. reginam in liberam regiam civitatem Posoniensem indictam diaetae, 42–44, 57–60. 51. 700.469, 11. 52. J. Podhradczky, Magyar ország karainak, s rendeinek szavazati joga a köz gyűléseken. Státus rendszer értelmében (Buda, 1847), 138. 53. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:11, 24. 54. Z. Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink tanácskozási módja: Jogtörténeti tanulmány (Kassa, 1906), 25–26. 55. H. Neuhaus, Reichstag und Supplikationsausschuss: Ein Beitrag zur Reichsverfassungsgeschichte der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1977), 28. 56. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.483: Acta universae generalis regni Hungariae partium eidem adnexarum diaetae pro die decima septima mensis maji in feriam secundam sacri Pentecostes anni proxime praeteritati millesimi septingentesimi vigesimi octavi indictae in liberam regiamque civitatem Posoniensem et continuative usque ad vigesimam primam recenter evoluti mensis novembris anni praesenti 1729i celebratae, 20–52, 59–69, 248–65. Cf. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.487: Anno Domini 1723. Die 26 mensis Januarii, 87. 57. 700.484, 100. 58. 700.482, 75–92, 117–41. 59. MOL N55, 6:115. 60. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 32. 61. F. Salamon, “Az 1741-iki koronázás,” in F. Salamon, Kisebb történelmi dolgozatai, 2nd ed. (Budapest, 1889), 116–17. 62. 700.500, 24. 63. 700.477, 263. 64. Naponként-való 1792, 118–19. 65. 700.500, 49, 202; 700.478, 255; 700.482, 81. 66. E. Thury (ed.), “Lányi Pál gömöri alispán naplója az 1712. évi pozsonyi országgyűlésről,” part 2, Történelmi Tár, new series 5 (1904), 33. 67. 700.500, 212.

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68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

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700.478, 98–100, 253–55, 262–67. Schindling, Die Anfänge, 68. Bérenger, Finances, 135. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 315. Naponként-való 1790, 11, 19. 700.498, 32. 700.499-IV, 219. 700.484, 1. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 315. Ibid., 315, Naponként-való 1790, 17, 19–20, MOL N54, 3:1. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 315. See e.g. Naponként-való 1790, 44. 700.486/1, 350. MOL N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 7: M. G. Kovachichs [!] collectio diariorum diaetalium. Anni 1723. Volumen I, 504–6. 700.484, 145–47. 700.486/1, 18–20. 700.478, 262–65. E.g. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.453: Acta comitiorum inclyti regni Hungariae et eidem annexarum partium pro dominica sanctissimae, et individuae trinitatis in diem 17 junii anni 1764 incidente in civitatem Posoniensem indictorum, benignae quippe directoria, propositionesque suae majestatis sacratissimae ac alia clementissima mandata et decreta cum suis accessoriis, 21; MOL N55, 6:117; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 15: Diaria diaetalia, passim. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 1:131. Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 2:79. Naponként-való 1792, 130, 142. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 20–24, 32–33; Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:63. I. Balogh, “Ráday Pál az 1712–15. évi országgyűlésen. (Adalékok a protestánsok helyzetéhez a szatmári béke után),” A Ráday Gyűjtemény Évkönyve 3 (1983): 62. Schindling, Die Anfänge, 68. 700.478, 125. Ibid., 138. Naponként-való 1792, passim, 154. 700.469, 84–85. 700.482, 92; 700.484, 1, 113, 121; 700.453, 21; 700.486/1, 99, 134–35. 700.500, 48; 700.482, 90–91. 700.478, 142; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.468: Diarium generalis inclyti regni Hungariae partiumque sacrae ejusdem coronae annexarum diaetae inclytibus statibus et ordinibus pro dominica in albis, seu diae 18a mensis aprilis anni 1751 in liberam regiamque civitatem Posoniensem indictae, ibidemque celebratae, ac tandem die … mensis … anni … ejus feliciter terminatae et conclusae [the date of closure was not in the end entered in the space left here], 536; 700.484, 125, 143–44; 700.486/1, 156; MOL N54, 3:1; E. Thury (ed.),

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99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108.

109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130.

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“Lányi Pál gömöri alispán naplója az 1712. évi pozsonyi országgyűlésről,” part 1, Történelmi Tár new series 4 (1903), 402. E.g. 700.469, 90. 700.477, 263. 700.476, 206. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.475: Acta diaetalia anni 1741, 344–45. Cf. 700.477, 265; 700.476, 208–9; Kolinovics, Nova Ungariae, 492. 700.475, 345. 700.486/1, 18. I. Csekey, A magyar trónöröklési jog: Jogtörténelmi és közjogi tanulmány oklevélmellékletekkel (Budapest, 1917), 258–59. Naponként-való 1790, passim. Ibid., 259–62. Ibid., passim. In fact, there were only sixty-four sessions, but at the thirty-second session the two houses had separate sessions in the morning, while there was a mixed session in the afternoon. Although at the time this day of sessions was given a single number, I have given it two. Naponként-való 1792, 48, 101–3, 110–11. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:63, 192–95. E. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” in Sándor Lipót főherceg nádor iratai, ed. E. Mályusz (Budapest, 1926), 16. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:303–4. In what follows I will refer to him as Francis I. Naponként-való 1792, 133. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 316. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 406, Konvolutt A, fol. 280. Naponként-való 1790, 411. 700.498, 250 and 393. Salamon, “Az 1741-iki,” 86. MOL N114, vol. 15, without page numbering, Naponként-való 1790, passim. Naponként-való 1792, 139–40. Ráday IV.f.3, 14. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 154, 166. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 13: Diarium diaetae anni 1723. The debate on the contribution continued in parallel. Thury, “Lányi” pt. 1, 402–4. In a similar vein: Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovitsgyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.503: Acta diaetarum 1712–15, 39. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 150. M. Kónyi, “Az 1715–22. évi rendszeres bizottság javaslatai (Systema politico-oeconomicomilitare),” A Bécsi Magyar Történetkutató Intézet Évkönyve 2 (1932): 145–46; Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 16. Zsilinszky, Az 1708-ki, 396–97. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 42. Neuhaus, Supplikationsausschuss, 29.

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131. M. G. Müller, “Polen als Adelsrepublik: Probleme der neueren verfassungsgeschichtlichen Diskussion,” in Stände und Landesherrschaft in Ostmitteleuropa in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. H. Weczerka, (Marburg, 1995), 102. 132. Ráday IV.f.3, 13. 133. 700.484, 152. 134. Naponként-való 1792, 109–15. 135. 700.503, 137. 136. J. J. Varga, “Berendezkedési tervezetek Magyarországon a török kiűzésének időszakában: Az ‘Einrichtungswerk,’” Századok 125 (1991), 455–82; J. Kalmár, “A Kollonich-féle Einrichtungswerk és a 18. századi bánsági berendezkedés,” Századok 125 (1991), 496. Cf. I. Soós and J. J. Varga (eds.), “A pozsonyi rendi bizottság tervezete. Az ún. ‘Magyar Einrichtungswerk,’” Századok 125 (1991): 500–16. On the other side, alongside the well-known Einrichtungswerk by Kollonich, we should mention Quinto-Partitum by Johann Georg Hoffmann, and Angelo Gabriele’s work Il Governo dell’Ongria. (Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 151.) Cf. J. Kalmár. and J. J. Varga (eds.), Einrichtungswerk des Königreichs Hungarn (1688–1690) (Stuttgart, 2010). 137. Csekey, Trónöröklési jog, 240. 138. M-É. Ducreux, “18e et 19e siècles: La monarchie des Habsbourg” (manuscript, 2001), 20; Evans, “Habsburg Monarchy and Bohemia,” 142–43. 139. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 120–27; G. Pajkossy, “A diéta törekvések, tervek kereszttüzében, 1790–1793,” in Rendiség és parlamentarizmus Magyarországon: A kezdetektől 1918-ig, ed. T. Dobszay et al. (Budapest, 2014), 322. 140. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 42. 141. There is detailed coverage of the concursus, which partially substituted for the diet on the question of levying taxes. 142. H. Lehmann, “Die württenbergischen Landstände im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert,” in Ständische Vertretungen in Europa im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, ed. D. Gerhard (Göttingen, 1969), 190–91. 143. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 33, 35. 144. Naponként-való 1790, 59. 145. 700.484, 152. 146. MOL N55, 6: passim, e.g. 428. 147. 700.486/1, 95–96. 148. I. M. Szijártó, A diéta. A magyar rendek és az országgyűlés, 1708–1792 (Budapest, 2005), 89, 575–76. 149. 700.499-IV, 202. 150. Naponként-való 1792, 48–49, 117, 138. 151. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:45. 152. MOL N56, 3:17. 153. Naponként-való 1792, 112, 115. 154. See e.g. Budán 1790dik Esztendőben Tartott Ország Gyűlésének alkalmatosságával irásban bé-nyújtott, ‘s Köz-tanátskozás alá vett Dólgok, és Munkák. s.l., s.a, passim. 155. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 42. 156. Naponként-való 1792, 111–13. 157. 700.500, 165–221; Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 19–34. 158. 700.476, 95; 700.478, 187; 700.475, 84. 159. 700.484, 14–30.

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160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168.

169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191.

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700.469, 88. As, for example, on 15 June 1741. (700.478, 54.) 700.500, 209; Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 32–34. 700.498, 140. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 134–35. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 42; Schindling, Die Anfänge, 68; Neuhaus, Supplikationsausschuss, 314. Bérenger, Finances, 136. A. Komáromy, “Berényi György naplója az 1634/5-ik soproni és az 1637/8-ik pozsonyi országgyűlésekről,” Magyar Történelmi Tár 1885 [years are not marked], 124–35, 128–42. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 12; Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 61; F. Eckhart and A. Degré, Magyar állam- és jogtörténet: Második rész (Budapest, 1952), 28 (the author of the cited passage is Ferenc Eckhart.); Gy. Bónis, “The Hungarian Feudal Diet (13th–18th Centuries),” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 25 (1965), 302–3. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.470: Diarium diaetae regni Hungariae 1751, 143; 700.469, 88. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 406, Konvolutt A, fol. 128. Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 2:74. Mályusz, Sándor Lipót, 528. Ibid.; Comitialia, Fasz. 406, Konvolutt A, fol. 280. Hajnóczy, “Magyarország országgyűléséről,” 258. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N52 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1728–1729], vol. 6: Acta diaetalia anni 1729, 841. 700.484, 487 ff. V. Fraknói, A Habsburg-ház trónöröklési jogának megállapítása az 1687/8-ik évi országgyűlésen (Budapest, 1922), 48–54. 700.476, 348–49. G. Éble, “Törvényhozás az insurrectióról 1741-ben,” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 10 (1897), 224. 700.476, 354. E. Wertheimer, Ausztria és Magyarország a tizenkilenczedik század első évtizedében, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1892), 2:261–71. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 410, fol. 319. 700.469, 84. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 316–17. Eckhart and Degré, Állam- és jogtörténet, 28 (the author of the cited passage is Ferenc Eckhart); Hajnóczy, “Magyarország országgyűléséről,” 258. 700.484, 614–17. 700.469, 90; 700.467, 455. 700.478, 257–58. Cf. 700.477, 166, and 700.475, 129. I. Wellmann, “Rendi állás és hivatali rang a XVIII. század eleji kormányhatóságokban,” Levéltári Közlemények 18–19 (1940–41): 270–80. 700.500, 11. 700.482, 86.

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192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204.

205.

206. 207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214.

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700.468, 30. 700.467, 1–3. 700.468, 4–9. 700.476, 24–25. E. S. Hoffer, Krónika Magyarország polgári és egyházi közéletéből a XVIII-dik század végén: Keresztesi József egykorú eredeti naplója (Pest, 1868), 251–52. Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 30; Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 1:392–93; J. B. Téglás, A történeti pasquillus a magyar irodalomban (Szeged, 1928), 111, 115; Naponként-való 1790, 159–60. See, for example, Komáromy, “Berényi,” passim. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 540. Sándor Czompó was a deputy of Sopron County. We shall become better acquainted with him in due course. Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 15–16. Naponként-való 1792, 133–36. Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1:139–41. Bártfai Szabó, Széchényi György, 1058. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 280. A series of excellent studies on pasquils of the diet can be found in J. Nagy, “‘Ha nézem a Papokat, mind ellenünk vannak’: A káptalani követek ábrázolása a XVIII. századi országgyűlési pasquillusokban,” in Doromb: Közköltészeti tanulmányok 3, ed. I. R. Csörsz (Budapest, 2014); J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra a XVIII. századi országgyűlési pasquillusok tükrében. Az 1741. és az 1751. évi országgyűlés kollektív pasquillusai,” in Paletta. I. koraújkor-történeti diákkonferencia. Tanulmánykötet, ed. B. Fekete and V. Nyul (Budapest, 2013); J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra a 18. századi országgyűlési pasquillusok tükrében” (MA thesis, Eötvös University, Faculty of Humanities, Institute of History Budapest, 2012); J. Nagy, “‘Szegény Magyarország bánattyát újíttya’—Az 1728-29. évi országgyűlés pasquillusai,” in Memoriae commendamus. Tanulmányok a XI. Eötvös Konferencia történeti üléséről, ed. A. Kapitány and D. Locsmándi (s.l. [Budapest], 2011); J. Nagy, “‘Tanuld jövendőre, minket tipró mágnás!’ Fekete János egy országgyűlési pasquillusának politikatörténeti háttere,” in Mű & Szerző. Fiatal kutatók konferenciája: Tanulmánykötet, ed. Á. Zs. Bartók, et al. (Budapest, 2011). R. Aulinger, “Reichsstädtischer Alltag und obrigkeitliche Disziplinierung: Zur Analyse der Reichstagsordnungern im 16. Jahrhundert,” in Alltag im 16. Jahrhundert: Studien zu Lebensformen in mitteleuropäischen Städten, ed. A. Lutz and H. Lutz (München, 1987), 261. L. Nagy, “Levéltári kis tükör,” manuscript (Kaposvár, 1870), 439. (To be found in the Somogy County Archives.) Actually, the Buda part of diet of 1790–91, lasting for more than five months, was much longer than the entirety of the diet of 1792, which lasted for a mere ten weeks. Mályusz, Sándor Lipót, 516. Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 6–7. 700.498, 538–39. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 30, 32. Ibid., 6, 11, 23; Ráday IV.f.3, 4 and 6; A. Komáromy (ed.), “Perényi Imre diariuma,” Történelmi Tár 18 (1895), 146, 148, 149; Málnási, Csáky Imre, 153–54. 700.485, 6–7. MOL N114, 7:521.

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215. Salamon, “Az 1741-iki,” 78. 216. Ibid., 74–75. 217. Gy. Kelényi, “A budai országház,” in Az ország háza: Buda-pesti országháza-tervek, 1784– 1884, ed. E. Gábor and M. Verő (Budapest, 2000), 36–38. 218. Naponként-való 1792, 7. 219. O. Paulinyi, “A m. kir. belügyminisztérium budai várbeli székházának története. (Adalék Buda topográfiájához),” Tanulmányok Budapest Multjából [!] 6 (1938), 37. 220. Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1:130. 221. Lehmann, “Die württenbergischen,” 194–95. 222. Klingenstein, “Skizze,” 374. 223. Hajnóczy, “Magyarország országgyűléséről,” 196. 224. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 410, fol. 318–19. 225. A. Kohler, “Wohnen und Essen auf den Reichstagen des 16. Jahrhunderts,” in Alltag im 16. Jahrhundert: Studien zu Lebensformen in mitteleuropäischen Städten, ed. A. Kohler and H. Lutz (München, 1987), 235. 226. Ring, Lengyelország, 136. 227. Dickson, Finance and Government, 2:196. 228. Bérenger, Finances, 132–33. 229. K. Benda, “Az országgyűlések,” 5. 230. I. Bezerédj (ed.), “Rosti Ferenc levelei az 1764–65. évi országgyűlésről,” Dunántúli Szemle 10 (1943): 7–18. 231. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 406, Konvolutt A, fol. 128. 232. The labanc (pro-Habsburg) diet, in which the kuruc (anti-Habsburg) rebels did not participate, held its sessions from 3 March to 25 June 1708. It held a single further session on 23 November, and again one on 17 March and another on 17 May 1709. It continued its work proper on 6 June, but only remained in session until 13 August. On 10 February 1710, it resumed its sessions, but after the second petition of the estates was submitted on 8 April 1710, its activities came to a halt. The diet was officially disbanded by Joseph I on 19 July 1710. It was not possible to continue its work in 1711, only—now including the former kuruc—in 1712. The primary reason for these interruptions was the plague. (700.498, 4 and 245–48, 394, 540; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.499-II: Diaria diaetae annis 1708, 1709, 1710, 1712, 1714/5. Posonii celebratae. II. Mecsérianum 1708, 1709, 106–7; 700.497, 487 and 605, 659, 686, 694, 710; 700.499IV. 224–31.) 233. K. Benda (ed.), Magyarország történeti kronológiája, 4 vols. (Budapest, 1981–82): 602. 234. MOL N114, vols. 7 and 15; 700.469, Naponként-való 1790 and Naponként-való 1792. 235. 700.498, 245; 700.499-II, 68. 236. 700.468, 89. 237. Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1:139.

Part II

THE STRUCTURES OF POLITICS

Chapter 3

THE DUALISM OF KING AND ESTATES DOMINATED BY CONFESSIONAL QUESTIONS

d I

f we regard the diet as a forum for elaborating a political compromise between Hungary’s king and the Hungarian estates, then having outlined the dualist system of king and estates and acquainting ourselves with the everyday operation of the diet, we need to look, in turn, at the debates and conflicts that defined the history of the eighteenth-century diet. In doing so we must consider separately the period ending with the diet of 1728–29, in which the key fissure in the diet was not between Hungary’s estates and the ruler but rather between the estates themselves: the divisive confessional conflicts that dominated them. We must also give separate consideration to the period beginning with this diet, a period in which the main demarcation line was by now between the ruler and the estates, one that would grow ever more marked. The process of “confessionalization” was of crucial importance to the formation of the early modern state.1 The defining nature of confessional considerations was also tangible in the Hungarian diet of the eighteenth century, but no longer in the earlier fashion, when in politics the majority Protestant Hungarian estates were confronted with the growing desire for power of the Habsburg ruling dynasty, connected as this was to the processes of the counter-Reformation and of Catholic reform. Instead, in the first part of the eighteenth century we can often see that the Protestant minority among the estates had no choice but to plead to an increasingly patient central power for protection against the majority Catholic Hungarian estates. At the diets at the start of the century, the confessional divisions look clear-cut and indeed decisive. Of the grievances submitted to the labanc diet of 1708, only

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Map 3.1. The denominations of the Kingdom of Hungary in the eighteenth century. Map by Barnabás Guitman. Published with permission.

the religious ones were debated in any depth.2 On 13 April 1708 Pressburg senator Farkas Rösler handed the Protestants’ grievances and submissions to the two royal commissioners, the primate, the palatine, and the personalis. The following day, the status et ordines evangelici, the Protestant estates, submitted all of this to the king in a separate memorandum,3 as the Catholic majority had not allowed this to be added to the country’s grievances. The June debates on religion at the diet were repeatedly described in letters by the English ambassador to Vienna as characterized by “great heats and division.”4 Similar religious debates took place a year later, when canon Pál Spáczay shouted his demands that the Protestant deputies be thrown out of the window.5 On 18 May 1712, the day after the diet’s decision to give seats and voting rights to Jesuits, the two deputies of the order appeared in the lower house, took their seats, and gave short speeches of gratitude. Gábor Megyery responded from the royal court of justice: “Please take your seats, honourable gentlemen, but do mend your ways.” This caused the members of the lower house to erupt in uproar. Some were outraged because the Jesuits had been humiliated; others were passionately in agreement with Megyery.6 The most trivial occasion or remark was able to bring religious differences to the fore. Another example: the tonguein-cheek comment from a canon from Nyitra that Pál Okolicsányi’s demand to keep to the old laws would mean the burning of the Lutherans resulted in the diet’s “monstrous indignation.”7

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The united front shown by the Protestants was not without significance: in 1712, for example, of the Calvinists alone a hundred appeared at the diet.8 Yet they could rarely achieve their goals in the face of a united Catholic majority, as, for example, when the deputies of the thirteen counties on the Tisza River and some other county deputies (most probably all Protestant) attempted to prevent the order of the knights of Malta from being accepted into Hungary’s estates.9 Because of this, their presence was mostly defensive in nature. In 1712 they were put on the defensive as early as the opening of the diet. While Pál Okolicsányi was elected to the deputation bringing the crown to Pressburg for Charles VI’s coronation, he was nevertheless prevented from appearing on the basis that a Protestant could not stay near the Holy Crown of Hungary. Pál Ráday had no choice but to take a complaint to the ruler.10

The Status Evangelicus Alongside the plenary sessions of the two houses, more exclusive meetings were in all probability always held in private at the diets.11 Among these, it was the separate deliberations of the Protestants that achieved the most significance. It was the necessity of protecting their interests that made their close and prolonged cooperation so important. Their collective group had already formed at the labanc diet of 1708,12 and from 1712 their leaders comprised the individuals mentioned above: Pál Ráday, also chosen as chief curator, and Pál Okolicsányi. It was they who represented the Protestants at the religious affairs committee brought into being by article 30 of 1715.13 At the diet of 1712, the whole communitas met regularly; then (as reported in the 26 May 1712 diary entry of Pál Lányi), the Protestant deputies decided—as it was not always easy to arrange for them all to meet—that they would congregate, six per confession, to debate and decide on the affairs of their own denomination before submitting contentious matters to the Protestant community as a whole.14 In the diary of the deputy of the city of Bártfa to the diet, we can find a list of the names of the twelve-strong body created to represent and defend the interests of the Protestants.15 While Pál Ráday led the Calvinist section, Pál Okolicsányi was only the second among the Lutherans. The first was listed as Baron János Gottfried Hellenbach, but he received a royal letter of invitation to the upper house, so Okolicsányi effectively became the Lutheran leader in the lower house. In this fashion, the Protestant presence at the diet took on a definite shape. This would be referred to as the “Protestant estate,” nomenclature also used in the seventeenth century. Pál Ráday once asked to speak in the name of the status evangelicus, the estate of the Protestants, causing quite an outcry: “Negatur esse Statum Evangelicum, non datur Status quintus [We deny the existence of a Protestant estate, there is no fifth estate],” came the reply.16 All this took place in

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1712, but it would be repeated in similar fashion in the second phase of the diet, almost three years later. During the debate on the cession of the Muraköz region to Croatia, Pál Ráday raised the case of the Protestants living there who stood to lose their right to practice their religion. The bishop of Veszprém asked him in whose name he was speaking, to which he replied that his objection was “in his own name and in the name of all the other Protestant deputies.” His statement was received with general uproar, and Ráday was not allowed to continue.17 The Protestants raised their objections at the debate on religious affairs on 19 July with gusto, citing their status as an estate. This resolution does not come from all the estates—so said Gábor Skaricza in 1715, on behalf of the Protestants, of the petition listing grievances by Protestants to Catholics, insisting that the Protestants were an estate. Pál Ráday said much the same during the debate on the legal status of Debrecen, adding that for this reason no legislation could be passed without Protestant agreement.18 We find a parallel for this appearance of the status evangelicus among the institutions of the Holy Roman Empire. In line with the stipulations of the Treaty of Westphalia, if a religious issue came up in the Reichstag, then the deliberations would be broken up, and the Protestants and the Catholics would continue their sessions separately (itio ad partes) to ensure that the majority confession would not be able to coerce the minority one. For the two sides had to reach agreement (amicabilis compositio).19 The Corpus Evangelicorum was formed in 1653 under the presidency of the elector of Saxony. It supervised the religious issue and submitted requests to the emperor, the imperial estates, and the chief courts of the Holy Roman Empire. Deputies of the Protestant estates gathered at the lodgings of the deputy of the elector of Saxony for separate meetings.20 The Corpus Catholicorum was established later than the Corpus Evangelicorum21 and operated less regularly, as the emperor and most of the imperial estates were Catholic.22 There was less need for it, it was less organized, and thus it also held less political weight.23 The Catholics at the German imperial assembly were rarely able to shrug off the label of being the emperor’s party, and the common interests of the imperial estates rarely brought them to a united platform at odds with the emperor. Although in Hungary there was in fact a legal basis for the existence of this Protestant status,24 attacks on it did not cease in the eighteenth century. In 1709 the Catholic majority of the labanc diet, in a debate on the Protestant version of the wording of a petition, complained that “the Protestants, by their old custom and the law, called themselves the “Protestant estates,’” arguing that there were only four estates and that “there is no room for a fifth estate.”25 The primate explained to court chief chancellor Cardinal Philipp Ludwig von Sinzendorf in 1722 that the Protestants could not claim to be “a communitas, much less a corpus.”26 In 1750 Padányi Biró denied in one of his works that the Protestants formed an estate.27 We can still encounter this formulation as late as 1790. In the

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districts of the Tibiscan counties, the two sides in the religious debate exchanged documents stating their positions. The Protestants signed theirs as “status evangelicus.”28 The minority Protestants wanted to appear as an estate, as they saw this as the suitable framework for protecting their interests. The Catholics, on the other hand, were naturally reluctant to define themselves as merely a Catholic estate on a par with the Protestant one, and, as the majority, they wanted to continue to defend their confessional interests while wishing to act in the name of all Hungary’s estates.

Vienna as the Defender of the Protestant Estates The Protestants would often run to Vienna looking for support on affairs of a religious nature. In his memoirs, Pál Ráday writes that in 1712 he was acting as spokesman for the Protestant cause before the king both in Pressburg and in Vienna.29 On 7 October 1714 the Protestant estates sent two representatives to Charles VI with a memorandum.30 Between 1712 and 1715 the Protestants at the diet generally hoped that on the question of religion they might receive support from Charles VI at the expense of the clergy and the upper house. At the session on 27 March 1715, for example, Pál Okolicsányi announced in the lower house that on the issue of religious legislation the Protestants reserved the right to turn to the king. This would eventually take place on 8 April. Their trust was well founded, and the king did indeed have a moderating effect on events.31 According to Joachim Bahlcke, the reason that Charles VI distanced himself from the Catholic hierarchy in Hungary was because he wanted to glean the Protestants’ support for the Pragmatica Sanctio. For example, a strongly antiProtestant pamphlet by Gábor Erdődy, bishop of Eger, was banned by royal order in 1721. Though this is not indicative of anti-Catholicism—in 1725 (i.e. after the Pragmatica Sanctio had been accepted) Erdődy was given an appointment as a privy councilor—the government’s policy continued to be more favorable to Protestants than to the radical Catholic approach. So it was in well-founded hope that the Protestants turned to the court for support. On 14 June 1721 the Prussian ambassador to Vienna wrote in his report that the deputation of the Hungarian Protestants had arrived at court with its petition. Although the council of lieutenancy banned all collective protests on religious issues in 1745, in July 1749 a deputation of Protestants led by Gábor Prónay nevertheless appeared before Maria Theresa to protest about the repressive practices of Catholic prelates and landowners.32 Because of this—and in an exchange of roles compared to the seventeenth century—the Catholic majority would sometimes defend the rights of the estates against the Protestants hoping for support from the king. With regard to the sta-

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tus of Debrecen, Ráday cited the king’s rights, which were more significant than an agreement, meaning that the ruler could at any time order that the Catholic priests and monks be allowed to enter Debrecen if he considered this necessary. (By which he meant: it was pointless to legislate for this.) The bishop of Nyitra represented the opposing view to Ráday’s, namely that a law had to be passed on the matter, one that could only rest on the coordinated will of the king and the nation.33 It was not only in 1714 that most arguments at the diet were about religion34: they would generate a scandal as late as 1728–29. Henrik Marczali tells of the greatest furor as follows. Toward the end of the diet, a committee was sent to distribute the annual war tax among the counties and cities, and its Protestant members, deputies Sámuel Sembery and Pál Katona, were not willing to swear an oath to Holy Mary and the saints, only to the Holy Trinity. The Catholic majority appealed to the royal commissioners that the ruler oblige the Protestants by resolution to take the oath, but in the meantime new members of the committee were selected in their place. Deputies András Szentpétery and György Eördögh, who also refused to take the oath, were brought before the diet in its function as a court of justice. Gábor Erdődy, bishop of Eger (who, alongside Count Michael Friedrich von Althann, cardinal and bishop of Vác, was leader of the impatient wing of the clergy35), delivered a speech in response to which the procedure was immediately set in motion against Szentpétery and Eördögh, but as they would not give way, they were both led out of the diet. Count József Esterházy proposed to convict them of refusing the oath on the basis of the stipulations of the Tripartitum. The Lutheran Pál Jeszenák—the diet representative of Eugene of Savoy, who was tolerant of religious affairs36—objected, but the majority sentenced them to a fine of sixty-four forints each. As they intended to appeal to Charles VI rather than pay the fine, József Esterházy suggested that they be arrested. In the highly tense atmosphere as they waited for soldiers to arrive, things almost came to blows. Tallián, the deputy from Vas county, had half pulled out his sword, while Radics, the deputy from Bács county, again proposed defenestratio: that the two be thrown out of the window. They did relent in the end—first Eördögh, then Szentpétery—offering to pay the fine, but this did not prevent a further three Protestant deputies from being charged for refusing to swear the oath. They were also to be judged by the diet, but this never actually took place. At the request of one of them—István Kenessey, deputy of Veszprém—Charles VI published an ordinance in which he abolished these proceedings and annulled the earlier conviction.37 He accepted the oath taken to the Holy Trinity and sent word to the diet that it should busy itself with the fair distribution of taxes, not with the oath.38 The committee established by article 30 of 1715, the so-called commissio of Pest, was only convened on 1 November 1720 and only started its sessions some

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five months later. This continued until August 1721, then began again on 20 February 1722. Its submission was the basis for Charles VI’s decision of 12 June 1723.39 Substantive regulation would only come later, however. As this committee on religious affairs was not able to make any progress because of its confessional divisions,40 the estates had no option but to pass the right to decide on this issue on to the ruler. It was only after the religious debates of the diet of 1728–29 that Charles VI saw the time as right for this, and on 21 March 1731 he published his final resolutio. The open and the secret dispositions it included, which heavily restricted the Protestant practice of religion, retained their authority for half a century. The ruler’s resolution of 28 April 1714 pronounced the validity of the articles of 1681 and 1687 (at least for the time being), as interpreted by the explanatory royal decrees of 1691 and 1701, which in the eleven western and northern Hungarian counties limited the Protestant practice of religion to the so-called “articular places” listed in the decretum. Also, by ignoring the prescriptions of the Treaties of Vienna (1606) and of Linz (1645), the landlords’ right of advowson was given space to assert itself, and Protestant practice of religion was not acknowledged in the territories regained from the Ottomans.41 In 1731 the Carolina Resolutio revived the religious laws of 1681 and 1687, but, again, as interpreted by the Explanatio Leopoldina of 1691. In the western and northern counties, Protestants could only publicly practice their religion in the “articular places,” but in the “privileged” counties of the former frontier territories, the free practice of religion demonstrably active before 1681 could remain; this more tolerant regulation, or even more accommodating treatment, could be found in the areas formerly occupied by the Ottomans. As they were required to take an oath to Holy Mary and the saints, Protestants were excluded from holding state, county, or city office.42 (If Protestants were in the majority in a certain county or city, it was possible to circumvent the rules.) In this period, too, the cause of the Hungarian Protestants enjoyed considerable international support. As a result, in 1720–21 the Hungarian primate, Christian August, prince of Saxe-Zeitz, who sat in the Reichstag in Regensburg as an imperial high commissioner, came under intense pressure from the Protestant Corpus Evangelicorum. It was rare, however, for this body to turn to the imperial court on behalf of the Hungarian Protestants. This task was more often undertaken by the ambassador of the ruler of the leading Protestant German state, the king of Prussia. He would not usually be successful, but Prussian foreign policy would at least make clever use of the cause of the Hungarian Protestants as material for propaganda. Characteristically, the number of times the Corpus Evangelicorum took such steps was greater in the eighteenth century than it had been in the seventeenth, which, paradoxically, is a reflection of how confessionalism was being taken off the agenda and becoming a mere point of reference for the politics of power.43

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Taking Religious Divisions off the Agenda In his report dated 23 September 1722, the Prussian ambassador to Vienna already expressed his opinion that the good name of the Hungarian diet was being damaged by its religious divisions getting out of hand.44 The question being taken off the diet’s agenda was a key factor in the development of the “national” opposition of the estates led by the county deputies. After the diet of 1728–29, the diet was no longer dominated by religious conflicts. As early as the start of the eighteenth century, a “national” cause had occasionally been able to bring the Hungarian estates together. After the Croatian estates separately accepted the Pragmatica Sanctio in 1712, Count Imre Esterházy, bishop of Zagreb and the key voice behind this initiative, was greeted with disdain at the diet and became the target of attacks from secular and religious deputies alike. It was only Christian August, prince of Saxe-Zeitz, archbishop of Esztergom, who prevented him from being cast out. According to the report of the royal commissioners, Count Miklós Pálffy, the palatine, engaged in a fierce exchange with him at the plenary session. The Hungarian estates made plain their displeasure to the Croatian deputies, especially to the ecclesiastical ones.45 But these influences capable of integrating the Hungarian estates would at the start of the century come into conflict with the centrifugal force of their religious differences. It is characteristic of the times that in 1728–29 Count József Esterházy, the champion of the opposition, exposed himself in the colors of the Catholic extremists in the furor around the oaths not sworn by the Protestant committee members. Esterházy is a good example of the causal connection: as religious issues were taken off the main agenda, a new bond was forged between the estates. It is evident that for all the popularity Esterházy gained among the Protestants with the issue of tax exemption for the nobility, his actions by the end of the diet had lost him their respect entirely. It is hard to overstate the significance of this incident not being repeated for a full six decades. This is why it is the model of dualism of king and estates that best fits the political arena of the last century of the Hungarian ancien régime. The problematic religious factor was no longer present to distort the polarity of king and estates. The conflict between the Corpus Evangelicorum and the Corpus Catholicorum was to blame for the fact that the Reichstag could not simply be characterized with the “ruler contra estates” antithesis.46 The diet can only be described in this way when the issues of religion have been taken off the agenda. Investigating the pre-1740 estates of the hereditary lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, Winfred Schulze shows that in this period the Protestant nobility had no choice but to make a political issue out of its religion, and thus all other divisions were squeezed into the “narrow channel of theology,” to use Joel Hurstfield’s phrase.47 So when politics at the Hungarian diet was freed of this burden after

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Figure 3.1. Prince Primate of the Hungarian Catholic Church, archbishop of Esztergom, formerly bishop of Zagreb, Count Imre Esterházy (1663–1745), engraved by Jeremias Gottlob Rugendas (1740 or 1741). Courtesy of the University Library and Archives of Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest), KEP07662.

1729, the opposition provided by the estates could establish a wide front. This front was broadened even further by a later change to the relationship between the most loyal political factor in the diet—the clergy—and the government. In the second half of the century the cloud of a growing list of divisions would cast its shadow over the relationship between the bishops and the ruler. These problems were revealed at the diet of 1764–65.

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That the confessional divisions would retreat into the shadows in the course of the eighteenth century was of course the product of many factors. The spread of religious tolerance in the century of the Enlightenment is undeniable. The assembly of Somogy County, for example, at the initiative of supremus comes Baron Károly Sigray, a Catholic, commissioned an investigation in 1774 into the complaints of Calvinists and particularly those of Calvinist preachers. The supremi judices nobilium held public hearings, recorded minutes, and produced reports. But the bishopric of Veszprém protested against the investigation, which was halted without having any consequences.48 The religious issue did not return to the agenda of the diet before 1790. But a good example of how the significance of confessional identity had not declined by the last years of the eighteenth century is how membership of the committee sent by the districts of the Tibiscan counties to prepare a diploma inaugurale for Leopold II was carefully carved up between Catholics and Protestants (just as it was among the estates): three of the county deputies in the committee were Catholic, two Lutheran, and two Calvinist, while of the city deputies two were Catholic and two Calvinist.49 And when debates on religion would begin again at the diet, these were testament to how the confessional divisions had not in fact died down. The Lutherans and Calvinists continued to submit proposals to defend the “rights and privileges of the status evangelicus.” The religious issue even divided the districts. The two districts on the Tisza River saw local Catholic nobles register their objections to the positions of the Protestant majority.50 Emotions ran high on subjects like conversion, which court of justice should try matrimonial cases for those in mixed marriages, and the religion of the children born to them.51 Pastor József Keresztesi wrote of the “Roman clergy,” “The religious hatred always remains in them, and there is no truer saying than that ‘you shouldn’t believe a Papist!’”52 Béla J. Téglás, reviewing pamphlet literature, compared this diet to those of 1662 and 1728 on account of the great number of anticlerical pasquils and the ferocity of religious debates.53 A poem from the diet begins a list of the Catholic party with the words, “The devil begat Szily, Szily begat Boronkay, Boronkay begat Szent-Iványi,” and, through the Danubian and Tibiscan districts and the mixed committee, the list gets to the primate, who is of course just one step from Beelzebub.54 The diet did not, that is, become more united by 1790–91 on the issue of religion; indeed, it had to leave this matter up to the king, as it had done in 1712–15.55 Yet it is clear that the diet was not dominated by the confessional question.56 What changed from 1715 to 1790 was not the smoothing out of differences but the reduction of the significance of the religious problem as a whole—at least from the point of view of politics at the diet. The events of 1790 show how important it would be that the diets after 1715 could no longer deal with the religious issue, and that after 1729 the confessional divisions could not even briefly dominate the diet. For these divisions seem every

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bit as clear-cut in 1790. The king was able to take control of the right to decide on this confessional question after the diet of 1728–29, and that appeared to increase his power vis-à-vis the estates. Yet in the long run, the effect would be the opposite. The unbridgeable nature of the confessional divisions of the estates in the early eighteenth century would in the short term increase the ruler’s room for maneuver with respect to the estates, as the religious question was regulated not with a law born of a mutual determination of estates and king but rather by his unilateral decision. In the long run, however, it nevertheless had the effect that by the middle of the century other questions could rise to the foreground of the diet’s political arena, namely the issue of tax exemption for nobles and the level of the contribution. The diet of 1764–65 was characterized by the united front of the usually oppositional Protestant deputies and the Catholics, and even the aulic Catholic clergy, who, after the attack from Ádám Kollár’s book, would organize themselves to defend their privileges—without any visible confessional disharmony.57

Notes 1. P. Tusor, “Felekezetszerveződés a kora újkorban,” Vigilia 73(1) (2008): 12–18; G. Kármán, “A konfesszionalizáció hasznáról és káráról: Egy paradigma margójára,” in Felekezeti társadalom—felekezeti műveltség: A Hajnal István Kör 2011. évi győri konferenciájának kötete, ed. A. Lukács (Budapest, 2013), 27–40. Cf. H. Schilling, Konfessionskonflikt und Staatsbildung: Eine Fallstudie über das Verhältnis von religiösem und sozialem Wandel in der Frühneuzeit am Beispiel der Grafschaft Lippe (Gütersloh, 1981); W. Reinhard, “Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen Zeitalters,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 10 (1983): 257–77. 2. Zsilinszky, Az 1708-ki, 62. 3. 700.497, 130 and 134. 4. Simonyi, Angol diplomatiai iratok, 3:382, 385. 5. M. Zsilinszky, A magyar országgyűlések vallásügyi tárgyalásai a reformatiotól kezdve, 4 vols. (Budapest, 1880–97), 4:431. 6. 700.503, 44–45. 7. Zsilinszky, Az országgyűlések vallásügyi, 4:331. 8. Balogh, “Ráday Pál,” 55. 9. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 19. 10. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 221. 11. 700.497, 201–5; 700.499-IV, 185 and 197. 12. The diary of Sopron consul Ferdinánd Dobner serves as a detailed source for the deliberations held in 1708 on the matter of the Calvinist and Lutheran confessions. (Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.499-III: Diaria diaetae annis 1708, 1709, 1710, 1712, 1714/5. Posonii celebratae. III. Dobnerianum 1708/9, 1710, 1714/5.—Diarium generalis regni Hungariae diaetae a sacratissima caesarea majestati Josepho I imperatore et rege pro die 29 februarii anni 1708 in liberam regiam civitatem Posoniensem primum indictae dein per Carolum VI impe-

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13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

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ratorem et regem pro inscipienda sui inauguratione in dominicam in albis anni 1712 denuo convocate, ac postremum in diem 15 januarii 1715 continuative promulgatae et conclusae, per Ferdinandum Dobner civitatis Soproniensis consulem et ad diaetam ablegatum concinnatum, 111ff.) Cf. Zsilinszky, Az 1708-ki, 63. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 221–22. Cf. Balogh, “Ráday Pál,” 55. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 12. MOL N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 6: M.G. Kovachich: Diaria diaetalia VI. 1687, 1708–15, 1722. (The original is from the archive of Bártfa; no page numbering.) Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 5. Balogh, “Ráday Pál,” 62. Ibid., 63, 64, 96. Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1:132; Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 215; G. Haug-Moritz, “Corpus Evangelicorum und deutscher Dualismus,” in Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit? ed. V. Press and D. Stieverman (München, 1995), 190–91; Neuhaus, Das Reich, 42–43; Schindling, Die Anfänge, 26. Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1:140. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 52–53. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 215. Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1:132; Neuhaus, Das Reich, 42–43. See pre-coronation article 3 of 1608. Zsilinszky, Az országgyűlések vallásügyi, 4:390. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 202. Ibid., 230. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:226. Pál Ráday’s diary, in K. Benda et al. (eds), Ráday Pál iratai, 1703–1706 (Budapest, 1955), 41. A Dunamelléki Református Egyházkerület Ráday Levéltára [Ráday Archives of the Dunamellék Calvinist Diocese]. A Ráday család levéltára. IV. Ráday I. Pál iratai IV.f Politikai iratok. 5. szám: Ráday Pál országgyűlési naplója, 1714. szeptember 8—1715. március 31. [Ráday Family Archives, the papers of Pál I. Ráday, political papers, No. 5: The parliamentary diary of Pál I. Ráday, 8 September 1714—31 March 1715], 5. Balogh, “Ráday Pál,” 61–62, 65. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 202–8, 225–26. Balogh, “Ráday Pál,” 69. J. Illéssy, Gróf Koháry István élete és munkái: Irodalomtörténeti tanulmány (Karcag, 1885), 44. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 220. Ibid., 220. H. Marczali, Magyarország története III. Károlytól a bécsi congressusig (1711–1815) (Budapest, 1898), 126–28. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 223–24. Ibid., 221–22. E. Mályusz, Magyarország története a felvilágosodás korában, ed. I. Soós (Budapest, 2002), 296–98; Illéssy, Koháry István, 45. Mályusz, Magyarország története, 281–83, 292–94. D. Kosáry, Művelődés a XVIII. századi Magyarországon, 2nd ed. (Budapest, 1983), 81–82.

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43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

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Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 215–24. Ibid., 204–5. Ibid., 125. Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1:132. Schulze, “Ständewesen,” 273. E. Tóth, A belsősomogyi református egyházmegye Mária Terézia korában (Kaposvár, 1940), 9–12, 84. MOL N56, 3:48–49. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.447: Spectantia ad acta anni 1790–91, 347–54, 361. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:222–96. S. Hoffer, Krónika, 267. Téglás, A történeti pasquillus, 127. Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Kézirattár [National Széchényi Library, Manuscript Archive], Fol. Lat. 4073: Országgyűlési versek, 1765–1823, 43. The reference is probably to József Szily, deputy of Pest County, but maybe to János Szily, bishop of Szombathely. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:262; G. Pajkossy, “Az abszolutizmus és a rendiség utolsó küzdelmei: Az első reformtörekvések (1790–1830),” in 19. századi magyar történelem, 1790–1918, ed. A. Gergely (Budapest, 1998), 136. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:221, 296. Téglás, A történeti pasquillus, 113.

Chapter 4

TAXES AND PRIVILEGES

d I

n 1728–29 it was not only the clarity of confessional divisions that was tangible but also the whole diet’s fierce opposition to what was still a distant threat from the ruler, namely to end the tax exemption for the nobility. The main debates at the diet at the start of this second period of the eighteenth century surrounded noble tax exemptions and the level of annual contribution. As confessional disputes left the diet’s political stage, giving way to “estates contra ruler,” this period can successfully be approached with the model of the dualism of king and estates. Yet the sharpening of the differences between Hungary’s ruler and her estates can only be observed in the second half of the eighteenth century.

The Concursus and the Diet It might have been the most important prerogative for the estates present at the diet, but until the publication of article 19 of 1791, the right to set taxes had only been established by article 1 of 1504 (repeated in article 12 of 1681). And this article was not entirely unambiguous. It stated that a tax (“contributio or subsidium”) could only be set at the diet “with the mutual agreement of the prelates and barons and the country’s other nobles”—because since 1453 they had considered the participation of the lesser nobility to be necessary for the levying of a tax, which is why the place for this was the diet1—but the primary intention of this article of law was to restrict the jurisdiction for setting the tax to the diet. The emphasis is on the place, not on the fact that only the estates can set tax—in principle, that is, other alternatives might also have been conceivable, not only the estates’ interpretation. The chancellery would later refute the statement in

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József Hajnóczy’s work Public Law Appraisal of the Limits to Royal Power in Hungary (1791) that the king was not allowed to levy a tax that had not been voted for.2 Nevertheless, the practice of the diet setting tax continued almost without interruption from 1526 to the middle of the seventeenth century. After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the diet exercised its right to levy taxes by voting for an annual contribution that was collected only once. With time, the war tax would be set not for just the one year but in advance for the next year too. The principle of setting the level of tax to be valid until the following diet (according to the norm, to be held within the following three years) had already appeared, and was being used, but only for additional, less significant forms of taxation. A not insignificant part of the taxes was paid by the nobles and by members of groups that could for this purpose be put in the same category as the nobles. Contribution to be paid in kind appeared in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the sending of soldiers instead of financial taxes also came to the fore; later, the right of the diet to levy taxes would also decline. It was with the unconstitutional3 governmental system following the Wesselényi Conspiracy that the automatic form of taxation, bypassing the diet, would begin. From the 1680s government taxes were first authorized by aristocrats and the palatine, then by the body of the estates called the concursus, which was in fact a diet with limited representation, authority, and jurisdiction. Counties and cities would then be informed of the levied amount through a decree from the chancellery. The collection of the tax was increasingly a task for the military: it would be collected in money or in kind—often with violence, and not uncommonly many times the amount levied.4 At this time the concursus did not actually levy the tax; it was only responsible for the way it would be divided. It was rare for the concursus to reject the repartition of the entire amount of tax levied by the king. Under the influence of the Rákóczi War of Independence, however, the government had no option but to return to constitutional forms, and a new practice in taxation would come to pass: the levying of taxes was returned to the estates, as Joseph I left this task to the concursus. His rescript of 16 May 1709 also states that if, in the event of attack from an enemy or because of the present war, it is not possible for the diet to levy the tax, then the estates assembled for the diet should send out commissioners with whom it would be possible to agree on the tax. The concursus could be a deputation of the diet, as in 1709 when the diet again did not debate the tax, leaving this to the concursus. In the royal rescript of 20 February 1710, the government repeated its wish that a license to levy tax be given to the concursus. Although, maintaining the general rights of the diet, this would in principle have been restricted to special circumstances, this text already reveals the intention for the concursus to become a permanent and primary forum for levying tax. In their response dated 21 August 1710, the estates accepted the institution of the concursus by listing who would participate in it. In fact, they desired to stretch its boundaries enough to turn it into a miniature diet.5

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The innovation of article 8 of 1715 was to determine that payment of a contribution to fund the maintenance of a permanent army should be decided at the diet “where, as it is known, it belongs in any case.” This emphasis is telling, as we well know that for many decades the Hungarian estates were unable to exercise this right. This is what article 8 of 1715 is really about: in practice, what is new is that only the diet could set the contribution, not the existence of a standing army that had already been around for quite a while. The strength of this article was spoiled, however, by the condition that in the event of an attack by an enemy, a concursus could be held to set the war tax, and in the following years (with the exception of 1716, when there was no concursus, and Charles VI ordered the collection of the tax levied the previous year) this is what happened, even though there was no war. The diet of 1722–23 itself dealt with tax. It levied an amount of 2.138 million forints, which was valid not just for one year but until there was another diet.6 The setting of tax from one diet to the next appears in the opinion given by the chancellery on the Systema militare, as a previously unknown procedure. Furthermore, the chancellery wanted to give the right to levy tax to the diet rather than the concursus.7 In the diet’s response petition to the royal propositions, in addition to submitting many wishes, this element was given approval. (This petition would also criticize the practice of having a concursus every year, when it stated that “the state of emergency explained in article 8 of 1715 has completely disappeared.”8) In this way, after a hiatus of many decades, the practice of the prerogative of the estates to levy tax would return to the forum of the diet. Henceforth the king had the right to collect the tax as voted on by the diet until there was another diet. As the estates gave up their right of levying an annual tax each year, they were granted in return the possibility of setting the amount of contribution in cash and not in tranches, the military unit for the supply of soldiers and their horses. Examining the institution of the eighteenth-century concursus, and concentrating on its bargaining position compared with that of the diet, we are not given a clear picture. In 1713 and 1714 the concursus withstood the pressure put upon it, and despite royal requests to do so, was not willing to raise the annual contribution of seventy thousand tranches.9 In 1719, by contrast, the concursus did not even levy the final amount of the war tax, as even at the last session it pleaded for a reduction.10 The same happened a year later, as at the end of 1721 the concursus again complained that the participants in the past year had not levied more than seventy thousand, yet they collected eighty-five thousand tranches.11 The level of tax that was collected later was not the product of a process of negotiation, but—according to the report of the deputy from Somogy County—the king informed the palatine that he was willing to reduce the amount by only five thousand tranches.12 Here, too, what mattered was the degree to which the ruler was willing to reduce his demands, more than how much the concursus was willing to raise its offer.

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Because of this, we might think that the concursus had a weaker hand in the negotiations than the diet did, if we were not aware that the diet’s levying of the tax did not mean that this amount would be all that was actually collected. The diet’s right to levy tax had already suffered setbacks even before the diet of 1728–29, when the council of lieutenancy decided on the amount by which the annual tax burden would go up, only for the lower house again to be forced to accept the “absolute will” of Charles VI despite the majority voting against it.13 In the first third of the eighteenth century, that is, the right to levy tax was not solidly in the hands of Hungary’s estates. Indeed, its implementation did not primarily depend on the institution within which this was done. In terms of how representative it was and how effectively it could stand up to power, a concursus was not fundamentally different from the diet. The position of the concursus could be solid (as in 1713 or 1714) and that of the diet weak (as in 1728 and directly before it). The reform of 1722 made the diet the exclusive holder of the right to levy the basic tax of the country, but it stated that the war tax could be collected for many years until the next diet was held, and thus, ultimately, it turned the diet’s right to levy taxes into the right to increase them. This change was not because the estates would have been happier seeing their right to levy taxes placed in the hands of the diet than in those of the yearly concursus. We can best understand the reform as part of the process by which the estates, so strong at the start of the century, saw its standing decline. The crown, seeing its situation becoming stronger, might have once seen it as more favorable to negotiate a tax amount that could be collected for decades to come (there would later be examples of this), even if this meant accepting the estates’ reading of the constitution, namely that the right to levy taxes could only be practiced by the estates present at the diet. (This constitutional notion, which by this time the Habsburgs had been constantly casting doubt on for many decades, was slightly expanded upon by article 8 of 1715.) In any case, the diet of 1708–15 showed no sign of wanting to take the levying of tax into its own hands, and the reform of 1722 was the initiative of the chancellery. We can consider the next period, from 1724 to 1737, as one of transition, in which this new taxation system would become consolidated.

Contribution and Other State Income Although the specialist literature presents variable data for the late seventeenth century and the turn of the eighteenth century, it is evident that the Rákóczi War of Independence not only brought the Hungarian estates back to political power, as clearly displayed by the restoration of the prerogative of levying taxes, but also had a highly favorable outcome for the misera plebs contribuens, the tax-paying

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poor, as the annual tax burden fell from a range of 2–7 million forints (or, using the most likely data, 3–4 million forints) at the turn of the eighteenth century to 1–2.5 million (most probably 1.5–2 million) by the second decade of the century—in other words, it halved, only then to climb from the aforementioned 2.138 million forints in 1722 gradually up to 2.5 million (1729), 3.2 million (1751), and 3.9 million (1765), and by 1791 to almost 4.5 million.14 Meanwhile the tax burden of the Austrian and Czech provinces was already 7.7 million forints at the start of the century (the average for the years 1706–14).15 That is, in the case of Hungary, the tendencies were just the opposite to those of the other provinces: in 1697 the tax burden of the Kingdom of Hungary was double of that of Bohemia (4 and 2 million forints respectively), but while Joseph II’s population census revealed that Hungary and Transylvania had approximately as many inhabitants as the Austrian and Czech provinces, the latter shouldered 70 percent of the total contribution, and the Hungarian provinces paid only 30 percent thereof.16 While for the large part of the eighteenth century the right to levy the contribution or to increase its annual amount was the most important weapon at the disposal of the estates, we must not overstate its significance. The forms of taxation linked to the decision of the diet represented only a small part of the Hungarian royal income; that is, only a small part of the income generated in eighteenth-century Hungary was subject to the scrutiny of the estates. Hungary also provided “free labor” (gratuitus labor), which at the diet of 1728–29 was redeemed for the sum of twenty-four thousand forints. This was initially paid separately, then included in the annual war tax. The taxpaying public was obliged to provide horses and carriages (előfogat or Vorspann) for military use, and to deliver tranches; this burden would become only greater as the deployment of the military would be increasingly centralized, and encampment became increasingly common, despite the fact that these tendencies in and of themselves decreased military burdens.17 In 1751 Maria Theresa requested and received an increase to the war tax of two hundred thousand forints in return for the abolition of “free labor” and an end to summer hay tax and to the obligatory provision of horses and carriages. The county had no choice but to use its own budget to cover the loss generated by food and supplies having to be sold at a lower price, as listed in the military regulations, than it cost to source them. At the time of Joseph II, this loss, the deperdita, could come up to half a million forints, alongside a contribution of four and a half million forints.18 The Hungarian Chamber made the sale of salt a state monopoly from 1690; from early 1699, its distribution would be in the hands of the chamber.19 According to Gyula Szekfű, in 1748 the income from salt reached a million forints. Added to this was the income of the unfilled archbishopric of Esztergom (100,000 forints); all told, the royal incomes from customs duties,

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mining, and other monopolies in Hungary, Transylvania, the Banat, and Slavonia came to 1,904,000 forints.20 In 1763 the net profit from the salt monopoly was almost half a million forints,21 while income from salt in Hungary, taken together with the Banat, reached 3,080,400 forints and 45 krajcár (Kreuzer) in the military year 1786, 2,643,391 forints and 30 krajcár in 1787, and 3,553,797 and 50 krajcár in 1789.22 We know from the research of Gusztáv Heckenast that, thanks to the reconstruction by Charles VI, the silver mines of the chamber county of Selmecbánya generated an annual income of a million forints at their peak in the mid-1740s, and even at the end of the decade this figure was almost half a million. Between 1779 and 1786 Selmecbánya silver continued to be the most important, when mining production in lower Hungary totaled half a million forints per annum.23 The tolerance tax levied on Jews was 20,000 forints from 1749 to 1754, then 25,000 from 1755 to 1759, and 30,000 from 1760 onward. In 1771 it was raised to 100,000 forints, but had to be reduced, retrospectively, to 50,000. From 1779 Jews had to pay 80,000 forints a year.24 It is clear that, alongside the war tax that formed part of the diet bargaining process, the king of Hungary’s other incomes added up to a considerable sum. This is shown by the overall figures in the literature. According to István Nagy, between 1768 and 1770, on average, around half of Hungary’s state income was provided by war tax.25 According to contemporary statisticians, of the ruler’s overall annual income of 42 million forints in the early nineteenth century, compared to a war tax of 5.6 million forints in 1809–10 (and a one-off subsidium of almost 10 million forints levied in 1807), income from crown domains and the royal income from taxes, mining, and other monopolies reached 23 million forints a year.26 Looking at the issue from the other side, we should mention that around 1715 the war tax covered no more than a third of the annual costs of 5–6 million forints of supplying the army of almost 42,000 stationed in the country, and when in 1741 Hungary first attempted fully to fund an army, it only undertook to cover half this many (21,622) infantrymen and specifically on a one-off basis, and using discounted tranches for the calculations.27 The military regulamentum of 1716 states that the cost of keeping 10 infantry regiments, 19 cavalry regiments and 10 more companies in Hungary over the winter of 1719–20 was 2,122,050 forints.28 This in itself was more than the entire war tax income of the time, even though it represented only one half of the year, albeit the more expensive half. This illuminates the same fact from the other side: we must not overstate the significance of the tax amount levied by the diet, or the importance of the prerogative of the estates to levy tax. In short, both the entire income, on the one side, and the cost of supplying the army stationed in the country, on the other, can have been about two or three times the amount of the contribution.

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The Army, Financial Affairs, and the Estates It makes sense to compare state or royal income with military expenditures, as the key goal of the state in the early modern period was the provision of the greatest possible military force, and the development of the state is best understood in terms of its army. In Central Europe the appearance of the princes’ standing armies, which would definitively upset the balance of the dualism of king and estates, was mostly associated with the Thirty Years’ War.29 Financial administration at the local and regional level would remain in the hands of the estates for a long time, however. That it was noble officials who assessed and collected taxes would often be more important that the right of the diets to levy them.30 But we should not overstate these positions of the estates.31 The estates were able to make political capital of these opportunities to differing degrees, depending on the region. So, in the collection and levying of taxes, early modern Hungary displays the same general trends in Central Europe true of its direct Western neighbors within the same monarchy: the extensive control of the estates in the sixteenth century, narrowing tasks and rights in the seventeenth, and the dominance of the prince’s power in the eighteenth. During the period of the Ottoman wars, the estates not only levied taxes in the Austrian hereditary lands, but also spent them—on arranging and paying for the military defense of the territory. Then in the seventeenth century, military affairs fell increasingly under the aegis of the prince, while the estates had no option but to levy taxes for prolonged periods in advance: taxes were levied for twelve years in Lower Austria from 1689, and in Upper Austria from 1701. Despite the estates retaining their right to collect taxes, their political room to maneuver was considerably reduced.32 The Bohemian estates hardly used their right to levy taxes as a political weapon, if at all: they would immediately agree to any increase in tax requested by the ruler, whether for one year or as many as ten years.33 All of these tendencies can also be found in seventeenth-century Hungarian history, something we thus do not necessarily have to explain with such specific reasons as the failure of the Wesselényi Conspiracy or the restriction of the estates’ privileges in the wake of this after 1670. What really did push Hungary’s development along a separate path within the composite state of the Habsburgs was the compromise between king and country of the early eighteenth century. Both sides had taken on board the lessons of the Rákóczi War of Independence. On the one hand, the Hungarian political elite inferred that it had neither the necessary military strength nor the international support (that might have substituted for this) to achieve Hungarian independence; on the other, the leaders of the monarchy considered that a dissatisfied Hungary could present such a burden on the military forces of the monarchy in the east as to lessen the Habsburgs’ ability to act in the west. As a result, the compromise of Szatmár of 1711 proved

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a long-term success, and the restoration of the dualism of king and estates made the Hungarian political elite a crutch for Habsburg power. The significance of all this became clearest during the War of the Austrian Succession, during which the Hungarian estates did not follow the example of the Czechs, who showed obeisance to Charles Albert; there was thus no threat of Vienna being held in a pincer movement by the cooperation of French and Bavarian troops progressing through the Danube valley and rebel Hungarian kuruc forces attacking from the east. After the War of the Austrian Succession, Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz restructured the monarchy’s finances and administration. The objective was the far more efficient use of the monarchy’s resources in order to quickly increase its military strength. In the hereditary lands, Haugwitz asked the estates to levy an increased tax in advance for a period of ten years in such a way that they paid for part of it. Though this did not mark the beginning of noble taxation in the Habsburg Monarchy, it was an innovation for nobles and clergy to be paying tax on their income even in peacetime. Furthermore, Haugwitz’s reform took military and tax administration, previously mostly in the hands of the estates (and thus less efficient), into state hands. Also, financial and public administration in the Czech and Habsburg provinces were merged along the Prussian model.34 Thus the chancellery, which had immediate authority, but hitherto had not had a direct interest in the collection of taxes, was combined with the office of the chamber, which had been responsible for collecting revenues, but had not previously had any real power.35 As a result, between the two wars, Maria Theresa doubled her income,36 and the army went from hardly more than 100,000 in 1741 to 200,000 in 1757.37 Despite the best efforts of “modernization through militarization,” to use Michael Hochedlinger’s term,38 it did not prove possible to retake Silesia in the Seven Years’ War, as Prussia was still able to better mobilize its own much more limited resources. In this period Kaunitz experimented with reforms to develop the economy, which would again be accompanied by institutional changes.39 As the consequence of all of this, from 1763 to the end of Maria Theresa’s rule, the monarchy’s income went from thirty-five to fifty million forints,40 while by 1779 the army had grown to more than three hundred thousand.41 But Hungary was to be left out of both the Haugwitz and the Kaunitz reforms. While the Haugwitz reform—as punishment for the disloyalty it displayed in 1741 and to preempt similar occurrences in future—integrated Bohemia and Moravia more strongly into the monarchy,42 the difference between Hungarian and the so-called hereditary lands has been pronounced ever since the former was left out of the centralizing and consolidating reforms begun in the 1740s43—reforms Peter Dickson refers to as a state coup.44 Thus, as Gyula Szekfű has noted, the Haugwitz reforms represented a turning point in the political development of the Habsburg Monarchy.45

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Figure 4.1. Maria Theresa as Queen of Hungary (1740–80) by unidentified painter (1741), in the Castle of Eggenberg. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

This was when the Hungarian nobility’s exemption from taxes really started to appear anachronistic. In the hereditary lands, all such immunity had finally ceased. Church and noble landowners now paid taxes, even if, on average, only half of what the serfs did.46 In Bohemia the tax exemption of the nobility and the clergy had already been undermined in the first decades of the century by special

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taxes, and now both groups would be subject to direct taxation on a regular basis.47 Previously, however, taxation of those with privileges had not been limited to the western provinces of the monarchy: in the late seventeenth century, during the period of unconstitutional taxation, this was little different in Hungary too. The Rákóczi War of Independence, which forced Hungarian taxation back into a constitutional framework, acquired the exemption from tax for the nobility that it had previously not enjoyed in Hungary. Thus, while under Leopold I developments in this regard were similar in Hungary and rest of the monarchy, after the Rákóczi War of Independence, and especially after the end of the 1720s, the two followed different paths, leading, after the Haugwitz reforms, to two distinct models. In the middle of the century, Maria Theresa’s efforts to introduce the taxation of the privileged in Hungary were not successful, and so Hungary and the hereditary lands would no longer cross paths. The estates in the western provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy may not have been sidelined, as earlier historiography has argued, and their significance may even have increased—as for example William D. Godsey argues in the case of Lower Austria and the assistance provided by its estates in making the Habsburg Monarchy into a “mature fiscal-military state able to tax and borrow effectively”48—but this cooperative model still represents a path that diverges from that of the Hungarian estates.

Debates at the Diet over the Level of the Contribution In the history of Hungarian taxation, we can consider the period from 1724 to 1737 as the consolidation of the new system of levying taxes. While the right to levy taxes had been that of the diet, and the amount of contribution set could be collected for many years, on one occasion the council of lieutenancy levied an additional tax, and the concursus then convened to pass other additional taxes alongside the annual war tax. In other words, even after the introduction of the new system, we encounter elements that do not square with it—echoes of the old way of doing things. The aforementioned increase in taxes implemented by the council of lieutenancy took place before the diet of 1728–29, contravening the exclusive right to levy taxes that the diet had just negotiated. In 1727 the council of lieutenancy raised the level of the annual contribution set by the diet by 62,000 forints, which was probably followed by a further increase of 62,000 forints in the following year. When the diet was convened in 1728, the lower house demanded that the annual amount of tax be returned to the level agreed in 1722; in the end, however, the diet would accept most of the increase that the council of lieutenancy had instigated, and itself agreed to what was effectively a further tax increase, lifting the total annual tax burden to 2.5 million forints. This was only slightly less than the increase of 400,000 forints requested in the royal propositions.49

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So, although a few years earlier the prerogative of the estates to levy taxes had openly been violated (a fact about which the estates did not remain silent), the debates at the diet show that, as the rights of the estates had not yet become fully established, this was not quite as scandalous a development as it might appear in retrospect. In fact, this instance was reminiscent of when, in 1719 and 1720–21, a higher level of war tax was set than the amount levied by the estates at the concursus.50 Indeed, the composition of the council of lieutenancy was hardly different from that of the concursus. The proposition of the chancellery of 3 March 1729, a response to the diet’s grievance petition of 30 July 1728, alluded to this fact. With regard to this tax increase being objected to by the diet, the chancellery stated that Charles VI would have preferred there to be a decision of the diet on the higher level of taxation required to increase the size of the army. The council of lieutenancy had already been informed of preparations to call a diet, only to reply that there was no time for a diet. Thus the king had no option but to negotiate with this council, which included the palatine, the primate (!) and most of the supremi comites; he would, that is, be taking his request to the “eminent figures of the estates.”51 Charles VI would convene a concursus on a further four occasions. By appealing to the War of the Polish Succession, he would request additional taxes to complement the regular annual tax burden. While in March 1734 the concursus levied an extra tax as 500,000 forints of the 600,000 that had been requested, and in the following year, after a similar request, the tax levied was almost as high (320,000 forints and 170,000 bushels of wheat), in 1736 the estates stressed that the war had ended, even if no peace had been signed, and would only levy a supplementary tax of 200,000 forints. In spring 1737 the king could now merely appeal to the threat of war still being present, and was forced to accept a special additional tax of 150,000 forints instead of the requested 500,000.52 This failure and the very fact of this negotiation was a sign of the strengthening of the estates: the right to levy a war tax or to increase its amount was now firmly in their hands. Henceforth only the diet could raise the annual amount of tax. Márton Szuhányi referred to this concursus in one of his letters four years later: in Vienna it is said that the Hungarians “initially act tough on things, but in the end agree to everything,” but in 1737 they could learn that was not the case.53 By the 1730s the concursus had become a diet in miniature, thus (as far as the king was concerned) losing the advantages it had previously offered relative to the diet. We can clearly trace the dialogue of petitions and royal rescripts, the appearance of grievances, and the growing dominance of the county deputies. It was no longer easier to negotiate with the concursus than it had been with the diet. We can presume that the unusual ineffectiveness from a government perspective of the concursus of 1737 can have been the reason that Charles VI never convened another one, despite the Turkish War soon appearing at the monarchy’s southern border and thereby the legal requirements for the summoning of a concursus to be in place.

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The tax levied by the diet of 1741 deviated from the norm. As part of announcing the noble levy (insurrectio), Hungary also established six infantry regiments. Nobles were required to enroll in person or by proxy. Article 63 of 1741 also obliged landowners to send cavalrymen. The infantry, organized into regular regiments, was funded by Hungary’s annual war tax. Their number (21,622 infantrymen in total) was lower than the 30,000 offered in the Vitam et sanguinem! scene of 11 September 1741 because only the lower number could be covered by the actual contribution. The intention was precisely that Hungary would not accept any further burden than the noble levy involving nobles in person (or by proxy) and the sending of an approximately 5,000-strong cavalry; all that happened was that the usual annual contribution was made not with money but “with infantrymen.”54 This did not become a permanent practice; Hungary would later return to making the contribution in monetary terms. In 1751 the government wished to increase the war tax by 1 million forints, and so at the diet it requested 1.2 million forints. The response petition of 3 June of that year rejected this. The insistence of the royal resolution in response and the prospect of the queen attending to Hungary’s financial grievances provoked fierce debate. The majority wished to debate the grievances first, but, only four days after submitting some of these, they levied an additional annual tax amounting to 300,000 forints, with certain conditions. At the insistence of the upper house, the lower house later increased its offer to half a million forints. The queen’s rescript to this petition came six days later, on 6 July, accepting the Hungarian estates’ tax increase. To fulfil the estates’ previous conditions, however (separating these from their original offer), Maria Theresa submitted a further request to the diet: in return for foregoing “free labor,” the summer hay tax, and the obligation to provide horses and carriages, she asked for a further 200,000-forint increase in war taxes. She again urged Hungary’s estates to accept this on 7 July. In their petition dated 15 July, the estates finally satisfied this request, raising their offer of a total tax increase to 700,000 forints; this Maria Theresa definitively accepted a week later. With this the annual contribution in Hungary rose to 3.2 million forints;55 from 1751, taken together with the war tax and fortress construction funds of Lower Slavonia (the counties of Pozsega, Verőce, and Szerém), the total Hungarian tax would be rounded up to approximately 3.3 million forints.56 The diet, already highly dissatisfied with the way grievances were being resolved, would eventually be pitted against the government by the enactment of the privileges of a handful of new royal free cities. The diet can only be considered a partial success relative to the government’s original objectives: there was a substantial increase in taxes for the first time in many years, and the privileges of the new royal free cities were entered into statute; but substantive reforms (relating to the taxation of the nobility or the regulation of the noble levy) were not achieved, and relations between ruler and estates would sour. In the lower house only personalis György Fekete, the members of the royal court of justice, and the

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deputies of the chapters argued for an increase in taxes. According to pamphlets, of the whole diet it was Count Antal Grassalkovich (president of the Hungarian Chamber), the clergy, and a few deputies who took the government’s side. Of these deputies, opposition pasquils blamed Pál Jeszenák and Gábor Prónay more than anyone.57 Maria Theresa did not even attempt to conceal her dissatisfaction with this lack of general support for her policies.58 In the heightened circumstances of 1741—with obligations to work out methods of military assistance for Maria Theresa and hopes of the diploma inaugurale being rewritten—the diet did not yet focus on raising war taxes, but by 1751 the arena of the diet was dominated by financial issues, and would continue as such at the following diet. The nobility wished to preserve its exemption from tax, while the government wanted the total annual tax to be as high as possible. In his memoirs, Count Miklós Pálffy, who would later be chancellor, was of the opinion that any “improvement” of the country, that is, the reforms that could make progress possible, had to be put aside to attain limited profits for the treasury. The problem, as he saw it, was that reforms were needed just when there was a need for the country to make a greater sacrifice (that is, pay more tax).59 But, after 1751, not only the “improvement” of the country had to be put aside. The government introduced customs regulations damaging to Hungary’s economic development that may reasonably be considered discriminatory. The cardinal issue in the debates at the next diet would be the protection of the noble privileges that had already been under siege for some time.

Debates on Noble Tax Exemption Similarly to the problem of the total amount of the contributio but to an even greater degree, this question helped the estates form a united front against the government. The deputation on tax matters sent by the diet of 1728–29 to Eugene of Savoy was led by the elderly bishop Count László Nádasdy. According to the report from Count Nesselrode, royal commissioner, “Although he had only left his sick bed two weeks earlier, and it would hardly have been surprising for him to fall ill again en route or in Vienna, he was nevertheless not afraid of risking his last drop of strength according to the wishes of his compatriots.”60 This was when, at odds with his actions of 1712, to be seen later, Nádasdy adopted the position of the opposition. At the Veszprém County assembly in 1752, Márton Padányi Biró, who just two years before had stood up to the Protestants with such impatience and vigor, now defended the tax exemption for the nobility and the priesthood with the same determination, as obliged by “God, nature, King and the Country itself.”61 The issue would come to the fore in 1751, and this example serves to show how it was able to force even the marked divisions into the background, if not actually to bridge them. Just as tax exemptions and tax rises

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would in the middle of the century become the key question for diet politics, so the chances of establishing unity among the estates would drastically improve. By the 1760s, even the Hungarian archbishops who represented enlightened reform Catholicism had moved to the anti-Habsburg, ultramontane position. It was at the diet of 1728–29 that the question of noble taxation would come to the fore for the first time. There are many misunderstandings about this privilege, so it is worth clarifying that during the Turkish Wars the landowning nobility would often pay its share of the contribution in Hungary. Also, they continued to pay so-called “crown protection money” for a long while. It would often be the nobility who financed a monetary gift given to the ruler or his wife (occasionally to other members of the royal family) too, most often on the occasion of their coronation. Noble levies would also be highly costly. Yet during the eighteenth century there was little sign of the previous custom by which nobles paid the above forms of tax in part or in full, a custom that would only partly return at the end of the century. But the petty nobility was nevertheless forced to pay a kind of local tax, the so-called taxa, for most or all of the eighteenth century—and it was they who formed the lion’s share of the nobility. Thus, in the eighteenth century as in the early centuries of the early modern period, it remains misleading to talk of the general tax exemption of the nobility.62 Thanks to the Rákóczi War of Independence, the landowning nobility regained its tax exemption from regular state taxes in Hungary, and was able throughout the eighteenth century to retain this despite increasingly intense government attacks. In the new set of circumstances this would appear a glaring injustice. For it was the king’s standing army that ensured the country’s security, and neither the noble levy nor the soldiers paid by landowners and sent to war together with the insurrectio would become part of this army. In our period, the noble levy was only called to arms on two occasions, in 1741 and in 1744; that is, the burden of what had become constant defense fell exclusively on the king (and, via the contribution, the regular war tax, on non-nobles). From the mid-eighteenth century it was not only in the eyes of the enlightened bureaucracy that this would appear to be an abuse of power. A clear sign of this is that the reform committee, active in 1722, before the diet had begun, was also of the opinion that everyone had to contribute to military expenses—and thus also the nobility. On the subject of the establishment of the council of lieutenancy, the reform committee listed the country’s incomes (in addition to the contribution already at the ruler’s disposition) that could, inter alia, be used to maintain the army: the duties on foreign trade, the tax to be paid by foreigners on their incorporation into the estates of Hungary, the tax on salt, etc. And, as an almost revolutionary idea, it suggested that a tax of 0.1 forints be levied on each house—to include the houses of nobles, priests, even those owned by the royal treasury.63 At the diet of 1728–29 Charles VI strove to levy tax on land irrespective of how many serfs lived on it, indeed irrespective of whether it was used by serfs

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or nobles. To this end he urged a general land survey. It was in Lombardy that Charles VI first took steps to introduce taxation based on a land survey, but this would only become established practice within the Habsburg Monarchy in 1728. Henceforth this was how taxation worked in Bohemia. The nobility and the clergy also paid taxes—albeit at a lower rate.64 Placing tax reform on the agenda generated fierce debate at the diet. The slogan of the resistance was provided by Márton Bartakovics, deputy from Nyitra: “Land should never be taxed!” In the upper house the resistance was led by Count József Esterházy of the council of lieutenancy, later viceroy of Croatia. Together with protonotarius Ádám Zichy and chancellor Count Lajos Batthyány, he was celebrated by the county deputies as a true patriot.65 Another two deputies, Márton Bartakovics and Sándor Keczer, received poems of adulation. As Mihály Horváth puts it, a number of the lords even left the diet in their “zeal to defend the constitution.”66 Esterházy also led the deputation sent to Charles VI in Graz to convince him that his wish was an impossibility. If a serf leaves his plot, the owner cannot be robbed of his right to work that land, while the tax exemption for self-tilled noble land has been an essential privilege since the first kings.67 According to the pasquils, tying taxation to land was, of all the Hungarian estates, supported only by the clergy.68 At first the government insisted on its position, but when not even the appointment of a mixed committee would bring agreement, it made do with the annual war tax being raised to 2.5 million forints without conducting a land survey:69 the diet would thus decide on a significant increase in taxes, if not the full extra 400,000 forints mentioned in the royal propositions.70 As justification, the estates referred to “the present troubles in Italy,” and the tax increase came with the condition that the contribution be reduced by the same amount as the increase once more peaceful circumstances had returned.71 This condition would often appear again, but was never met. Whatever tax the diet had levied would always have to be paid afterward. The annual amount would only ever increase, never decrease. The taxation of land cultivated by serfs would not only have provided a more secure tax base for the government, it would also have been a clear step in the direction of taxing the nobility. The noble landowner would have had to pay tax on a plot taken away from a serf. By refusing to link land to taxation that per definitionem it owned itself, the nobility was protecting its most precious of privileges. Tax would continue to fall on serfs, their families, animals, and possessions. In 1741, with the ruling family in a difficult position, Hungary’s estates attempted to make the nobility’s tax exemption “future-proof.” Although this would not in the end be included in the diploma inaugurale published by Maria Theresa before her coronation as had been intended, as she emphatically rejected any substantive changes to her father’s text, she did promise to put into law the additions intended for the diploma in the form of a separate article of law. As a result, article 8 of 1741 stated that the ruler could not initiate—not even at

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the diet—any curtailment of noble privileges and freedoms, namely exemption to taxes. These were placed outside the scope of the legislative process. Maria Theresa had no choice but to renounce for good her hopes of tying the war tax to land.72 After the Haugwitz reforms that came in the wake of the War of the Austrian Succession, however, by which time the tax exemption of the Hungarian nobility seemed a glaring anachronism, the question was again by necessity raised at the diet. In 1751 the government did not force the issue of noble taxation, with which it planned to replace the institution of the noble levy, as there was widespread animosity for such a move. According to a note made by Antal Grassalkovich, Maria Theresa denied even the intention of making such a move: she would not accept two million forints to end the noble levy, as it was worth more. She remembered the oath she had taken and was not going to break it.73 As this diet ended with the tangible dissatisfaction, even alienation, of the two sides, it is no surprise that at the next diet the opposing factions would be at each other’s throats from the outset.

The Question of War Tax and the Tax Exemption of the Nobility at the Diet of 1764–65 The government’s plans and ideas in the period before the diet of 1764–54 are best reflected in two memoirs by Count Miklós Pálffy (later chancellor, 1758–62, then lord chief justice, 1765–73). Although, naturally, he expressed his support for Maria Theresa’s objectives, he recommended she be cautious. He shared the position of the court as regards tax exemption for the nobility too, seeing the central problem as being that tax is not levied on land, which made assessing the tax base difficult and substantial tax rises impossible. The obstacle to any protection of the tax-paying serfs—that is, to improving their ability to withstand their burden—was none other than the counties administered by the nobility. Pálffy’s suggestion was that the queen regulate the serfs’ burdens without the participation of the diet. In his opinion, a full tax assessment would be able to increase the total contribution by at least two-thirds. He nevertheless recommended that Maria Theresa attempt to reconcile the interests of the treasury (an increase in total taxes) with those of the nobility (that the land not be the basis for assessing taxes—that is, that only the serfs would be certain to pay state taxes) and those of the serfs (meaning the easing of the tax burden and a more proportional distribution of this burden). His claim was that this would only be possible if greater amounts of foreign money entered the country in return for Hungarian agricultural goods, and taxpayers could become rich.74 The considerations Pálffy mentions would define the government’s policy at and after the diet of 1764. The queen did not stray from the constitutional path

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and made every effort to cooperate with the estates. In line with her promise, she did not attempt to tie taxes to land, but after the failure of the diet she did indeed introduce the urbarial regulation (regulation of the serfs’ burdens) by means of a decree. In 1764–65 the tax increase was the treasury’s primary concern; it would have offset the eventual financial burden on the nobility with developing the economy of Hungary. Before the diet, Maria Theresa had plans drawn up to revitalize the Hungarian economy, which covered industry, trade, and transport. But after her complete failure at the diet on the noble taxation question, Maria Theresa, in her rescript in response to the country’s grievances, did not accept even those concessions recommended by the chancellery (for example, on the export of wine).75 Maria Theresa requested a tax increase of a million forints from the diet convened in 1764, as well as regulation of the noble levy—which, in fact, again meant a threat to noble tax exemption.76 For, instead of a personal noble levy, she wished the Hungarian nobility to maintain a modern army:77 instead of an insurgent army of eighty thousand, she suggested the deployment of a standing army of thirty thousand, or an offer to finance this.78 The third point of the government’s program—one that was not among the propositions—was urbarial regulation.79 The diet was opened at a moment when—uniquely in the eighteenth-century history of the Hungarian estates—they were all to present a united front by the publication of the book De originibus et usu perpetuo potestatis legislatoriae circa sacra apostolicorum regum Hungariae (On the origins and continued use of the legislative powers of the apostolic kings of Hungary) by court librarian Ádám Kollár. For this was—with good reason—interpreted as the theoretical preparation for a government attack on the privileges of the Hungarian estates. In his work, Kollár sought to prove that the rights of the king of Hungary in church affairs extend to the taxation of church wealth. This was the thrust of his argument, but he also made the case for the king of Hungary being able to pass laws without asking the estates. Kollár considered the rights of the estates regarding legislation as infringement.80 In response, the priesthood, otherwise loyal to the court, presented a united front with the mostly combatively oppositional Protestant county deputies. The court did not even trust the lords, considering them only to be outwardly loyal and secretly in favor of the opposition.81 At the 9 July session of the upper house, primate Ferenc Barkóczy accused Kollár—as reported to Kollár in a private letter—as follows: “You question the rights and privileges of the nation in arbitrary fashion, and now you sow the seeds of division between the estates and his majesty.”82 In Rome, indeed, the primate even took steps to ban the book, while not even the palatine was loyal to the government’s position.83 The estates announced that grievances had to be debated before royal propositions. The justification was that “the country’s state and ability to pay” had to be known before the royal propositions could be meaningfully discussed.84

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The first petition of the estates snubbed Maria Theresa on both fronts: the estates considered the regulation of the noble levy to be unnecessary and asked outright for a decrease in the total amount of tax.85 The collection of grievances took a month and a half, then—once the Kollár affair, which delayed the real work of the diet by almost three months,86 had been concluded in a form that was acceptable to the country’s estates—the two houses of the diet also managed to agree that they would reject the royal request for a tax increase. (Kaunitz recommended that the government distance itself from Ádám Kollár. In his Apologia he defended himself by saying he was a private individual, a historian, who could scarcely have thought to force Hungary’s estates to pay taxes.87 Maria Theresa outlawed the sale and reprinting of the book and ordered existing copies to be seized. On 16 August the estates expressed their gratitude.88) Some county deputies even wanted to reduce the annual level of tax by the tax increase that had been levied in 1751. This request was submitted to Maria Theresa, on her arrival in Pressburg, in a petition together with the grievances. In her response of 19 September, however, the queen stood by both of her propositions. The lower house did the same—but not so the upper house.89 Perhaps its members were frightened off, or perhaps they were pleased with the government’s backing down in the Kollár affair (the protection of privileges was a common cause among the estates, but the question of taxation was not so obviously so), or perhaps Maria Theresa’s tougher tone had brought about their change of heart, but in any case they renounced the antigovernment position they had shared with the members of the lower house. Although these members stubbornly held their nerve, they eventually would also accept the tax increase, and on 23 October the diet offered the total annual tax at 3.6 million forints.90 In her rescript, Maria Theresa retracted her second group of recommendations, those covering the reform of the insurrectio, but insisted on the first one, which involved the tax increase of one million forints.91 The depleted opposition, under considerable pressure (the high dignitaries held a preparatory discussion with the members of the lower house on 16 November), was now in a minority in the lower house. The recommendation of the personalis was for a further 200,000 forints, and another 100,000 for the noble guard, and this was supported by the deputies of the chapters, of Heves, Békés, Esztergom, Tolna, Arad, Győr, Veszprém, and Nógrád Counties, of certain absentees, and of some cities.92 As József Benczur wrote on 22 November, “Five days ago 300,000 Rhenish forints resolverunt [were allocated]” at the request of her majesty, causing the tax increase to rise to 600,000 forints.93 After the lords gave their consent, Count József Batthyány, archbishop of Kalocsa, and Count Ferenc Nádasdy, viceroy of Croatia, took the diet’s petition from the session of 23 November to Maria Theresa in person—a clear sign of its importance.94 The queen accepted this offer in the rescript read out at the mixta sessio of 17 December. The annual total war tax rose to 3.9 million forints.95

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After the agreement on war tax, the question of the noble levy was brought out again; the estates had hoped this had been taken off the agenda for good. On 17 January 1765, Ferenc Rosty, deputy of Vas County, wrote to his wife in despair that the question of the noble levy had come up again and that if the government were to force the issue, who could say when the diet would ever come to an end? “We have all become very distraught of late.” He thought urbarial regulation a similar danger: “God himself would have lost this Diet.”96 The ruler and the government also considered this diet to be a failure. “I have to admit to you that the state of the negotiations at the diet is very sad and unfavourable”—wrote József Batthyány, archbishop of Kalocsa, to Maria Theresa’s cabinet secretary on 18 February 1765, admitting that he had “absolutely no idea how one could manage with such a diet.”97 On 6 March 1765 Kaunitz recommended they make one last effort in the hope that the estates might accept at least a part of the propositions. The two main questions, of course, would be the regulation of the noble levy as well as the burden faced by the serfs.98 As Hungary’s estates were unified in their rejection of the reform of the noble levy, the most important subject of the diet, after a tax increase had been offered, was urbarial regulation. The members of the lower house insisted that the courts of justice, not government offices, deal with conflicts between serfs and landlords, and, on account of (claimed and expected) threats to noble privileges, they took on a distinctly stubborn position. The lower house rejected the queen’s last royal resolution, while the stopgap solution, proposed by the upper house and accepted by the lower house, came too late: the diet was closed, and the issue of legal regulation of urbarial relations was a failure.99 It was also clear that the threatening shadow of regulation of the serfs’ burdens was the explanation for the relative speed of the November tax negotiations: when Maria Theresa’s rescript had mentioned her intention to protect the people from extortion, this had been a veiled reference to urbarial regulation. She would have expected the nobility to bear the burden of financing the establishment of a Hungarian noble guard in Vienna, but instead she only received an increase in the contribution. (Seen another way, the point is precisely that the government was willing to forego its intended reforms in return for a pittance of a tax increase.) The crown’s wellknown response to the resistance of the estates would be the partial suspension of cooperation with the Hungarian estates. The regulation of the burdens facing the serfs in Hungary was ordered by royal decree in 1767; Maria Theresa never convened the diet again, while her successor, Joseph II, never convened it at all. There was no tax debate in 1790–91 and 1792 as there had been in previous years. Neither Leopold II nor Francis I would initiate tax increases. The former diet approved 6,000 conscripts,100 the latter 5,000 conscripts and 1,000 horses, as well as a subsidium of 4 million forints.101 The contribution remained at the level of around 4.3 million forints to which the tax levied in 1764–65 had risen with the addition of tax income from the three counties established in the territory

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of the former Bánát and from Croatia, and that from the towns of the Szepesség region.102 The main issue of contention at the diet of 1790–91 was not taxation or tax exemption but the entire constitutional structure (as it was now known), which was discussed in the debates on the diploma inaugurale. These presented the camp of the Hungarian estates in a new alignment. But before examining this transformation, let us take another look at the debates at the eighteenth-century diet, this time focusing on the anatomy of its political conflicts.

Notes 1. E. Mályusz, “Les débuts du vote de la taxe par les ordres dans la Hongrie féodale,” in Nouvelles études historiques publiées à l’occasion du XIIe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques par la Commission Nationale des Historiens Hongrois, ed. S. Balogh et al., 2 vols. (Budapest, 1965), 1:67. 2. A. Csizmadia, “Introduction and Notes,” in Hajnóczy József közjogi-politikai munkái, ed. A. Csizmadia (Budapest, 1958), 142. 3. Prior to 1949, Hungary had no written constitution. Nevertheless, I will use the term without inverted commas with regard to the concept of the political system of Hungary, formulated at the end of the eighteenth century, as we shall shortly see. 4. István Nagy, “A Magyar Kamara adóigazgatási tevékenysége a XVI–XVII. században,” Levéltári Közlemények 66 (1995): 50. 5. D. Szabó, “Az állandó hadsereg beczikkelyezésének története III. Károly korában,” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 11 (1910): 37, 43–44, 47, 49. 6. MOL N52, 6:733; 700.482, 89. 7. D. Szabó, “Az állandó hadsereg,” 574–75. 8. MOL A95, vol. 13. 9. D. Szabó, “Az állandó hadsereg,” 374–75; Málnási, Csáky Imre, 153–54. 10. K. Demkó, “Országos conscriptio és az állandó katonaság téli elszállásolása 1719–1720ra,” Hadtörténelmi Közlemények 14 (1913): 95–103, 251–63. 11. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N50 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaetae anni 1708–1715], vol. 6: Diarium diaetae annorum 1709, 1714, 1715. Acta concursuum regni annis 1715, 1717, 1719, 1721 (no page numbering). 12. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1717–1722 3: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1717–1722-ből, 468/65 (old/new pagination). 13. 700.484, 81–83. 14. See I. M. Szijártó, “The Rákóczi Revolt as a Successful Rebellion,” in Resistance, Rebellion and Revolution in Hungary and Central Europe: Commemorating 1956, ed. L. Péter and M. Rady (London, 2008), 67–76. 15. Dickson, Finance and Government, 2:187. 16. M. Hochedlinger, “The Habsburg Monarchy: From ‘Military-Fiscal State’ to ‘Militarization,’” in The Fiscal-Military State in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Essays in Honour of P. G. M. Dickson, ed. C. Storrs (Burlington, VT, 2009), 72, 88.

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17. J. Hajnóczy, “A különféle közterhekről szóló értekezés” [De diversis subsidiis publicis dissertatio. s.l, 1792.], in Hajnóczy József közjogi-politikai munkái, ed. A. Csizmadia (Budapest, 1958), 295. 18. H. Marczali, “A hadsereg élelmezése az 1788–90-iki háborúban,” Századok 49 (1915): 4–5. 19. Á. R. Várkonyi, “A Habsburg-abszolutizmus és a magyarországi jobbágyság a XVII– XVIII. század fordulóján,” Századok 99 (1965): 711; I. Sinkovics, “Esterházy Pál nádor és az erdélyiek kereskedelmi társasága,” A Gróf Klebelsberg Kunó Magyar Történetkutató Intézet Évkönyve 7 (1937): 183–88. 20. Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, 4:355. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) 21. G. Heckenast, “Bányászat és ipar,” in Magyarország története 1686–1790, ed. Gy. Ember and G. Heckenast, vol. 4, Magyarország története, ed. Zs. P. Pach (Budapest, 1989), 633. 22. István Nagy, A Magyar Kamara, 1686–1848 (Budapest, 1971), 276, 278. 23. Heckenast, “Bányászat és ipar,” 632–33; G. Heckenast, “Bányászat és ipar manufaktúrakorszakunk első szakaszában,” in Magyarország története 1686–1790, ed. Gy. Ember and G. Heckenast, vol. 4, Magyarország története, ed. Zs. P. Pach (Budapest, 1989), 998. 24. Dickson, Finance and Government, 2:258–59. 25. István Nagy, A Magyar Kamara, 167. 26. K. Benda, “Az udvar és az uralkodó osztály szövetsége a forradalom ellen (1795–1812),” in Magyarország története 1790–1848, ed. Gy. Mérei, vol. 5, Magyarország története, ed. Zs. P. Pach (Budapest, 1983), 464–65. 27. D. Szabó, “Az állandó hadsereg,” 582–84, 587; Éble, “Törvényhozás az insurrectióról,” 581. 28. Demkó, “Országos conscriptio,” 262. 29. Cf. P. G. M. Dickson, “Monarchy and Bureaucracy in Late Eighteenth-Century Austria,” English Historical Review 110 (1995): 343–44; G. Oestreich, “Ständetum und Staatsbildung in Deutschland,” in G. Oestreich, Geist und Gestalt des frühmodernen Staates: Ausgewählte Aufsätze (Berlin, 1969), 277–79, 281–83, 285–89. 30. Oestreich, “Ständetum,” 282; Evans, “Introduction,” xx.; H. Lieberich, “Introduction and Notes,” in Die bayerischen Landstände 1313/40–1807, H. Lieberich (München, 1990), 24; E. Melton, “The Prussian Junkers, 1600–1786,” in The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. H. M. Scott, 2 vols. (New York, 1995), 2:79–80. 31. Lieberich, “Introduction and Notes,” 25; Lehmann, “Die württenbergischen,” 196. 32. Schulze, “Ständewesen,” 264–67. 33. W. Eberhard, “Stände, Herrscher und Religion in den böhmischen Ländern in der frühen Neuzeit,” in Stände und Landesherrschaft in Ostmitteleuropa in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. H. Weczerka (Marburg, 1995), 135. 34. Brunner, Land und Herrschaft, 452. 35. Barta, Mária Terézia, 94. 36. Ducreux, “La monarchie,” 40. 37. T. C. W. Blanning, Joseph II (New York, 1994), 38. 38. Hochedlinger, “Habsburg Monarchy,” 85. 39. Blanning, Joseph II, 37–38. 40. Ingrao, Habsburg Monarchy, 180. 41. Blanning, Joseph II, 38.

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42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

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Evans, “Habsburg Monarchy and Bohemia,” 147. Evans, “Hungarian Problem,” 42. Cited in Blanning, Joseph II, 36. Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, 4:510. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) Marczali, Magyarország története, 278; Klingenstein, “Skizze,” 376. Evans, “Habsburg Monarchy and Bohemia,” 145. W. D. Godsey, The Sinews of Habsburg Power: Lower Austria in a Fiscal-Military State, 1650–1820 (Oxford, 2018), 397. Szijártó, A diéta, 225–33. Ibid., 220–21. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 406, Konvolutt A, fol. 39. In point of fact, the primate was not a member of the council of lieutenancy. Szijártó, A diéta, 235–41. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 516. 700.477, 368–69. 700.469, 132 and 136, 170, 232–35, 260, 277 (new page numbering); M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:302–5. 700.467, 429–30; M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:305; H. Marczali, Hungary in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1910), 19; [J. Hajnóczy,] De diversis subsidiis publicis dissertatio (s.l, 1792), 66. Téglás, A történeti pasquillus, 88–90. Barta, A meg nem értett királynő, 79. Marczali, Pálffy Miklós emlékiratai, 8. E. Takáts, Gróf Nádasdy László csanádi püspök (1662–1729) (Szeged, 1943), 134. Cited in Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episcopat, 246. See I. M. Szijártó, Nemesi társadalom és politika. Tanulmányok a 18. századi magyar rendiségről (Budapest, 2006), 145–61. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N72 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Commissio systematica], bundle 1, fasc. C, no. 17. J. Kalmár, “A kontribúció kérdése az 1714. évi országgyűlésen,” in Unger Mátyás emlékkönyv, ed. P. E. Kovács, J. Kalmár, and L. V. Molnár (Budapest, 1991), 180. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 178–79; Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, 4:355. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) L. Tóth, “Bevezetés. III. Károly uralkodása: A Pragmatica Sanctio,” in Magyar törvénytár, vol. 4: [Az] 1657–1740. évi törvényczikkek, ed. D. Márkus (Budapest, 1900), 402. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:381. Ibid., 1:381; Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, 4:355–56. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) Téglás, A történeti pasquillus, 84. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:381. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 179. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N71 [Regnicolaris Levéltár, Archivum Regni, Concursus regni], bundle 3, fasc. QQQQ NB, Lad.V, Specificatio subsidiorum ab anno 1715 pactatorum, et resolutorum.

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72. A. Csizmadia, “Egy 200 év előtti országgyűlés évfordulójára: Kollár contra Status et Ordines,” Jogtudományi Közlöny 19, new series (1964): 215. 73. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] P398 [A Károlyi család nemzetségi levéltára. Missilisek], 20996: Letter from Antal Grassalkovich to Count Ferenc Károly, from Vienna, dated 18 December 1750. (I am grateful to János Nagy for this source.) 74. Marczali, Pálffy Miklós emlékiratai, 8, 14, 17–19. 75. A. Vörös, “A XVIII. század története értékelésének néhány problémája,” Történelmi Szemle 3 (1960): 317–18. 76. Ember, “Az országgyűlések,” 426. 77. The report of the deputies at the diet from Somogy County, dated 5 September 1764: A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1764–1765 17: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1764–1765-ből, 360–63. 78. B. K. Stefancsik, Az 1764/65-i pozsonyi országgyűlés (Kassa, s.a.), 13. 79. Ember, “Az országgyűlések,” 426. 80. Csizmadia, “Egy 200 év előtti országgyűlés,” 216. 81. Marczali, Magyarország története, 293. 82. Letter from Schwab (? ) to Ádám Ferenc Kollár, from Pressburg, dated 10 July 1764, I. Soós (ed.), Kollár Ádám Ferenc levelezése (Budapest, 2000.), 156. 83. Csizmadia, “Egy 200 év előtti országgyűlés,” 221–22. 84. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:385. 85. Ibid., 1:392. 86. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 275. 87. Csizmadia, “Egy 200 év előtti országgyűlés,” 223–24. 88. Salamon, “Az 1741-iki,” 389. 89. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 384–98. 90. Ibid., 410–12. 91. Report of the deputies from Somogy County, dated 11 November 1764: P 1764–1765 17, 507–9. 92. 700.453, 131. The full name is not Heves County, but Heves and Külső-Szolnok County, as these were united. 93. Soós, Kollár, 174. 94. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:413–14. 95. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.455: Acta comitiorum inclyti regni Ungariae et partium eidem adnexarum pro dominica sanctissimae et individuae trinitatis in diem 17am mensis junii 1764 incidente in civitatem Posoniensem indictorum benignae quippe directoria propositionisque suae maiestatis sacratissimae ac alia clementissima mandata et decreta cum suis accessoriis, 419; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.289: Emlék-Lajstrom az 1764-diki országgyűléstől kezdve, szerkeztetett az országos napló-könyvekből és iratokból, a közönségesen előkerülő tárgyak és kérdések iránt, M. P. által, 1. 96. Bezerédj, “Rosti,” 17–18. 97. Cited in Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 279.

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98. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv [House, Court and State Archive], Kabinettsarchiv, Nachlässe, Nachlass Kaunitz, Convolutum C, fol. 102–4. 99. D. Szabó, “A magyarországi úrbérrendezés története Mária Terézia korában,” in A magyarországi úrbérrendezés története Mária Terézia korában, ed. D. Szabó (Budapest, 1933), 8–43. 100. Article 66 of 1791. Cf. Budán 1790dik Esztendőben, 487–90. 101. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 410, fol. 244, 427–29. 102. Szijártó, A diéta, 255–56.

Chapter 5

GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION AT THE DIET

d J

ust as at the Reichstag or other assemblies of the estates,1 so Hungary’s diet, too, had a party of the court, a political force for the government. It was characterized by a duality. On the one hand, it largely supported the ruler’s propositions vis-à-vis the opposition, which consisted, in effect, of the lower house and in particular the county deputies; on the other hand, it formed part of the diet that, in the chess game that was the dualism of king and estates, stood at odds with the king. This duality may have led the government party to a kind of halfway house, in which it was seen by the opposition as Vienna’s agents betraying the homeland and by the monarchy’s political leadership as merely the less extreme members of the rebellious Hungarian estates. Yet most of the time it was not halfway between the two sides. While there were examples, as in 1764, when the government’s supporters and even the prelates lined up in opposition behind the members of the lower house, they were usually regarded both in Pressburg and in Vienna as loyal to the ruler. Count Gábor Erdődy, bishop of Eger, was the main spokesman for the oppression of the Protestant deputies at the diet of 1728–29. “He only acts like a wolf because he would like to be a cardinal”—so it was said.2 A political stance loyal to the ruler was the norm for the prelates at the eighteenth-century diets. Bishops were entirely dependent on Vienna for their appointment and their personal progress (rich bishoprics were granted to those whose work was deemed “worthy” of it). In our period, not one Hungarian episcopal appointment made by the Habsburg rulers was rejected by the pope.3 The reports of the royal commissioners on the Hungarian diets tells us to what great degree government policy

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enjoyed the support of the prelacy at the diets of the first decades of the century. In his memorandum of November 1722, Christian August, prince of Saxe-Zeitz and archbishop of Esztergom, encouraged the royal commissioners to discuss matters with him even during the preparatory phase of the diets.4 One of his successors, Count József Batthyány, would, while still archbishop of Kalocsa, regularly send reports of the diet of 1764–65 to Corneille de Nény, Maria Theresa’s cabinet secretary.5 In Hungary it was not only the prelacy that would generally appear at the diet in support of the government but also the whole upper house. The more the weight of the lords declined within Hungary’s political system, the more this could be felt. At the lower house, meanwhile, the political allies of the court no longer represented a majority.

The Personalis as the Leader of the “Government Party” In 1741 Maria Theresa wanted the diet to elect her husband, Francis of Lorraine, to be co-ruler. The story of this election is a good example of the opportunities available to the personalis as speaker of the lower house. His previous activity as governor-general made Francis of Lorraine distinctly unpopular, and the diet was reluctant to satisfy the queen’s wishes. In the lower house, the personalis stated that the rescript expected from the queen would satisfy demands for greater independence for Hungarian institutions and for more Hungarian participation in the monarchy’s affairs; he also effectively threatened the members that the queen could bypass them and elevate her husband to her side with a simple declaration. To this, the handful of supporters of the motion shouted out, “Long live the co-ruler!” while the silent majority grudgingly accepted rather than actively endorsed the resolution.6 “And if they had known what the royal resolution was like, they would have spoken differently of the corregentia [joint rule]”—so wrote Sándor Gáspár, deputy from Szatmár County, to Count Ferenc Károlyi on 28 September.7 According to Márton Szuhányi, member of the council of lieutenancy, the majority of the deputies could be won over to the cause and even be persuaded to offer Francis of Lorraine joint rule of their own accord. The condition they placed on this was, however, that a favorable response come from Maria Theresa to the first three points of the grievances.8 The other offense of the members of the lower house concerning joint rule was the process of achieving it: the initiative had, unusually, been brought by the lords.9 For this, according to Count Ferenc Károlyi, “they gave the explanation that the meritum [credit] should not be given to the members of the lower house.” At first the personalis was unwilling to table the lords’ motion in the lower house, for—as he himself stated in the upper house—the lower house would have taken a very dim view of this procedure.10

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The issue of joint rule gives us an insight into the role of the personalis. As chairman of the royal court of justice and speaker of the lower house, he held a key position in trying to bring the efforts of its members closer to the ruler’s objectives.11 This office was the best springboard for members of the lesser nobility trying to join the ranks of the aristocracy. Article 25 of 1723 only served to reaffirm the position of the personalis at the helm of the royal court of justice and the lower house of the diet: he had long been performing these functions. Since the mid-seventeenth century, the old custom that members of the lesser nobility would fill this office was not always observed.12 Of the personales of the eighteenth century, only János Horváth-Simonchich and Ferenc Koller were barons when appointed, but a further two would rise to the aristocracy once holding the office (and a third would do so on being dismissed from the post). So almost half of the personales in our period were aristocrats. From 1765 onward, the ruler was forced by law only to appoint a member of the lesser nobility as personalis. In article 6 of 1751 the “estate of the lesser nobility” gives thanks for Maria Theresa granting the office of personalis “following the ancient and agreed custom, to a gentleman from their estate,” namely to György Fekete in 1748. In article 5 of 1765 Maria Theresa then acknowledged the appropriateness of the request of the lower house that the personalis be a lesser noble “in line with the country’s old and accepted customs.” The immediate cause of its publication was that, because of the status of personalis Count György Fekete, point 30 of the country’s collected grievances in 1764 included the demand that the office of personalis only be given to lesser nobles.13 For Fekete had meanwhile been elevated to the aristocracy. For the personalis, if he were not yet an aristocrat, the attainment of a title was brought closer by his exceptional legal knowledge and his loyal service to the interests of the crown. To mention the two best-known examples: the office of personalis was filled by Antal Grassalkovich, whose career was the best known of the century, and by György Fekete, who was perhaps even more successful. After his period as personalis, György Száraz was appointed councilor of the chancellery and awarded a baronial title.14 Antal Grassalkovich, personalis at the diet of 1741, not only became president of the Hungarian Chamber but also, as personalis, a baron, and later a count. (His son rose to the rank of imperial prince in 1784.) György Fekete, who was speaker of the lower house at the diet of 1751, would also join the aristocracy as a personalis. He immediately obtained the rank of count and ultimately left for the office of the vice-chancellery. At the height of his career, he became lord chief justice. At the time—with no palatine—this was the highest available office in Hungary. The diet presented the best opportunity for the personalis to prove his loyalty and earn promotion. One pasquil says of personalis Koller that the reason he supported the convening of the diet in 1764 was because he hoped to prove himself and seek advancement.15 The personalis, fulfilling the role of speaker of the lower house as chairman of the royal court of justice (that is, as royally appointed judge), could hardly be the

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Figure 5.1. Count Antal Grassalkovich (1694–1771) (far left) as an accessory figure in the Maria Theresa monument (1874–88) by Kaspar von Zumbusch, with Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz in the foreground. Vienna, Maria-Theresien-Platz. Photo by Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 3.0. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

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spokesman of the Hungarian estates—even less so than the palatine, who was elected from the candidates provided by the ruler but who could not be replaced, and whose job was to “mediate between king and nation.” As the upper house was much more pro-government than the lower house was, the palatine did not generally have to confront the opposition as directly as the personalis did. The marshal of the Austrian provinces (Landeshauptmann) is more comparable to the personalis than to the palatine. In any case, the Landeshauptmann was only an independent dignitary in Lower Austria (where he was called the Landmarschall) and in Styria; in the other Austrian provinces his tasks were performed by other high government officials.16 This, too, makes this office seem comparable to that of the personalis. The personalis, however, was the leader of the government party in the lower house. He did everything in his power to favor the intentions of the king at the diet rather than the efforts of the members of the lower house. In 1764, during the scandal brought by Ádám Kollár’s book, personalis Baron Ferenc Koller continued to loyally represent the government party’s position when almost no one else did, not even the palatine or the primate.17 But there would be occasional exceptions to this main rule. At the concursus of 1736, which from the point of view of Charles VI was almost entirely ineffective, personalis Antal Grassalkovich, not chairman here but one of its leading personalities, was not at all loyal to the interests of the court,18 yet he retained his position for more than a decade and continued his rise afterward. As there were no house rules to regulate the workings of the diet, there was great scope for the speaker of the lower house to influence the debate and the resolutions. It is enough for us to cite the entirely flexible methods of voting: votes were hardly ever counted; rather, the chairman declared the outcome on the basis of speeches and interjections from the floor. In some cases the personalis appointed the deputies of the lower house to the mixed committees of the diet.19 Perhaps the majority of the entries in the handwritten journals recording the sessions of the lower house begin with the formula that the speaker had submitted a proposal. Thus, through his ability to dictate the agenda, and because he could always make recommendations, the personalis wielded considerable influence.20 He would often take the floor as someone representing the practice of the old diets;21 as custom was of great importance, this made him even more significant. Clever techniques were often used to persuade the lower house to make concessions. On 27 June 1741 the personalis raised the issue of the coronation gift to be given to Maria Theresa. In the debate there were proposals of 12,000, 15,000, and 20,000 gold coins as the honorarium. Personalis Grassalkovich then recommended an amount of 100,000 forints, which was not a compromise but rather a greater amount than all the previous ones (which equaled 54,000, 67,500, and 90,000 forints)—also, cleverly, a round number. Many spoke up against his suggestion, and the general opinion was that the magnates should not take this to be a final but rather an initial version. Antal Grassalkovich nevertheless announced

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that this was a final decision, whatever the magnates might want. After a while, those opposed to the recommendation resigned themselves to the 100,000-forint sum. Then, during the exchange of messages with the magnates, who of course wanted to give even more and who were slow to give in, the personalis could act like the champion of the lower house, even though its members had originally thought to spend much less on Maria Theresa’s gift.22 At another moment during the same diet, Grassalkovich was blamed at the court of Maria Theresa for a few harsher turns of phrase in the grievances, and for the fact that joint rule was more or less conditional on the resolution of these grievances: this line of argument implies that the personalis was held personally responsible for everything that came from the lower house.23 The personalis is the “head and moderator” of the royal court of justice and the lower house, a diet journal writes.24 As the government party always had the personalis as its spokesman, debate at the lower house often meant dialogue between the personalis and the opposition.25 A journal seems briefly to summarize every speech made from 11 June to 5 July 1751. It transpires from this that in this period three members spoke in the lower house much more than any of the others, namely the personalis György Fekete (fifty-seven speeches), alongside opposition leaders Gáspár Csuzy (fifty-eight) and János Okolicsányi (thirty-nine).26 In 1741, before the royal propositions arrived, personalis Grassalkovich recommended that, in the interests of making better use of time, he would call together a few deputies at his lodgings so that they could collect grievances and requests and prepare legislative proposals and the planned diploma inaugurale on the basis of these. In this the personalis was attempting to expropriate much of the lower house’s jurisdiction. The deputies raised their voices against this, using a number of arguments to reject the proposal: they were repelled by the idea of the personalis choosing the members of the committee as he saw fit, but they also made the point that being chairman of a committee was incompatible with his position as speaker. This latter point was made by none other than György Fekete, who would later be personalis himself. His argument was that it could happen that the plenary session might vote down some of the committee’s proposals, which would injure the chairman’s reputation.27 As a county deputy known for his opposition stance, of course, Fekete was not worried for the honor of the personalis—at least not at this stage. In debates, the personalis would assert the arguments of the king and the government at odds with those of the members of the opposition, also striving to soften the opposition and to persuade it to change its views—by means of promises or threats, as we have already seen in the 1764 debate on the tax increase or the aforementioned 1741 election of the co-ruler.28 As the members of the lower house generally showed a (completely justified) lack of trust in the personalis, there was reason to Hajnóczy’s 1791 proposal that its speaker be an individual elected by the members rather than the personalis appointed by the king.29

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Despite all his freedoms and whatever his talents, the lot of the personalis at the generally oppositional lower house was not an easy one; in situations that were particularly favorable for the opposition, he was of course doomed to failure. In 1764, despite the best efforts of personalis Ferenc Koller, the lower house turned its attentions to Ádám Kollár’s book even before the royal propositions were debated.30 There were stormy scenes in the lower house in 1741, during which personalis Grassalkovich, on the side of the royalist magnates, was literally unable to get a word in.31 In summer 1790 the personalis (as well as the lord chief justice chairing the upper house) lost his grip on things even more. “The chairmen have no authority,” as one report put it.32 In such situations, the personalis would sometimes go with the flow; on 3 December 1728, for example, he had no option but to represent an intransigent opposition to the upper house. “The personalis responds that members of the lower house have declared seven times that they does not want to withdraw their earlier [decision]”—they wished to take the matter to Charles VI.33 On 20 June 1792 he attempted in vain to mediate between the lords and the members of the lower house, “experiencing that the majority of the lower house stuck to their former intentions,” and so he had no choice but to restrict himself to a summary of their position.34 The personalis could also find himself in an intermediary position between the lower house (the opposition) and the royal court (the government), as did Grassalkovich, who in 1741 was able to convince Maria Theresa that the requests of the lower house were worth considering. At this time the oppositional part of the Hungarian estates placed its hopes in him.35 As befitted the key role he played at the diet, the appointment of a new personalis was in fact part of the preparations for the diet. In the period under investigation, only the appointment of Horváth-Simonchich took place at the same time as the opening of the diet, in this case the labanc diet of 1708. Even at the outset of the diet, many spoke out against the way in which he had come into the post.36 The primate only received a royal rescript concerning his swearing in as late as 4 April.37 Joseph I openly said of his appointment that he saw the personalis as being in a position of great trust: he wanted to preserve all royal privileges, as his predecessor’s appointees, István Orbán, János Maholányi, and Ferenc Klobusiczky, had all been a source of disappointment.38 (Klobusiczky joined Rákóczi, while István Orbán’s competence could be questioned, as after his death the king sought a “personalis who is suitably prepared” to take his place.39) Later István Csekey summarizes court chief chancellor Sinzendorf ’s opinion on the preparations for the acceptance of female succession as follows: “The main thing is to convince the clergy and the magnates, and to place a loyal personalis at the helm of the lower house, who has not only to persuade the [lesser] nobility to follow a direction in line with the king’s intentions, but also to confront the machinations of the magnates, who often try to see that their own favourable votes at the upper house, whether made out of fear or respect, be overturned by the lesser nobility

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in the lower house.” As we know, there would not be a new personalis at the helm of the lower house in 1722. The proposal of the palatine was accepted, namely that the ailing baron János Horváth-Simonchich would be replaced with a “wellintentioned deputy speaker who holds great esteem in the lower house.” This would turn out to be vice-palatine István Felsőbüki Nagy, who officially deputized for the absent personalis when the Pragmatica Sanctio was accepted.40

The Royal Court of Justice at the Diet Not only the personalis but the entire royal court of justice performed a special role at the diet. The ruler was represented at this court by his deputy for legal affairs, the personalis; the palatine by the deputy palatine and by his protonotarius; the lord chief justice by the deputy lord chief justice and likewise by his protonotarius; even the primate by his two assessors. The two protonotarii of the personalis were also members of the royal court of justice, and, until the reform of 1723, they were complemented by a prelate, an aristocrat, and four sworn lower noble assessors of the king, as well as the causarum regalium director, the director of royal legal affairs, who did not participate in the diet.41 The equivalent of the royal court of justice in France was the Paris parlement; within the institutions of the Holy Roman Empire it was the Reichskammergericht, a joint body of the emperor and the estates, whose judges and assessors passed judgment in the name of the emperor and of the empire.42 When diets were held, two deputies of Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia took their seats at the table of the royal court of justice, replacing the prelate and the baron, who sat in the upper house. Article 52 of 1662 gave the right to appear and vote at the diet to the protonotarius of Croatia, who was also given a seat at the royal court of justice. The second member of the royal court of justice in terms of seniority was the deputy palatine, who chaired the lower house if the personalis were absent, either occasionally or more regularly. As such, it was easy to excel and earn honors. As we will see, in 1751, on the ratification of the privileges of four royal free cities, the deputy palatine chairing the lower house appeared as a leader of the government party who was not afraid of forceful action. Meanwhile another deputy palatine achieved recognition in the absence of the personalis for the ratification of the Pragmatica Sanctio. The protonotarii acted as the notaries of the diet. They edited messages, grievances, and other petitions.43 One of the assessors from the royal court of justice, as chosen by the personalis, undertook the keeping of the official journal of the diet and of the minutes.44 In 1764, for example, the personalis entrusted András Nedeczky, assessor at the royal court of justice, to keep the journal. The preparation of petitions was a “political” activity as much as it was a “professional” one.45 As Charles VI once instructed his royal commissioners, the palatine’s protonotarius had to be “seriously admonished” on

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account of a petition’s disrespectful tone, along with the primate and the palatine who had signed it.46 The royal court of justice was not just a constituent part of the lower house but a sort of general staff for it. For this reason, it did not simply participate in every committee sent out by the lower house, but it did so with great influence. In a committee sent to the concertatio in 1765, the upper house was only represented by a bishop and two magnates, while there were as many participants from the royal court of justice: the personalis and the protonotarii to the palatine and to the lord chief justice.47 On 30 June 1712 the lower house sent delegates to all three committees that were to be established. To each of the three was sent a protonotarius (and, to the first, the protonotarius of Croatia as well) and no more than two other members.48 The participation of the members of the royal court of justice in individual committees during the period under examination can be seen as more or less constant: on average, it was 13 percent.49 The role played by the protonotarii gave them considerable influence, influence that the opinion both of contemporaries and of posterity considers to have been used in the interests of the crown: “Their usual role, for which they are grandly rewarded, is the weakening or avoidance of the arguments for the opposition’s position in the journal, the omission from submissions of the essence of approaches or questions that might be unpleasant to the court, the distortion of proposals, by omitting important items, or by slipping in clauses that falsify the key intentions of a proposal.”50 A new examination nevertheless reveals that the protonotarii for whom there was no diet during their years of service could boast careers that flourished more than the average. That is, the diet was not a career springboard for protonotarii, after all; rather, it was a burdensome, even troublesome, obligation that accompanied an office that held great promise in its own right.51 This was perhaps in part because the work of the protonotarii did not remain unsupervised during the eighteenth century: their room for maneuver was restricted to a sensible level by the plenary session. In 1712 Ádám Meskó, the protonotarius to the palatine, was commissioned to formulate the text of the decision that the previous session had voted on. But he read out the text in the lower house, and “its members made certain additions and removed a few paragraphs, in as much as they considered this to be necessary.”52 The lower house, that is, and as we saw with regards to the preparation work by committees, oversaw and controlled its own apparatus. Reading texts aloud at the plenary session was not an innovation of the end of the century. And, in exceptional cases, there was of course opportunity for falsification, just as there had been before.53 This was not the main way the royal court of justice influenced the work and decisions of the lower house; instead, it did so in the everyday life of the diet. As an example, at the fortieth session of the diet, on 2 October 1764, the members of the royal court of justice advocated a tax increase, arguing that the estates could only expect a positive response to their grievances if they were to make concessions on something else.54

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In 1712 the oppositional county deputies were already in conflict with the royal court of justice at the first session of the diet. The debate concerned whether “the royal court of justice,” as the source has it (perhaps referring to the personalis), had the right to appoint the lower house members of the delegation sent to welcome Charles VI, and what should be done if the members were not happy with the selection. For the “royal court of justice” designated county deputies who were themselves members of the royal court of justice: István Barlok, deputy for Bihar County, and József Sigray, deputy for Vas County. At this, Pál Okolicsányi criticized the mode of selection: “As if the members of the lower house had no freedom to choose …”55 Unable to come to agreement, they turned to the palatine. The list of the personalis would ultimately double in length. József Sigray continued to represent the counties, while István Barlok was removed and replaced by Pál Festetics and István Bornemisza, both recommended during the debate by Okolicsányi and the thirteen Cistibiscan and Transtibiscan counties. The nominated representatives of the clergy remained, but absentees would be represented by György Mihályffy, alongside Ferenc Szluha, as nominated by the “royal court of justice,” while a further four city deputies would join the deputation.56 However insignificant this dispute might have been, it makes the point clearly: the royal court of justice made an attempt to appropriate the representation of the whole lower house for the government forces, and it was against this that the county deputies, who made up the bulk of the opposition, dared to raise their voices. On this occasion they were successful, but on 29 May the personalis again simply nominated those to join a committee from the lower house.57 Rather like the office of the personalis, albeit to a lesser degree, the post of judge at the royal court of justice was a suitable springboard for those of the lesser nobility who sought fortune or perhaps an aristocratic title, provided that they displayed a great degree of loyalty as well as exceptional theoretical and practical legal knowledge. Their reputation was guaranteed by their excellent legal training and by their work as judges. While their ambitions tended toward currying favor with the crown, their background and education tended toward the lesser nobility.58 Positions held in county administration, as well as elections to represent the counties at the diets, display the unswerving trust the nobility placed in the members of the royal court of justice—and more because of this membership than despite it. In any case, the royal court of justice maintained enough contact with the lesser nobility, from which it drew, for it at least to be able to stand at the head of the opposition when it was in their own vested interests. The proposal for the reform of the judicial system was one of the key issues of the diet of 1722–23, and it encountered considerable resistance. Many of the members of the lower house would have liked to grant the county courts the jurisdiction of the former independent authority of the protonotarii.59 The lower house would also have preferred to create the new jobs in the counties. The upper

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house only supported the plan by a narrow majority; the lower house rejected it. The protonotarii turned against the reform to protect their own erstwhile authority and incomes. The leaders of the opposition were deputy palatine István Felsőbüki Nagy, chairman of the lower house, and Ferenc Szluha, protonotarius to the palatine.60 To considerable consternation, the royal resolutio on the grievances and wishes of Hungary’s estates stated that Charles VI would not back down from the judicial reforms. At this time, by a majority of eight votes, the upper house supported the proposal of the lower house to send a committee to the royal commissioner to insist that they wished to avoid the creation of district courts of justice. At this session of 7 March 1723 cardinal Count Imre Csáky and viceroy of Croatia Count János Pálffy supported the establishment of district courts, though the opposing decision of the lower house was also, as reported by royal commissioner Count Kinsky, backed by no lesser figures than palatine Count Miklós Pálffy, lord chief justice Count István Koháry, president of the Hungarian Chamber Count György Erdődy, and bishop of Eger Count Gábor Erdődy.61 Indeed, on the question of the district courts, the opposition even recruited the primate to its cause.62 Led by László Nádasdy, bishop of Csanád, a deputation appeared before royal commissioners Starhemberg and Kinsky to request that district courts be dispensed with. Nádasdy complained that the king was using the district courts as a way to subvert laws, despite the diet’s offer of succession on the female line; this was why they were not willing to debate the royal resolution. In his aggrieved response, Starhemberg recommended to the estates that they consider the king’s intentions a little more thoroughly. In his report, Kinsky was particularly strong in his objection to Nádasdy, calling him a “pig of a creature”— he was apparently frustrated by Nádasdy’s “razor-sharp tongue.” The diet, in turn, was likewise displeased with the bishop’s tactless words pronounced in the name of the country, words for which a new deputation, led by bishop of Eger Gábor Erdődy, would apologize to the royal commissioners. They nevertheless maintained their request that the district courts be abandoned.63 The king held a meeting with his councilors, at which he presided, instructing the royal commissioners to do everything in their power to establish the district courts. The palatine and the lord chief justice both received reproachful letters, while supportive figures were rewarded with written praise. Helped by the king’s personal involvement, this charm offensive slowly bore fruit: in this rather altered political climate, the proposal to establish district courts was passed,64 which led to articles 30 and 31 of 1723. While the king might have succeeded in forcing through his wishes, despite the original position of the great majority of the diet, this case shows that the government was put under real strain by opposition in the upper house from the lords, who were inside the government party, and by the desertion of the protonotarii in the lower house.

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The Clergy and the Cities The basic political setup of the eighteenth-century diet saw the predominantly pro-government upper house, as well as the government party in the lower house, led by the personalis, stand against the opposition. The opposition was mostly made up of the bulk of the county deputies. Government party support was provided not only by the royal court of justice but by the deputies of the clergy and the royal free cities. Throughout Europe as a whole, ecclesiastical bodies and cities under the protection of a territorial prince were traditionally much more dependent on him than were the estates, as clearly displayed by the heavier taxes and subsidia inflicted upon the former, not to mention the positions the clergy and the cities took at the regional assemblies.65 Traditionally the Catholic Church was the first among the supporters of the Habsburg Monarchy in Hungary; this was no different at the diets of the eighteenth century. Its deputies at the lower house (to simplify: the deputies from the chapters) could not be seen as independent, if only because of the royal right of advowson. According to István Ereky, the chapters had no recourse but to choose those deputies of whom the government would approve.66 The activities of these deputies would then all focus on being awarded the ecclesiastical benefices controlled by the government67—or so the nobles thought. In any case, the chapter deputies and other church figures in the lower house would almost always prove to be reliable supporters of the crown.68 This could have been the reason for the change that took place between 1715 and 1723. While the incorporation of the Jesuits among the estates of Hungary by article 73 of 1715 also brought them attendance and voting rights at the diet, from the decretum of 1723 onward the incorporation of monastic orders was accompanied by the disclaimer “with no right to attend or vote.” Most of the opposition was reluctant to boost the numbers of its enemies at the diet. The church deputies were also part of a strict hierarchy. The author of an opposition pasquil writes that most of them share the position that primate Imre Esterházy publicly holds, as those who express differing opinions are immediately subject to his wrath.69 The chapter deputies at the lower house would often become a target for the opposition’s anger. When Márton Padányi Biró was appointed bishop, for example, his good work as a chapter deputy for Veszprém at the diet of 1741 was cited;70 in other words, they celebrated the “wounds” he had suffered in serving Maria Theresa at the battles of the diet. Even among the copious pamphlet output of the diet of 1764–65, the poems vilifying the lower house representatives of the clergy stand out. The nobles would often make the chapter deputies objects of disdain for their peasant background. From the diet of 1751 onward, they enjoyed accusing them of fornication: this happened to Hermann, prebendary of Győr, for example, as well as to

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Pál Kiss, provost of Veszprém and of noble origins, who as the spokesman for a message-bearing deputation was at a loss for words in the upper house.71 Meanwhile, the deputies of the royal free cities provided far from real representation of the residents of their cities. Usually the small patrician group of inner councils would send the deputies: they would be delegated by the body of officeholders,72 or perhaps by the inner or greater councils. At most what might happen would be for the burghers to choose the deputies to represent them at the diet on the basis of nomination by the latter.73 (In the German territories, too, cities would be represented by city councils when selecting deputies.)74 And during the eighteenth century, Hungarian cities would be under the strict oversight of the Hungarian Chamber—the “influence of the chamber,” as Count Miklós Pálffy wrote in the second half of the 1750s.75 Thus it can be no surprise that in the representatives at the diet of the royal free cities we meet loyal supporters of the government’s initiatives.76 An example of the feelings between the counties and the cities is the directive given by the city of Pest to its deputy to the concursus of 1719. His attention was specially drawn to the fact that “the county deputies must learn nothing of the wishes of the cities, which are to be kept a complete secret.”77 The cities were full of distrust of the counties; the counties must have given them reason for this.

The Issue of the Four Royal Free Cities at the Diet of 1751 Article 17 of 1687 stated that the number of royal free cities must not increase. When Charles VI’s royal proposition to recognize Szatmár and Németi as royal free cities was announced on 18 July 1712, Szatmár County objected; three days later, Count Sándor Károlyi also protested. On 23 July, to the great consternation of the members of the lower house, Szatmár and Németi submitted a reprotestatio and a recontradictio.78 Some four decades later, the objections of the estates were repeated: in 1751 the question of the cities led to intense conflict at the diet between the lower house and Maria Theresa. The queen had previously given royal free city privileges to Győr, Komárom, Zombor, and Újvidék, and she now wanted to see this written into law. The deputy palatine raised the issue of the four cities at the session of 24 August. Many supported him, but the majority decided against ratifying the privileges. The protonotarius to the palatine informed the lords of this, then informed the lower house of their opinion: that the ruler had the right to establish royal free cities. A mixed session followed, at which the palatine announced that Maria Theresa would leave two days later, while the emperor would the next day after, and thus it would be preferable to agree upon articles of law and conclude the diet in the presence of the former. “The members of the lower house returned to

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their own chamber in a state of agitation, and when the deputy palatine urged them to accept the palatine’s proposal, they complained publicly and amongst themselves of the unprecedented hurrying of the debate at the diet, and some of them again recommended that they disband without passing any articles, while others suggested appealing to the queen to stay a few more days. Finally they decided that the deputation bidding farewell to the departing emperor … should ask her majesty, bearing in mind the importance of the articles of legislation to be drawn up,” to stay for a few more days or to nominate royal commissioners, thereby giving the estates of Hungary enough time.79 The protonotarius to the palatine communicated this position to the upper house, while the palatine said that he would ask her majesty at the customary time and place. As requested by Francis of Lorraine, the naturalization of Baron Koch and Baron Toussaint was put forward. But emotions were roused by the proposal, and the motion could only be passed by overcoming powerful resistance.80 On 24 August, in the name of the chapter of Győr, prebendary Kovács submitted an objection to the ratification of the royal free city status of Győr, for the reason that the city had not complied with the contract in place with the chapter. A number of speakers set out their stalls pro and contra; János Jeszenák, for example, argued that the queen could not be held back in the accomplishment of her goals by a private contract.81 There was also debate as to whether the cities’ privileges could be ratified despite the chapter’s objection, and whether this ratification should bring with it attendance and voting rights at the diet. Many believed that the question should be left to the next diet. Many objected to the ratification specifically because of the diet attendance rights, while others argued that an increase in royal free cities would benefit the country but that the obligations of transportation for the army (vectura) and the supply of horses to transport goods for the army (Vorspann) had to be maintained, and that the voting rights of the cities had to be restricted, as it was not right that the vote of a city collectively representing a single nobleman should be equal to that of a county. After much debate, the lower house agreed that the ratification of the controversial privileges of Győr should be postponed to the following diet while the other three should be ratified, but with Vorspann preserved and without attendance and voting rights at the diet.82 Some in the debate considered the increase to the number of cities to be dangerous, while one journal suggested a general reluctance: “The honourable estates [i.e. the members of the lower house] were insistent that they not be ratified.” When the deputy palatine proposed that the privileges of the three less controversial cities be enacted, “many [said] that none should be ratified, as their number [was] already equal to that of the counties and [would] now exceed it.”83 In the light of the aforementioned balance of power of the lower house, the fear that the four cities would strengthen the government party was not unjus-

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tified, but an even greater worry was that this might become standard practice and that Maria Theresa could grant so many royal free city privileges that the government party, already dominant in the upper house, would rule over the lower house as well. The following day the tug-of-war continued between the two houses on the attendance and voting rights of the four cities: at the outset, neither the lower house nor the lords were willing to give way.84 The former would later accept the ratification of privileges for Komárom, Újvidék, and Zombor (maintaining the obligations of vectura and Vorspann), and finally, “amidst loud and powerful shouting,”85 they agreed to this for Győr too, but without the right to attend or vote at the diet (maintaining the obligations of vectura and Vorspann nevertheless). (But this “would be like a bell without a clapper,” the lords responded.86) At the end of this “confused and frustrating” session, the palatine convened the next one for six o’clock on the following morning, as Maria Theresa would stay for another day in Pressburg to give time for the diet to complete its work.87 On 26 August the convalescent personalis was presiding in the lower house. Individual complaints and requests were discussed; then at three in the afternoon, the session was disbanded so its deputies could agree on articles of law with the chancellery.88 The members of the lower house grumbled about being hurried and about the protocol and freedom of debate at the diet being curtailed. After the break, the mixed committee that was sent to the concertatio reported first to the lords, then to the lower house. They related that the chancellor had “reflections” about four articles: one of these referred to the ratification of the privileges of the four cities, which he requested from the diet without restriction.89 The longest debate then followed, on the privileges of Győr. “There were others, if fewer of them, who recommended ratification with the vote, based on the consideration that the vote had been given for so many naturalized aristocrats already. …”90 It is highly unusual that real discussions on the issue of the cities continued even after the concertatio. The bishop of Eger, at the helm of the message-bearing deputation of the upper house, reported that the queen had sent a letter to the palatine in which she explained that she “bears a grudge against the estates, and regrets that the sacred privileges she had granted to the cities have now been debated and restricted (something that did not even happen to her predecessors),” and asked that the privileges of the four cities be ratified with no conditions and with the right to appear and vote at the diet.91 After the queen had set out her position, the deputy palatine and the progovernment group argued the case regarding the cities to the opposition until ten o’clock in the evening. “Finally, the decision was taken that, as the estates were robbed of their freedom at the diet in such a fashion, they were no longer able to resist, and so everything could be ratified as the royal court saw fit.”92 The lords assisted in applying this pressure: they outlined Maria Theresa’s “bitterness,” urg-

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ing the lower house to be accommodating. The opposition finally gave in, albeit “disgusted to the bone and with very solemn quiet whispering” that was “during the greatest crisis and confusion,” as by the late evening they were exhausted and had declined in number.93 On the last day of the diet, the members of the lower house gathered at five in the morning, as they thought Maria Theresa was leaving at six. In both houses the petition with all the articles to be sanctioned by the queen was read out; it was only then that the article on naturalized aristocrats was debated in both chambers (that is, this had not yet been through concertatio either). The petition was read out at a mixed session. Then, after being signed by the palatine and the primate, it was submitted to the queen by the diet. It was past noon when both houses proceeded up to the citadel, where, after speeches from the chancellor and the primate, Maria Theresa addressed them. She expressed her disapproval, warning the estates to end their distrust in her. Only thus could they regain her lost goodwill.94 It is significant that Maria Theresa preferred to force the privileges of the cities through the tractatus diaetalis, pushing the boundaries of its customary procedures (bringing the case forward after the concertatio of the articles) rather than doing so via a decree, bypassing the “legitimate” path, the constitutional process. This is what she did in 1751, but by 1767 she no longer approached it in this way. We can observe the usual ranks of the government camp in the lower house: personalis, royal court of justice, chapter deputies, and city deputies. The usual forms of applying pressure are found: the ruler pressures the diet through the dignitaries, the government party compels the lower house through the upper house, and the dignitaries, lords, and the royal court of justice persuade the renitent members of the lower house directly. These members become visibly outraged by the contravention of the rules of tractatus diaetalis: the queen should have responded in a rescript, relented, and made promises in the hope of receiving a more favorable petition the second time around. Instead, the threat to dissolve the diet was a hasty overreaction: while this would have been within the scope of royal privilege, it went against the traditions of tractatus diaetalis. It may have been this indignation that brought about the proposal to ratify everything (relating to the royal free cities) in line with the wishes of the royal court, as it is not a proper tractatus diaetalis if the first rejection is met with threats to close the diet or if the estates are forced, following the process of the concertatio, to accept the voting rights at the diet of the four royal free cities. Ultimately it was article 27 that included the royal free city privileges of Győr, Komárom, Újvidék, and Zombor, together with attendance and voting rights at the diet. At the end of the period we are examining, article 30 of 1791 enacted the royal free city privileges of Temesvár, Szabadka, Károlyváros, and Pozsega. This did not generate as much controversy, though, as by century’s end the city deputies played a smaller role in decision-making at the diet.

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The County Deputies as the Main Force of the Opposition The opinion in Vienna on the preparation of the Pragmatica Sanctio was that the opposition magnates did not show their colors in the upper house, preferring instead to induce the lesser nobility to resistance in the lower house.95 In the debates we have just discussed we have seen the county deputies as the opposition’s central resource—their oppositional position had already become clear in the first third of the century. This makes itself clear at the debate of 24 July 1728 at the diet, when the members of the lower house gave their individual opinions on the tax increase requested by Charles VI. There was clear support for this at the royal court of justice (7:1) and a slim majority among the clergy (6:5), while most of the cities were against (14:19), not to mention the named deputies of absentees (5:20) and the deputies of the Danubian counties (5:15) and Tibiscan ones (0:21).96 On 1 August 1709 both the clergy and the cities took up an aulic position (with one or two exceptions), while the county deputies, the members of the royal court of justice, and the representatives of absentees were divided between opposition and pro-government.97 On one occasion in 1712, we find the royal court of justice and the clergy on one side, and the counties, cities, and deputies of absentees on the other.98 In the arena of dualism, that is, the government party had first and foremost to fight its battles with the county deputies. The resistance of the majority of the county deputies to the tax increase cannot be reduced to the claim that the landed nobles did not have an interest in handing over to the state more of what it was possible to take from a serf. Their “natural” position of opposition was also fired by paternalism: they felt that they were protecting their own serfs from the state and their nation from foreigners. The instruction of the deputies of Somogy County to the diet of 1722 was made up of merely six points, but three of these directly related to the interests of the serfs: they urged the summer encampment of the army, the elimination of gratuitus labor, and a reduction in the tax burden of the county so that “the poverty of the taxpayer be eased.”99 From time to time this paternalistic attitude could even lead to selfless acts: the distribution of the four thousand forints set by the concursus of 1717 for the construction of a church in Vienna to Charles Borromeo, the patron saint of Charles VI, was ordered “with no burden on impoverished ordinary people”—it was, that is, to be paid for by the landlords themselves.100 The lower house also pressed for taxes to be paid at least partly in kind.101 At the concursus of 1736 it was depictions of the impoverishment of the taxpaying public and the great size of remaining tax burdens that were the key arguments against providing the subsidium as requested by Charles VI. A smaller overall level of tax was demanded.102 Neither was this any different a year later. But this was not just the voice of the opposition: president of the Hungarian Chamber Count György Erdődy himself spoke of the “misfortune of the exhausted, impoverished taxpaying public.” “We have to work for the protection of this belea-

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guered people”—so wrote royal commissioner Count Oedt in his reply, once the concursus had addressed two petitions to him on the impossibility of granting the demanded subsidium. Again, it would only be possible for those on the government side to accept the symbolic subsidium of just 150,000 forints by citing “the impoverishment of the poor taxpaying public.”103 The Bohemian nobility was unable to meet the challenge of the enlightened legal policies of absolutism that protected the peasants, and so, lacking a conceptual foundation, they were put on the defensive.104 This was certainly not the case in Hungary. Alongside the defense of the noble nation, the paternalist defense of the “impoverished taxpaying public” was also part of the ideology of the Hungarian estates.105 This should not be seen simply as hypocrisy. Many participants in the diet honestly believed and professed that, alongside the noble nation, they represented the interests of the ordinary Hungarian people. This does not seem to have been the case in the Austrian territories. There, writes Wilhelm Brauneder, “the political custom demonstrates that the representatives from the estates only gradually became aware of the idea that they represent the whole population of the province.” In 1800 the government even had to remind the estates of Upper Austria of this fact.106 The letters of Ferenc Rosty, one of the deputies at the diet of 1764–65, provide good examples of these paternalist feelings: “Now the question of poverty is just floating, because of which I couldn’t sleep at all one of these nights, and in this sadness and bitterness my heart breaks. …”107 A pasquil wrote of him, “I honour you for your heart that pities the poor.”108 We can nevertheless not take this for granted, as he displays quite a different attitude to “the problem of the poor” in another private letter. It seems that Rosty was only a declared protector of the serfs when the peasants had to be protected from state taxation, something that coincided with his own interests; when he was confronted with the serfs themselves, he soon forgot about this. For soon after, the diet vicecomes Rosty threatened with punishment those serfs who were unwilling to perform the labor they owed to László Tallián. When certain peasants from Rábakovácsi approached Maria Theresa with the request that their burdens be eased, Rosty “warned them to stay peaceful and quiet, else they would regret it …” In November 1766 he promised to visit László Tallián in Rábakovácsi “to bend and break the obstinate dissatisfaction of his serfs.”109 The easing of the burden on the poor taxpaying public was as much a part of everyday political parlance for the estates as it was in the public statements of the representatives of enlightened absolutism. The opposition “politicians”110 presumably did not think this at odds with their everyday oppressive practices legitimized by existing custom. On the other side of the political arena, Kaunitz’s primary argument for cutting the duration of the diet short was that otherwise “the burden of its costs would fall even more strongly on the impoverished people.”111 As such, the notion of misera plebs contribuens continued to be present in

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the discourse of the diets of the eighteenth century, even if they were absent from the diets themselves. Neither was it simply the enlightened nature or particularly Christian mercy of the ruler that was behind the urbarial regulation. From the middle of the century onward, the enlightened absolutism of Maria Theresa and then (in particular) of Joseph II did not seek to turn the monarchy upside down, just to make it more efficient. They wanted to retain their alliance with the aristocracy and the Catholic Church, just with different content, so that the monarchy could stay in competition with the modern, centralized early nation-states of the period.112 The government was essentially driven by practical considerations. Even in Prussia (which at the time was for Vienna both the main enemy and the most important model), the main driving force behind the general policy of protecting the peasants, pursued by rulers since Frederick William I, was—for all the emphasis placed on the humanitarian considerations of the Enlightenment—the need to coordinate military affairs with economic considerations.113

Preparations for the Diet Rulers had the strategic advantage that they could appear at the diet with a prepared plan of action and use their proposals to define the diet’s direction.114 At the diet of 1764–65, for example, the urbarial regulation, despite not being part of the royal propositions, hung like the sword of Damocles over the heads of the Hungarian estates. The issue of the tax increase was ultimately passed because Maria Theresa’s last rescript unambiguously referred to the implementation of the urbarial regulation.115 The forces of the estates were not united; the county deputies’ hands were often tied by divergent instructions; they were also divided on confessional grounds. For all this, the government was right to be wary of a unified opposition forming at the diet, and it strove to do all it could to prevent this.116 In the 1750s the memoirs of later chancellor Count Miklós Pálffy attached great significance for the government to the suitable selection of the supremi comites, as the appointment of county positions was in their hands. They in turn could be influenced via orders, correspondence, or invitations to the court, or through the palatine, primate, or others.117 In line with this, the instructions to the supremi comites placed a great emphasis on his presence at the county assembly that chose the deputies to the diet and gave them their instructions. We must interpret this presence as the exerting of his influence, and there is no question as to the direction of this. In 1722, when the passing of the Pragmatica Sanctio was at stake, a court conference not only demanded that the supremi comites appear at the county assemblies formulating the deputies’ instructions but also called upon

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the bishops and chapters to attempt to influence public opinion in the interests of the cause.118 Count Sinzendorf ’s opinion of this was as follows: In both the counties and the cities an ambience has to be established. The archbishops of Esztergom and Kalocsa,119 the palatine, and all the other lords have to be won over with “any acceptable means, honours, hopes, promises, and kind words,” and most of all with the “personal persuasion” of his majesty. It would be better to leave the church and secular offices that are or will become vacant without occupant until the diet, so that candidates will make all the more worthy an effort at the diet. The personalis, who enjoys great respect as the chairman of the lower house, must also have pressure exerted on him, as must the supremi comites, so that they might strive to attain favourable instructions for the county deputies. For we do better to give up on the whole diet than see the deputies be given unfavourable instructions. Thus no stone can be left unturned in seeing that dependable information on the instructions given to the deputies. We must also promise concessions to the Protestants.120

We should not interpret these attempts as outright fact, however. Even during the preparations for the diet of 1751, the supremi comites were mentioned mostly as a source of information as to the grievances likely to be submitted than as the means of influencing the sending and instructing of deputies.121 In Pest County in particular, the selection of deputies for the diet of 1792 was the first that the government tried to influence in any significant way.122 This was a sign that, in a period in which the constitution was central to the estates’ efforts, heightening political divisions meant that not only was the prosperous county nobility attempting tangibly to influence national politics through the selection of deputies, but the government was as well. Laying the cornerstones for policy on Hungary in 1761, Kaunitz considered the intervention in the counties as a key step toward achieving the court’s objectives—with “tenacity” and “caution” rather than touching legal structures. But even this was only to acquire news; the counties, were, otherwise, “impossible to direct along the right path.”123 On 6 March 1765 he wrote to Maria Theresa to state that, were the support of the supremi comites, vicecomites, and the county deputies to be sought in advance, the Hungarian diet could even have a progovernment outlook to it.124 In a memorandum of 16 April 1795, Palatine Alexander Leopold attributed significance to the influence put on the counties via the position of the supremus comes and, for this reason, proposed the replacement of “unsuitable” supremi comites with royal commissioners invested with full authority.125 This would only later be put into practice, however. The ruler blamed the supremi comites first and foremost for what had happened in the counties. A good example of this is the case of Count Sámuel Teleki, vice-chancellor of Hungary and Transylvania, supremus comes of Bihar County. “Summoning me in the morning, Leopold said, angrily, ‘Who can the supremus comes of Bihar county be, for such disorder to reign? ’ To which I replied, ‘In

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truth, it is me,’ to which he replied, smiling, ‘So it is, now I remember, too.’”126 Thus the supremus comes should have been responsible, and yet could prove powerless. As the majority of the estates shared the same worldview and grimly defended their privileges and the country’s freedoms, while the political system of the estates represented a significant cohesive force127 (even lords loyal to the court could not entirely avoid the influence of the common noble spirit), the government’s attempts at changing the composition of the lower house often resulted in failure, meaning the government had to confront strong opposition at the diet.128

Temptation and Punishment There was constant pressure on the opposition-leaning members of a diet that was already in session. We should first look at the pressure exerted via the high dignitaries.129 In 1722, before the diet had begun, when the Pragmatica Sanctio was being prepared, Lőrinc Tóth claimed that the main instigator of this was the palatine, Count Miklós Pálffy, while Málnási’s opinion was that it was Cardinal Imre Csáky and the whole systematica commissio, with the latter as the center of agitation.130 As Count Ferenc Károlyi wrote to his father on 20 July 1741, “In the palaces of the primate and of the palatine, deputies are persuaded in groups to support joint rule.”131 In the tax increase debate at the diet of 1764–65, the government tried to apply pressure on the lower house via the personalis, and on the upper house through the palatine and the primate.132 On 10 October 1764 the clergy in the lower house went over as one from the camp of those opposing the tax increase to the government side, as a result of which the county deputies gave up on their demands for the annual tax amount to be decreased, instead merely stating that the tax increase was impossible to implement. The direct precursor of all this was the palatine’s visit to Maria Theresa. Before they made the recommendation that would ultimately be accepted by the queen, the palatine and the primate strove to prepare their proposal in “private circles”: in the end, the tax increase was passed at the lower house after their meeting with its members on 16 November.133 After Leopold II also rejected the second version of the diploma inaugurale suggested by the Hungarian estates, a potential solution was found in late September 1790: the estates should again ask the king for concessions, and if he acquiesced, they would accept the diploma inaugurale of Maria Theresa. In order to create a decree of this kind without any difficulty, lord chief justice Zichy convened a preparatory meeting.134 Article 44 of the decretum of 1649 seems to have been taking a stance against private corruption in prohibiting the estates of Hungary from giving or receiving gifts at the diet; in the eighteenth century, the same issue would seem to arise with regard to the dualism of king and estates. It was possible to persuade individual county deputies with titles, offices, and other benefices.135

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If Balogh assisted, surprised I wouldn’t be; I see his desire to be a prothonotary

So wrote a pasquilist of János Balogh, one of the deputies from Nógrád County at the diet of 1764–65.136 At their coronation, the king or queen would knight a select few: more precisely, she would make them “valiant knights with gold spurs.” In 1741, for example, Maria Theresa did this to twenty-five aristocrats and twenty-two lesser nobles.137 In 1792 Francis I touched the shoulder of a total of forty-eight nobles three times with the “sword of Saint Stephen.”138 Typical of the attitude of the deputies is a conversation on the positions of the chamberlain and the titular royal councilor that took place at the regional session of the Cistibiscan and Transtibiscan districts on 26 August 1790 between two of their leaders: Lajos Domokos, deputy from Bihar County and mayor of the royal free city of Debrecen,139 and István Máriássy. The deputies urged the removal of the office of the chamberlain and the titular royal councilors in the interest of reducing the potential for corruption. “‘I never consented to this,’ said Domokos, with a smile.”140 The chamberlain’s keys and the title of royal councilor were some of the few markers of prestige that could visibly lift lesser nobles above the crowd of the noble society in their county. With means such as these—not to mention positions, rank, and bestowments of property—it was clearly possible to influence them, especially in periods as that of the early part of the diet of 1790–91. According to Count Sándor Károlyi, some deputies arrived at the diet with the preordained objective of drawing attention to their position of outright opposition, then left themselves to be bribed by the government, thereby serving “their own private goals.”141 Ferenc Szluha, who stated in a letter that he aspired to the role of personalis, was at the same time one of the leaders of the opposition’s campaign against the district courts at the diet of 1722–23. As royal commissioner Starhemberg wrote in his report, “That old Nádasdy, the sharp-tongued spokesman for the opposition, was driven to tears on learning he had not been rewarded.” For it was not László Nádasdy who was given the episcopal seat of Veszprém as he had requested and so desired but rather Imre Esterházy, who would later be primate.142 The diet of 1741 would also witness “greasing of palms, bribery, purchase of votes, starting with those considered to be the most dangerous, the main players,” writes Gábor Éble, citing letters written by Márton Szuhányi to Counts Sándor and Ferenc Károlyi. This despite the fact that, as a member of the council of lieutenancy, he was always cautious: what he wrote with such striking openness must have been common knowledge. He described how both church and secular dignitaries invite the party leaders day and night, attempting to use promises, threats, and benefactions to influence their actions.143 An effective form of greasing deputies’ palms that could be applied at a grander scale was high society life. In 1741 the members of the diet were invited, in turn, to Maria Theresa’s Viennese feasts on an almost daily basis.144 During the period

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of the diet of 1764–65, the queen deliberately invited opposition leaders in particular.145 This method could be used for personal objectives too. In the summer of 1790, large gatherings would meet in the evenings at the invitation of the lord chief justice or the primate. Count Antal Károlyi hosted grand lunches. It was thought that this was part his way to ease into the office of palatine. Apparently, some counties would even forbid their deputies from attending such lunches.146 Of course, balls, dinners, and banquets were part of the everyday life of parliaments in the early modern era.147 “Neither fear, nor promise, nor gift, nor honour [i.e. position]” is how the professed opposition figure Ferenc Rosty summarized what deputies must avoid being swayed by. The list does not mention the acceptance of patronage—or rather, the moral obligation to reject it. “The honourable bishop of Győr offered to accept my son Miska for a fundatio [foundation-funded place] at the Convictus in Sopron, so, my darling, please continue to prepare it for him, and send it to him”—so he wrote to his wife a mere eight days after putting the above to paper.148 It is clear from the latter that Miska Rosty was going to study in Sopron anyway, so the favor from the bishop may have referred to the foundation financing his board. According to his other letters, Rosty consistently remained on an opposition stance, at least on the question of taxation. Though there is no evidence for the bishop of Győr asking any political reward of Ferenc Rosty in return for the favor, it speaks volumes that one of the apparently most oppositional county deputies would ask for or at least accept a favor from an inevitably pro-government bishop during a period of heated debates at the diet. It was common practice to tempt leading personalities from the opposition to the government side, as happened in the case of Péter Ócsai Balogh, the creator of the opposition programme at the diet of 1790–91.149 Meanwhile, those whose unrelenting opposition caused discomfort to the government could expect reprisals. Following the diet of 1728–29 the government behaved with even more pique than usual, as, while it had been granted the tax increase it had requested, its attempt to introduce land tax had been a failure. Nyitra County received a letter from the chancellor warning it not to elect as deputy such a loud and excitable man as Márton Bartakovics (who led the opposition in the lower house defending noble tax exemptions) on other occasions. Meanwhile Count József Esterházy, the leader of the opposition in the upper house, was divested of his officer’s wage.150 Kaunitz’s aide-mémoire, written in 1761, also put the emphasis on punishment in the interests of attaining compliance on Hungary’s part: noncompliance had to be severely punished, promotions had to be made contingent on loyalty, and “royal favor” had to be retracted not just from members of the opposition but also their children.151 For all the use of such schemes, the government was nevertheless ultimately forced to come to agreement with the Hungarian estates at the diet. The main area of their negotiation was the tractatus diaetalis itself: the propositions tabled

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by the king, and the grievances and desires submitted by the country’s estates. As we have seen, the government was able to promise a favorable resolution to some of the grievances, while the diet could agree to some part of the requested tax increase. The question of tax was central to the diets of Maria Theresa. In its fight to achieve this increase, the government’s best weapon at its disposal was to threaten new regulation of the noble levy. On the other side of the coin, the Hungarian estates were always able to successfully resist attacks on their tax exemptions by offering to agree to a higher amount of tax. We might in fact consider this form of resolution of the conflict dominating the middle of the century to be a necessary one. Whatever Ferenc Rosty might have thought, noble privileges were dearer to the estates than the issue of misera plebs contribuens, and the government’s efforts inevitably found the path of least resistance: toward cooperation and not confrontation with the Hungarian estates, as, in the final analysis, this was the only way for it to maintain its rule in Hungary. In these negotiations it was usually the ruler who was in a better position. The only exceptions to this were when international position of the Hungarian estates was uniquely favorable, as it was in 1741. Maria Theresa twice rejected national demands, but when these were put before her for a third time, she had no option but to make concessions, as, in response to a motion of János Okolicsányi, the dissatisfied lower house made the resolution that it was not willing to even discuss the noble levy until the requests of the estates were satisfied.152 Meanwhile, in the second year of the War of the Austrian Succession, Maria Theresa had great need of every soldier. Although the estates were able to retain their privileges, and although, in those rare moments in which their negotiating position was strengthened by a fortunate alignment of the international situation, they were even able to pass laws guaranteeing home rule in Hungary (as in 1791), all these essentially remained on paper: even at the end of the century, the Hungarian estates were not able to extend their oversight to executive power. Participants in debates at the diet were thus motivated by confessional considerations, by the defense of the estates’ privileges, or by personal ambition. Their appearances at the diet could change the fates of their families and act as a springboard to potential advancement. It is worth investigating all of this more thoroughly, in which we focus our attention even more strongly on the transformations that characterized the eighteenth-century history of the Hungarian diet.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Press, “System of Estates,” 10. Téglás, A történeti pasquillus, 83. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 78. Ibid., 199. Ibid., 278.

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

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M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:244–45. Cited in Éble, “Törvényhozás az insurrectióról,” 172. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 530. We will later discuss the right of the lower house to initiate matters. His letter dated 21 September 1741 and addressed to Count Sándor Károlyi is cited by Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 589. Gy. Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Ständische Vertretungen in Europa im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, ed. D. Gerhard (Göttingen, 1969), 305; also, Ákos Beöthy is cited in Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 11. Z. Fallenbüchl, Magyarország főméltóságai: Az udvari méltóságok archontológiája (Budapest, 1988), 29. See L. Nagy, “Levéltári,” 742. J. Buzási, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv. Ungarische Akten. Allgemeine Akten. Tematikus repertórium (Budapest, 1977), 106; Iván Nagy, Magyarország családai czímerekkel és nemzékrendi táblákkal, 12 vols. and an additional volume (Pest, 1857–68), 10:492. Téglás, A történeti pasquillus, 97. W. Brauneder, Österreichische Verfassungsgeschichte, 6th ed. (Wien, 1992), 102. Csizmadia, “Egy 200 év előtti országgyűlés,” 222. Cf. OSZK K Fol. Lat. 4073, 6. See, for example, 700.479, 34. On this, see, for example, 700.500, 76. For example, 700.484, 125. 700.498, 402–3. Also see, for example, 700.484, 125. 700.478, 177–85. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 535. 700.485, 536. Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 2:144, 146. 700.470, 25–96. Of the others, by far the largest number of speeches was eighteen. Salamon, “Az 1741–iki,” 97–98. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:390–91; M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:244–45. Hajnóczy, “Magyarország országgyűléséről,” 227. Csizmadia, “Egy 200 év előtti országgyűlés,” 221. Letter from Sándor Gáspár in Pressburg, dated 5 October 1741, to Count Ferenc Károlyi. Cited in Éble, “Törvényhozás az insurrectióról,” 177. The report of Bujánovics, dated 17 July 1790, is cited in Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:53. 700.484, 204. Naponként-való 1792, 126–27. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 561, 534, 535. Zsilinszky, Az 1708-ki, 55. 700.497, 121. Ibid., 121. E. Iványi, Esterházy Pál nádor közigazgatási tevékenysége (1681–1713) (Budapest, 1991), 337, 403. Csekey, Trónöröklési jog, 238, 252–53. Gy. Bónis, A bírósági szervezet megújítása III. Károly korában (Systematica Commissio) (Budapest, 1935), 13, 16, 151. Also see Marczali, Magyarország története, 75–76; I. Wellmann, “Barokk és felvilágosodás,” in Barokk és felvilágosodás, ed. I. Wellmann, vol. 4,

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42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

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Magyar művelődéstörténet, ed. S. Domanovszky (Budapest, 1941), 86; F. Eckhart, Magyar alkotmány- és jogtörténet (Budapest, 1946), 313, 315; Csizmadia, “Introduction and Notes,” 32; Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 298; E. Varga, A királyi Curia, 1780–1850 (Budapest, 1974), 17; Gy. Ember, “A kormányzati szervezet,” in Magyarország története 1686–1790, ed. Gy. Ember and G. Heckenast, vol. 4, Magyarország története, ed. Zs. P. Pach (Budapest, 1989), 496. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 50. B. Grünwald, A régi Magyarország, 1711–1825, 3rd ed. (1888; Budapest, 1910), 360; Marczali, Magyarország története, 32; Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 1:369–70; Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 298. Examples in Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 29–30; Naponként-való 1790, 411. MOL N56, 3:17. MOL N55, 6:10. Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, Fasz. 406, Konvolutt A, fol. 280. Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Kézirattár [National Széchényi Library, Manuscript Archive], Fol. Lat. 3542: Acta diaetae annorum 1764/5, 590–91. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 27. Szijártó, A diéta, 161, 575–76. Grünwald, A régi Magyarország, 360. Cf. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 11; Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 37. R. Sebők, “Az 1722-1792 közötti országgyűléseken részt vevő és részt nem vevő ítélőmesterek prozopográfiai elemzése,” Korall 18 (2017): 36–64. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 21. See Szijártó, A diéta, 158. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:403. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 1, 399–400. 700.503, 32–38. 700.500, 154–55. Marczali, Magyarország története, 32. Ibid., 76–78; Bónis, A bírósági szervezet, 111. Bónis, A bírósági szervezet, 111–12. Kinsky’s report is cited in Málnási, Csáky Imre, 201. Bónis, A bírósági szervezet, 113. E. Takáts, Nádasdy László, 132–33, partially based on Bónis, A bírósági szervezet. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:134–43. Cf. Brunner, Land und Herrschaft, 374–77. Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 1:360–61. Ákos Beöthy is cited in Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 13. On them in detail: A. Forgó, Egyház, rendiség, politikai kultúra: Papok és szerzetesek a 18. század országgyűlésein (Budapest, 2017). Téglás, A történeti pasquillus, 84. K. Hornig, “Bevezetés,” in Padányi Biró Márton veszprémi püspök naplója: Függelékül Birónak Rómába tett két jelentése 1752 és 1757-ből, ed. K. Hornig (Veszprém, 1903), 21. OSZK K Fol. Lat. 4073, 17–18; J. Nagy, “Ha nézem a papokat,” 242–46. B. Mezey, Európai parlamentarizmus- és alkotmánytörténet (Miskolc, 1994), 208. Gy. Lupkovics, A magyar rendi országgyűlések, 1608–1848 (Kassa, 1911), 8.

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74. At the monarchy level see Neuhaus, Das Reich, 34; at the level of a province, Württenberg, see Lehmann, “Die württenbergischen,” 185–87. 75. Marczali, Pálffy Miklós emlékiratai, 20. 76. Ákos Beöthy is cited in Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 13. 77. Demkó, “Országos conscriptio,” 96. 78. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 29–32. The market towns of Szatmár and Németi were granted royal free city status as Szatmár-Németi by article 100 of 1715. On the conflict between Sándor Károlyi and Szatmár County, and between the cities of Szatmár and Németi, see A. Vári, J. Pál, and S. Brakensiek, Herrschaft an der Grenze: Mikrogeschichte der Macht im ostlichen Ungarn im 18. Jahrhundert (Cologne–Weimar–Vienna, 2014), 161–82. (The author of the text in question is Judit Pál.) 79. According to this other journal, he should have left the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Pressburg to finish the concertatio, and the articles should later have been sent to Vienna to be approved. (700.468, 537–38.) 80. Szijártó, A diéta, 169–70. 81. 700.467, 442. 82. 700.470, 137. 83. 700.468, 534–35. 84. 700.469, 87. 85. 700.470, 141. 86. 700.467, 446. 87. 700.469, 88. 88. Ibid., 88. 89. 700.470, 143. 90. 700.467, 452. 91. Ibid., 453. Cf. article 2 of 1751. 92. 700.469, 89. 93. 700.467, 453–54. 94. 700.469, 89–90. 95. Csekey, Trónöröklési jog, 238. 96. 700.484, 81–84. Two counties were split, and two were absent. 97. 700.498, 527–29. 98. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 17. 99. L. Nagy, “Levéltári,” 723. 100. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.505: Fragmenta actorum consessuum palatinalium ductu articuli VIIIi anni 1715. 1717, 1718 et 1719 celebratorum, 74. 101. 700.484, 117. 102. 700.479, 32. 103. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.480: Acta concursus anni 1737 pro die 11ma martii Posonium indicti, 10–12, 65, 68. 104. Eberhard, “Stände,” 135. 105. Cf. OSZK K Fol. Lat. 4073, 27. 106. Brauneder, Österreichische Verfassungsgeschichte, 102. 107. Bezerédj, “Rosti,” 14–15. 108. OSZK K Fol. Lat. 4073, 7.

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109. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] P650 [A Tallián család levéltára] bundle 15, fasc. 5, 6, 8. 110. Although the use of this term is clearly anachronistic when applied to those present at the diets of the eighteenth century, I will continue to use it for the sake of simplicity. 111. Nachlass Kaunitz, Convolutum C, fol. 102. 112. R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700: An Interpretation (Oxford, 1979), 449. 113. P. Baumgart, “Der Adel Brandeburg-Preussens im Urteil der Hohenzollern des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Adel in der Frühneuzeit: Ein regionaler Vergleich, ed. R. Endres (Köln and Wien, 1991), 153. 114. Marczali, Magyarország története, 26–27. 115. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki’ 1:413–14. 116. Marczali, Magyarország története, 26–27. 117. Marczali, Pálffy Miklós emlékiratai, 17. 118. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:110. 119. Csekey writes of the archbishops of “Eger and Kalocsa.” As the position of archbishop of Eger did not exist at the time, I will replace the word “Eger” in his text with that of “Esztergom,” which is presumably what he meant to write. 120. Cited in Csekey, Trónöröklési jog, 236. 121. J. Nagy, “A vármegyei követküldési gyakorlat jellegzetességei az 1751. évi országgyűlés példáján,” Századok 149 (2015): 951–52. 122. A. Kiss and J. Nagy, “Bevezető,” in Pest-Pilis-Solt vármegye országgyűlési követutasításai a 18. században, A. Kiss (Budapest, 2015), 15–16. 123. Poór, Kényszerpályák, 26. 124. Nachlass Kaunitz, Convolutum C, fol. 103. 125. Poór, Kényszerpályák, 27–28. 126. S. Hoffer, Krónika, 324. 127. Cf. Gy. Ember, “A barokk rendi társadalom,” in Barokk és felvilágosodás, ed. I. Wellmann, vol. 4, Magyar művelődéstörténet, ed. S. Domanovszky (Budapest, 1941), 145, 147–48. 128. Marczali, Magyarország története, 27. 129. Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 51; Evans, “The Hungarian Problem,” 47. 130. L. Tóth, “Bevezetés,” 391; Málnási, Csáky Imre, 257. 131. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 532. 132. Csizmadia, “Egy 200 év előtti országgyűlés,” 222. 133. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:405, 413. 134. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:324. 135. Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 51. 136. OSZK K Fol. Lat. 4073, 8. 137. 700.475, 82–83. 138. Naponként-való 1792, 68. 139. I. Balogh, “A rendi állam várospolitikája,” in Debrecen története, ed. I. Rácz, 5 vols. (Debrecen, 1981–2000), 2:183. 140. Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Kézirattár [National Széchényi Library, Manuscript Archive], Quart. Lat. 2317: Residua scripta Pauli Őz, vol. 2: Diarium diaetale anni 1790, 1791 et 1792, 51. 141. Cited in Málnási, Csáky Imre, 198. 142. E. Takáts, Nádasdy László, 133; Cf. Bónis, A bírósági szervezet, 113.

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143. Márton Szuhányi’s letter of 1 October 1741, sent from Pressburg, is cited in Éble, “Törvényhozás az insurrectióról,” 176–77. On his membership in the council of lieutenancy, see Gy. Ember, A m. kir. Helytartótanács ügyintézésének története 1724–1848 (Budapest, 1940), 202. 144. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 555. 145. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:367. 146. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:40–41. 147. Cf. A. P. Luttenberger, “Pracht und Ehre: Gesellschaftliche Repräsentation und Zeremoniell auf dem Reichstag,” in Alltag im 16. Jahrhundert: Studien zu Lebensformen in mitteleuropäischen Städten, ed. A. Kohler and H. Lutz (München, 1987), 299. 148. Bezerédj, “Rosti,” 14–15. 149. Evans, “Hungarian Problem” 47. 150. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 178–79. 151. Poór, Kényszerpályák, 25. 152. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:247–49.

Chapter 6

CAREER PATHS AT THE DIET

d I

n what follows we will attempt to find explanatory factors for the motivation behind political positions taken at the diet—mostly based on sources that simplify these to a binary antithesis between opposition and government views. In most cases, such information is provided by votes and pasquils. About four hundred political positions can be collated from the period 1728–65, and there were about sixty participants in the diet whose political positions can be deduced from at least two instances.1 They are not spread evenly between the four diets: the largest group of known political positions is from the first of the diets investigated, that of 1728–29. If we look, in turn, at what characterizes political participation at (1) this first diet, then at (2) the concursus of the 1730s and the diet of 1741, (3) at the diet of 1751, and finally (4) at the diet of 1764–65, we do not see any obvious tendencies. This implies that the diets of the middle part of the century, examined here as a group, are essentially homogenous with regard to the aspect of politics considered here, and thus it is justified to consider them as one unit. Looking at the histories and careers of political actors—inasmuch as this is possible—we should uncover combinations of background factors that explain the political attitudes of the group as a whole, of the majority of the group, or of a number of distinctly different parts of the group. As individual Hungarian politicians of the mid-eighteenth century attended more than one diet, and as their behavior may have changed from one to the next, and as certain general behaviors or motivations may have been typical of one part of the period in question more than other parts, such changes can also be investigated. We will attempt to take into consideration the following explanatory factors behind each political position: which district the deputy is from (Tibiscan, Cisdanubian, Transdanubian);

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whether he was a county deputy or the deputy of an absentee; whether he occupied a county office or national post (including that of a judge at the royal court of justice), or a position at a district court or in the apparatus of the Hungarian Chamber (which not only had central offices but also a nationwide network); whether royal favor had blessed him in some way in the ten years before the diet (promotion to the aristocracy, being made a valiant knight with golden spurs, presented with a gift of land); whether he was Protestant or Catholic. Of course, from the distance of two and a half to three centuries, these preliminary explanatory factors can only serve as a proxy to mentalities, convictions, and political attitudes, in the belief that actions based on relatively freely brought decisions will typically correlate with the convictions and principles behind those decisions. This is not true of each individual or each case, but here we wish to explore the average political behavior of a sizeable group, with the objective of capturing possible changes within the elite in the middle part of the century. I contend that these objectives can be attained by an inspection of these proxy factors. Looking at all this from the other side, we can set our sights on all the objectives that may have motivated political actors. As it is impossible to directly reveal the entire group of these politicians, who left no ego-documents behind them, we must again make use of substitute indicators. So even in the period after these political positions were taken at the diet, we can follow the careers of every one of our protagonists, and very often those of their descendants, asking whether the person in question was appointed to national office, or to a district court, or to one of the offices of the Hungarian Chamber following the diet; whether they were granted the rank of baron or count or given gifts of land; and, perhaps, whether or not they were made valiant knights with golden spurs. Clearly, just as the combination of the respective (causal) explanatory factors does not clearly encode a particular political position, so we cannot see retrospective (functional) explanatory indicators as the result of a single such position. It is not certain that someone was in opposition on account of having been born Protestant; neither it is sure that someone was appointed a member of the council of lieutenancy because he voted for a tax increase at the diet. We can assume, however, that any political position at the diet under scrutiny here can suggest the direction of a series of actions that resulted in the career path of the individual concerned: appointments, endowments he was given—or the lack of them. It can also be relevant whether, in the following generation, we encounter appointments, gifts, or similar benefits with regard to the son or sons of the political actor in question. Although there were surely some who developed their political positions at the diet with the intention of achieving these objectives only to fail to avail of them, this does not invalidate the utility of these proxy indicators but merely shows that the model is not a deterministic one: not all pro-government politics would assure the politician in question a reward of government office with salary and power to match. This is only to be expected. What is of interest is whether, for ex-

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ample, there was more chance of achieving such office by means of oppositional or pro-government politics at the diet. Alongside power, payment was a highly important source of motivation. Behind the success of absolutism was the compromise made with the nobility: in addition to retaining power at local level, representatives of the nobility would be given paid positions within the royal administration and in the army.2 This was exactly the process seen in Brandenburg-Prussia during the reign of the grand elector: although at first the local nobility fiercely objected to the loss of a part of its political rights and privileges, it would be compensated for this in the form of jobs created at the Landrat and officer posts in the army reserved for nobles. All these advantages tied the junkers to the crown and in the long run made them into a serving nobility.3 On the one hand, from a historical perspective, the fact that such a bond was not established for the whole of the Hungarian nobility is an important one; on the other hand, the paid royal offices that were few in number and operated purely as a central body, except for those within the apparatus of the Hungarian Chamber, may have had more appeal for them in the eighteenth century than for the nobility in Western Europe or in Prussia. The main issues at the eighteenth-century diets were ones of taxation, confession, and constitution. By combining the political positions taken up on these with individual careers seen at a group level, it has been possible to outline career paths in which the pursuit of self-interest (the goal of social elevation) can be identified as a motivation; also—and this is what is less evident, and of greater interest—light can be shone on which questions of principle might have driven the Hungarian politicians of the mid-eighteenth century, and when.

“Successful” and “Unsuccessful” Careers The era under scrutiny, 1728–65, was a political lull compared not just to the period 1703–11 but even to the 1790s. Following Lewis Namier, who, writing of mid-eighteenth-century England, outlined a political system driven by individual interests and based on personal connections—a world of patronage and corruption4—our initial hypothesis can be that in the politics of Hungary we can find members in the lower house who were primarily ensuring their private interests. Let us first inspect career paths seen from the end of those careers. It is clear that in eighteenth-century Hungary, with its sizeable nobility, the appeal of central administrative offices, which paid better than those in the counties and (unlike elected county positions) usually offered a career for life, was significant. For the sake of simplicity, in the first instance we consider those political careers successful that led to the appointment of such posts. Of course, the same could be said of gifts of land or elevation to the aristocracy, even of being made a valiant knight with golden spurs—assuming this was

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accompanied by other, more tangible successes. The truth is that in the group examined, with one single exception,5 everyone given land or a baronial or comital title by the rulers, or made a valiant knight with golden spurs at their coronation, also filled a post at some central administrative body (chamber, council of lieutenancy, chancellery) or court (district court, royal court of justice, or court of appeals, i.e. tabula septemviralis). It is, therefore, enough for us to focus on the latter.6 This is of course no coincidence but rather a strong sign in support of our approach that focuses on appointments to particular offices: in the eighteenth century, bodies of public administration represented not only the exercise of real power but also the only path to success in the sense of social elevation. Of the sixty politicians active at the diet in the mid-eighteenth century included in this study, twelve were appointed to office, and thirty-nine were not; in nine cases an official position—whether at one of the district courts, the supreme courts, the chamber, the council of lieutenancy, or the chancellery—could not be a measure of success in politics at the diet, as it had come before this took place. If we ignore this third group and look at the ratio between the “successful” and the “unsuccessful,” it is around 1:3, meaning that almost every fourth politician was appointed to administrative office. (In fact, we are only assuming, and in most cases cannot know for certain, that such offices had any connection to political positions taken at the diet; even if there can be a few exceptions or examples of the appointment being made much later than the diet, the majority of these instances can still display a clear tendency.) Calculations finer than these are also made possible by our data. If, instead of sixty politicians, we first look at the success of seventy-six political appearances at individual diets or concursus (as many of our politicians participated in more than one diet or concursus), and, furthermore, if we also consider the political appearances of those who arrived at the diet as existing bearers of office (this mostly refers to judges at the royal court of justice) and who were then promoted, we can say that of the seventy-six cases, twenty appearances at the diet can be seen to be successful and fifty-six to be unsuccessful, meaning that the rate of success was even higher than 25 percent.7 Understanding success in a broader sense, we can also see how, for a few politicians at the diet, generations of their sons would rest on the laurels of their fathers’ efforts. While a son’s election to a central administrative appointment must in part have reflected his own achievements, there is no doubt that his father’s political service can have been one of the key parameters determining a fresh career.8 Of the political careers that were not immediately successful, there are seven we can nevertheless consider a success in the long term, as, for the next generation, they led to official appointments, elevation to the aristocracy, bestowment of land, and knighthoods with golden spurs, as was also the case for one of the three politicians who arrived at the diet already holding an official appointment

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only to not receive any further promotion. Taking into account the potential for such long-term rewards, the “rate of success” rises to well above a third (28:48).9 Assuming that the politicians of the eighteenth century had their eyes on occupying one of the central royal offices of the country, namely the chamber, the council of lieutenancy, and the chancellery, as well as the district courts, the royal court of justice, and the court of appeals (without which a politician could hardly enjoy elevation to the aristocracy, beneficences of land, or a knighthood), and studying their success in this regard, we are able to divide those participants at the diet who displayed substantive political positions into four groups. First there are those for whom this did not succeed; then there are those who were given official appointments; third, there are those who arrived at the diet already holding such an office who did not advance; finally, there are those who enjoyed promotion beyond an office they already held. It is worth inspecting these four groups in terms of what other characteristics they display, and as regards—and here we come to the key goal of our investigation—the nature of the relationship between participation at the diet and their career. It is also expedient to insist on the earlier modification that takes as the seventy-six fundamental units of the study not individuals but individual participations at a given diet.10 In drawing the outline of the collective profile of “unsuccessful” politicians, our first observation is that the great majority, thirty-six out of fifty-three appearances at the diet, are associated with county deputies and the deputies of nine absentees.11 Half of these deputies also held offices at the county level. Of the fifty-three “unsuccessful” diet appearances, twenty-nine are from the Cisdanubian district, thirteen from the Transdanubian one, and only ten from the two Tibiscan districts;12 this seems counterintuitive at first, as stereotypes describe a deprived, mostly Protestant Tibiscan nobility, closed off from opportunities for advance. It is true, however, that of these political participations, the majority, twenty-six, are associated with Protestants and only twenty-four with Catholics.13 From these two facts we can conclude that it is an error immediately to link the Protestants active in eighteenth-century Hungarian politics to the Tibiscan districts.14 The distribution of the “successful” politicians—those achieving office following political activities—between the three districts15 is an even one. Cisdanubian politicians had the lowest proportion of “unsuccessful” political appearances. Of course, as we are looking at nobles appointed to central administrative and judicial posts in the period before the decree of tolerance allowed Protestants to take up office, we do not find any Protestants among them. Finally, there is the group of eight politicians whose participation at the diet was successful in the sense that it led to promotion, even though the individual in question had arrived at the diet as an officer or judge at some central administrative body. The striking characteristic of this group is that two-thirds of its members are associated with the Cisdanubian district.16

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As this is the second time we see the Cisdanubian district in a dominant position, it is worth taking a closer look at the political pronouncements of those coming from it. We compare those not achieving an office (the first group, above) with those who were appointed to an office at any stage, whether before or after the diet (second, third, and fourth groups, above), and look at the confession the individual belongs to—just in case this contains the explanation. For obvious reasons, among the Protestants we can only find unsuccessful careers (seventeen cases), while almost a third of the Catholics (eight out of nineteen) was or would become an officeholder. Among the Transdanubian Catholics, this success rate is four out of fifteen, so also almost a third. Unsurprisingly, fewer of the political participations from the Tibiscan districts can be linked to Catholics: only seven, but, of these, no less than five would be “successful”—twice the average. So we must draw the conclusion that, even if overall they dominated the politics of the day, the Cisdanubian Catholics had no better chances of attaining some official appointment than the others arriving to the diets of the mid-eighteenth century from elsewhere. Indeed, the “success” of the Catholics from the Tibiscan region demands closer investigation—although, on account of their small numbers, it cannot yet be stated as a fact that their chances of advancement within their confession were twice as good as those of the politicians arriving from the Danubian counties.

Political Profiles and Distribution over Time; Confessional and Regional Identity In the above, we attempted to characterize the clearly identifiable political pronouncements of the middle part of the eighteenth century with the simplest possible statistical methods, based on the assumption that the personal ambition of political participants at the diet was to acquire an official appointment. Now let us turn to the key issue: to attempt to connect particular political pronouncements to typical aspects of politicians’ careers. In the eighteenth century it is not possible to divide deputies between government and opposition depending on how they voted on the budget, but there is no question that taxation issues were of particular importance, and even in this period these give us the best information on whether a given politician supported the government’s initiatives or not. This happened most of all when the level of tax was set (that is, whether the politician in question supported or opposed the request of the king or queen referring to the annual tax amount being raised). Also closely related to this is the position taken during the debates on the question of the tax base, particularly with regard to the question raised during the diet of 1728–29 as to whether the survey of the tax base (intended to introduce a general tax on land) should include noble land. In addition, especially with the assistance of the pasquils,

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certain other political positions taken at the diet can in a general sense be judged pro-government or oppositional in nature. Let us examine the positions taken on tax issues as a starting point. The 76 political profiles or political appearances of the 60 participants at the diet (separately for the period of each diet) produce a total of 126 political positions taken at the diet, regarding taxation and other issues separately. These could be consistently oppositional or pro-government; or first pro-government, then oppositional; or even pro-government on tax but oppositional as regards the tax base—in short, even for one particular individual, and just on the issue of tax, two contradictory opinions can appear. Bearing all this in mind, we see that political positions relating to taxation were essentially evenly divided between oppositional (39) and pro-government (37). On other affairs, we find 24 political participations on the side of the government, and 26 against it. Political positions can thus be said to have been balanced—with a slight oppositional advantage (61:65). (In what follows, to avoid misunderstanding, the number of pro-government positions will come before that of oppositional ones.) If we look at the political positions taken at particular diets, then we are on the firmest ground with the diet of 1728–29, as here many votes were taken with names recorded. On the question of taxation, 39 politicians expressed a total of 49 opinions, and the ratio of those behind and against the government was entirely balanced (24:25). Even if other issues are included, this overall symmetrical picture remains (36:34). As we know, Charles VI took the side of the Protestants in the confessional conflict at the end of the diet, which was at odds with the diet’s Catholic majority. There is much less data on the periods of the concursus of 1736 and the diet of 1741. Our information, which records only clearly identifiable political opinions, covers eight political actors, nine political profiles,17 and eleven political positions expressed. The fact that on tax issues we only found oppositional positions (three of them, all at the concursus) has to be treated with caution: at the onset of the War of the Austrian Succession, tax increase was not the central issue of the diet of 1741; rather, the setting up of an army using the annual tax, the mustering of the noble levy, and the question of the diploma inaugurale dominated the focus of diet. Looking at other questions, the sides level out to some degree, with these pronouncements favoring the opposition, at 3:5, giving a total, including the ones on tax, of 3:8. In 1751, a year for which we have the data for nineteen political participations on file, we see a return to equilibrium between the two sides. The ratio of pro-government and oppositional positions on tax stands at 9:8, on other issues at 8:7, and is thus 17:15 overall. We see the situation at the diet of 1764–65 reflected in what is again only a small set of political pronouncements, in the profiles of a mere nine politicians. Unlike the overall picture for 1741, the tax issue displays the same balance as

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before, with three oppositional positions as against four pro-government ones. On other matters, oppositionality was stronger (1:5), which closer knowledge of the diet makes evident (the scandal of Ádám Kollár’s book, the experiment with reforming the insurrectio, and the plans for urbarial regulation). The overall ratio does not display such opposition dominance as the concursus of 1736 and the diet of 1741: the opposition’s advantage was by now only 5:8. The politics of the diet in the middle of the century was thus mostly characterized by balance. Because of the small number of political profiles explored, we cannot definitively state that by comparison the last period of Charles VI’s reign and the coronation diet of 1741 were exceptional—that is, less balanced—and neither can we say for sure that the diet of 1764–65 was characterized by a decline in relations and an intensification in differences between the government party and the opposition, but our information does make this all seem likely. We can also attempt to examine the relationship between political positions and confessional affiliation. Looking at pronouncements on taxation in 1728– 29, Catholics were split 12:14 between pro-government and oppositional views, while on other issues the confessional conflict toward the end of the diet explains why there was a balance of 4:7. (Put together the figure is 16:21.) On the war tax, the Protestants were divided (8:7), while on other questions they shared a platform with Charles VI (8:0): that is, he supported them in the great religious debate, when the only Catholics to defend confessional tolerance were those who held royal office. (This means most Protestants were loyal to the government: 16:7.) As stated, the number of cases for 1736 and 1741 is low—it is only really worth glancing at the aggregate figures (taxation and other issues combined): among the Protestants, there were as many in opposition as being pro-government (2:2), while the Catholics were more oppositional (1:5). At the diet of 1751, on the issue of the tax increase, loyal positions taken among Catholics were fewer than oppositional views (3:4), while among Protestants this ratio was just the opposite (4:3). On other issues, we see a balanced political field among the Catholics (4:4), while there was a small pro-government majority among the Protestants (3:2). All in all, the Protestants were stronger in their defense of Maria Theresa’s initiatives (7:5) than were the Catholics (7:8). At the last diet of our survey, meanwhile, the low number of cases again means we only consider an overall conclusion: a slight opposition advantage is found among the opinions of the Protestants (1:3) and Catholics (4:5). Summarizing the confessional data, we can say that, with respect only to positions taken on taxation, the Protestants supported and opposed the government in roughly equal numbers (13:11), while the Catholics were rather more oppositional (18:22). On other subjects, the Protestants seem clearly pro-government (13:6), something that is, importantly, not only the consequence of the confessional debate of 1729, mentioned above, but rather a much more general tendency; the oppositionality of the Catholics (10:17), meanwhile, is even more

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striking than on tax matters. Totaling the two groups of data for the whole period, then, we see the Protestant participants at the diet as mostly pro-government on the basis of their positions (26:17), and the Catholics as distinctly oppositional (28:39). To put it another way: the Protestants complemented a similar amount of pro-government participation with about half as much oppositional activity as did the Catholics.18 A regional breakdown of the political activity of the Protestants19 shows that those in the Tibiscan districts tended to be more oppositional (4:7) and those from the Cisdanubian district mostly supported the policies of Charles VI and Maria Theresa (18:10), while the number of positions taken at the diet by those from Transdanubia is almost too small to register (2:0). The opposition of the Catholics from the Tibiscan districts is similar to that of the Protestants (5:7), while the positions of those from the Cisdanubian district present similar proportions to those of the Protestants, just the other way around: the Catholics are as much in opposition as the Protestants are pro-government (9:20). Finally, the political positions of those from the Transdanubian district were balanced toward support for the government (14:12).20 That is, support for the ruler was the strongest among the Protestants coming from the Cisdanubian district, while positions pro and contra the government were about equal among Transdanubian Catholics; in the Tibiscan districts, meanwhile, members of both confessions were outdone in oppositionality only by the Catholics from Cisdanubia, among whom we see that more than two-thirds of political positions were taken against the regime.

Career Paths at the Diet We are now able to outline a number of career paths (which together cover the entire spectrum), connecting politicians’ success to their political decisions in such a way as to build as few explanatory factors into our model as possible. We take as our starting point, borrowed from Namier, the position that eighteenth-century politicians operated in line with their own self-interest; we will later have a chance to examine this assumption. The study we have just reported has, inter alia, given us the provisional result that sheds light on the central role played by the holding of administrative office, which in the case of individual political careers has presented a cross-section of the potential objectives we suggested at the outset (aristocratic rank, gifts of land, valiant knighthoods with golden spurs, central administrative or judicial office). It is, therefore, no longer necessary to examine the others in detail: it is enough to concentrate on the acquisition of administrative office. We shall see that, among the “preliminary explanatory factors” we considered, the identification with district and confession are the two most important factors—if not quite in the way that the stereotype

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of the Tibiscan Protestants as the “hard core” of the opposition might previously have made us think. It seems reasonable to begin our study with what political positions we can identify with the careers of those participants at the diet whom we have thus far labeled “successful” on account of the offices they attained. Looking at these politicians as a group, it is striking that the majority of the 12 individuals’ 13 political positions taken on taxation, the majority were oppositional (6:7), while on other questions the dominance of opposition positions was even more marked (3:6). It is worth looking at these surprising proportions not just in and of themselves but also compared to the other groups formerly considered. The “unsuccessful” group, or those politicians not being given an office in the period after their participation at the diet, was also oppositional on taxation (26:30) and indeed on other matters (14:16)—but only to a similar degree (taxation) or even lesser degree (other issues) than the “successful” group. Unsurprisingly, we encounter pro-government majorities in the small group of those who held office from the outset and would not rise higher (2:1, 2:1), just as we do in the case of officials who would later be promoted (3:2, 5:2). Looking at opinions expressed on taxation and on other issues together, pro-government positions are twice as likely for those already in office, whether they would be promoted later or not (4:2, 8:4), while we see a certain oppositional advantage for the “unsuccessful” ones (40:46). The surprising conclusion is that the ones most likely to be oppositional (9:13) are precisely those the diet brought success to: those who previously were not well-paid holders of office in the royal administration and central courts of justice but who would afterward be given such roles. In short, it was not usually the “eager beavers” to whom the ruler would give such office but rather precisely the combative opposition figures. Let us look at this “successful” group in greater detail. On the basis of political positions taken, the first subgroup includes János Csiba, István Beniczky, and Sámuel Blaskovich, all of whose every pronouncement was pro-government; the picture is a mixed one in the case of Ádám Niczky, Antal Adelffy, Ádám Vay, and Sándor Czompó; those who were consistently oppositional (the largest group) were Ignác Edelspacher, László Schlossberg, József Török, László Kvassay, and Pál Tiszta. We see no similar traits for those whose support for the government brought success; Blaskovich was given only land, not any office. One of them, Csiba, was a county deputy with county office, while no data is available as to the confession of two members of this subgroup. The second subgroup, displaying mixed political positions, can more easily be characterized: here we mostly find county deputies who also held county office, predominantly Catholics and ones from Transdanubia. After a long political career at the diet, one typified both by loud oppositional opinions and by a flexibility toward the government on a few key issues, Czompó was made chairman of the Transdanubian district court after

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the diet of 1741. Adelffy and Vay were initially up in arms against an increase in tax before moving over to the camp of its supporters. It is not clear what position Ádám Niczky took on the issue of tax. The pasquils considered him loyal to the government. (With the example of Czompó’s case in mind, it is tempting to assume that had Niczky been in opposition, he might not have had to wait a decade after the end of the diet to be given the chairmanship of the Transdanubian district court.) The members of the last subgroup, who were consistently in a position of opposition at the diet and were nevertheless elevated to office afterward, were, in addition to being Catholic, from the counties of the Tibiscan or Cisdanubian districts and not from the Transdanubian one. Of them, Edelspacher is something of an exception, as his success was merely in the form of a lower office in the apparatus of the Hungarian Chamber and a gift of land;21 the same is true of Tiszta, who would also be appointed to the chamber, and Kvassay, because he would only be nominated for the royal court of justice after the following diet was over. The cases of Török and Schlossberg are clear-cut: their opposition activity at the diet was followed by royal appointment. That is, although we might say that the broadest path to a royal office was nothing other than a consistently oppositional position, we can clearly see that there were ultimately a great many ways to achieve success. It is worth us reversing the direction of the survey and asking the essential question: what can explain political positions taken at the diet, whether pro-government or oppositional, and, as a result of these positions, what career paths developed in the political life of the middle part of the eighteenth century? In this phase, too, we are right to talk of politicians rather than political profiles, as it is worth combining divergent participations at the diet and seeing these as periods of a single career path. Each political life thus described links a hypothetical motivation with an observed behavior (meaning political positions taken at the diet) and with a result, namely the attainment of a paid state office (or some similar development), or the lack of this. A handful of such careers will be enough to cover all the political positions observed at the diets of the mid-eighteenth century and thereby the full spectrum of political behavior experienced in this period. Three main groups appear: those who were entirely on the government side, those were entirely with the opposition, and those that displayed a mixed political profile on the basis of its participation at the diet. Let us begin with those members of the diets from 1728 to 1765 whose political profiles were incontrovertibly pro-government. (The career paths discussed below can be perused in table 6.1.)

The Loyalists Our first subgroup is that of the Protestants. Of course, in this period, because of the obligation to take an oath to the Virgin Mary and the saints on entering office (this was referred to as the legally prescribed, i.e. decretalis, oath), they could

Catholics

Career path 11 and Career path 12

Career path 8a and Career path 9

Catholics

Protestants

Career path 5

Protestants

Career path 3 and Career path 4

Career path 1

Career path 6

Career path 2

Representation of confessional considerations

CAREER PATH 10

Representation of national interests and of confessional considerations

CAREER PATH 13

Career path 7

Representation of national interests

CAREER PATH 8

Personal and family advancement and representation of national interests

Career path 8b

Personal and family advancement and representation of confessional considerations

Note: The career paths in bold are typical of the period under investigation as a whole; those in italics of the earlier part of this period; those in CAPITALS of the second half of this period. Those career paths that (at least in the long term) were successful (led to public office) are underlined; those that were not successful are not.

Outright oppositional positions at the diet

Mixed positions at the diet

Outright pro- Protestants government Catholics positions at the diet

Personal and family advancement

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Presumed mixed motivations

Presumed outright motivation

Table 6.1. Summary of the career paths of “politicians” at the diets held between 1728 and 1765.

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not yet hope to attain the administrative offices this present analysis takes as the benchmark of success, and neither were they given aristocratic title at this time; even gifts of land would normally be substituted at best by financial rewards—as many would receive after the Pragmatica Sanctio was accepted. So, neither can it be assumed that the Protestants’ political positions at the diet could directly have been motivated by hopes of an official post. Yet the first career path within this subgroup is nevertheless that of those for whom pro-government politics at the diet was an investment, and who were satisfied with gaining only a few steps of advancement (from a rather low starting point in social terms), as only the next generation would be able to achieve objectives we here consider typical. This group includes the Jeszenák brothers, Pál and János, who more or less jointly applied a successful strategy: János, who acquired property, established a trust for Pál’s sons, one of whom would become a baron.22 Each of them was a deputy for an absentee at the diet. Although we know from the work of András Vámos that, contrary to popular belief, we cannot consider deputizing for an absentee as the first step to a serious political career, Vámos does stress that some did go on to significant political positions; these men were members of the Lutheran legal elite. From their ranks, he picks out Pál Prileszky, the two Jeszenáks, as well as István Zsittkovszky23—exactly those we here associate with the first form of career path. Pál Prileszky was delegated by Charles VI to the great reform committee, officially established by law in 1715 but active only in 1722.24 In this body, which elaborated proposals for political, military, and economic reform, the key work was done by Pál Prileszky and Sándor Károlyi—whose diary confirms this.25 He was given a financial reward of six thousand forints for his work and for the acceptance of the Pragmatica Sanctio.26 It is a sign of the importance of the services he rendered that he was paid one and a half times as much as the much-respected Pál Jeszenák.27 It is evident that even as a deputy for absent magnates, Pál Prileszky played a significant role at the diet.28 In the words of a contemporary, three Protestants— Pál Ráday, Pál Jeszenák, and Pál Prileszky—convinced the diet of the need to establish the council of lieutenancy, and yet in the end not a single Protestant was given a place on it.29 At the next diet Prileszky would also participate as the deputy of an absentee. In early June 1728 the lower house appointed him to the committee commissioned to compile the grievances and subsequently the petition containing the list of grievances; then, as sole representative of the absentium ablegati, he was also mandated at the end of September to the committee on the proportionate distribution of taxation.30 As regards the level of tax, at the vote on 24 July, Pál Prileszky sided with the government: relative to the tax level voted on by the previous diet, he recommended a higher annual tax, with certain conditions.31 He was also loyal on the question of tax reform, and so pasquilists attacked him, as well as others, on the issue of tying tax to land. They even

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claimed that he would like to step into the shoes of the infirm György Száraz to become personalis,32 even though, as a Protestant, such an office was not available to him. He is probably the character portrayed by the satirical work Passio dolorosa as “bloodthirsty Cain,” as someone who speaks out on tax reform against the nobility because he would like to become personalis.33 Still within the group of fully pro-government Protestants, the second career path is closely connected to the religious debate at the diet of 1728–29. András Szentpétery, György Eördögh, and István Kenessey did not back the king out of self-interest, but rather the other way around: Charles VI supported them against the extremely Catholic majority in the diet. That is, these landowning nobles were motivated as county deputies by the defense of their confession (something we can assume about them without knowing the details) rather than by any Namierian considerations. (We should note that by using these two clearly distinguishable motivations and the two types of career path they imply, we have essentially covered all the Protestants in this first subgroup.) Among the Catholics pursuing completely loyal politics at the diet, the proportion of holders of office or those being granted it (two-thirds) is so high that we can reasonably assume this to be no coincidence. The attainment of such posts could have been an objective for them,34 and as the “success rate” was certainly not 100 percent, we have grounds to think that the “unsuccessful” third of cases comprise those who followed the same strategy as the others: striving to attain social advancement by loyally serving the ruler at the diet (and elsewhere)—just not with success. The following belong to this group: László Somogyi, György Vietoris, József Petrovszky, and Ferenc Illésy (the third career path). Compared to those who would be awarded high office (János Csiba, István Beniczky),35 there were many more of those who arrived at the diet already in such a post (Gábor Kapy, József Rudnyánszky, Antal Brunszvik, János Sigray— at the diet of 1728–29—and József Majláth), of whom complete loyalty was expected.36 With the exception of Majláth, however, they would all be granted some kind of reward or promotion: their expected loyalty to the government brought them further results (fourth career path). But as Majláth’s son later became a regni baro (one of the high dignitaries of Hungary), his strategy, if a little belatedly, would also turn out to be successful. The third and fourth career paths have the same motivational background; they are just the successful and unsuccessful outcomes of the same strategy. Antal Brunszvik (1709–80)37 was one of the four hundred largest landowners in Hungary.38 After his posts in Pozsony County,39 he became secretary of the council of lieutenancy.40 He continued his career at the royal court of justice: he was protonotarius first to the personalis (1747–48), then to the lord chief justice (1749–55), and finally to the palatine (1756–62).41 From 1762 to 1775 he was councilor at the chancellery, from where he left with the title of count42: his comital diploma was signed on 7 October 1775.43 In the same year he became presi-

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dent of the court of justice of Galicia, which had been annexed by the Habsburg Monarchy.44 Antal Brunszvik was a confidant of the ruler45: on 16 January 1766 he was sent by Maria Theresa as a royal commissioner to defuse the peasant disturbances in Vas and Zala counties, a commission that in the summer would be extended to include Sopron county.46 Afterward he would participate in the preparation and implementation of the urbarial patent, regulating the serfs’ duties,47 and in the preparation of the Ratio Educationis, the educational reform.48 From 1769 to 1776 he was the royal commissioner substituting for the supremus comes of Esztergom County, and from 1779 to his death he was supremus comes of Bihar.49 From the beginning of his career, the royal favor he enjoyed was obvious: on 25 June 1741 Antal Brunszvik was a member of the coronation guard of honor sent to the Franciscan church,50 leading to his being made a knight with golden spurs by Maria Theresa, at the palatine’s suggestion, as part of the same ceremony.51 At the next diet he would serve the queen at the royal court of justice, and not just as a member of several committees52 but with such vehemence that, according to the opposition pasquil In Personalem, it was he, in the company of the personalis and another protonotarius, who put the homeland’s rights up for sale.53 At the time of the diet of 1764–65 he was working in Vienna, and yet he nevertheless earned himself a role in the opposition pasquil depicting the Passio of Hungarian liberty—and quite a role, at that: he was portrayed as Judas.54

Cunning Foxes, Stubborn Protestants, and the Interests of the Regnum The second main group of politicians at the mid-eighteenth-century diets under investigation is made up of those whose role assumed at the diet was a mixed one: on certain questions or at certain times they were pro-government, and at other times or on other issues they were oppositional. In the Protestant subgroup we again seem to see two distinct career paths emerging. First of all, there were those who gave in to the government at the crucial moment, perhaps backing the ruler on matters of particular concern to it (like István Gyürky on taxation reform, for example), thereby doing a great service. This fifth career path is thus founded on the motivation of self-interest, and it applies to such Protestant deputies as those who might deliberately have floated their decisions in order to increase the value of the fact that they would end up supporting royal initiatives. Alongside István Gyürky, Gábor Prónay also belongs here. What is important is that the fifth career path is successful despite being associated with the political strategy of the Protestants: Gyürky was also given a gift of land before the diet, then his grandson became councilor at the chancellery, judge of the court of appeals, and supremus comes,55 while for Prónay it was his sons who would build great careers. At the concursus of 1736, Charles VI asked in his proposition read out on 14 June for the estates to add a further 100,000 forints to the subsidium of 200,000

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forints they had already offered, and also requested for grain and for tax arrears to be settled. In the debate on the following day, Gábor Prónay was one of three county deputies who used their speeches to show support for János Balogh, deputy for Pozsony County, in his outrage. Balogh had said that they had described the impoverishment of the poor taxpaying public in enough depth, and that the arrears in his county alone amounted to 100,040 forints; the king should make do with the subsidium of 200,000 forints. The other county deputies agreed and sided with Balogh and his supporters.56 In 1751, Prónay became deputy for Pest County at the diet.57 While his speeches on 11 June show political ambivalence, loyalty later fundamentally characterized Prónay’s political positions, for the political commentary In diversos tells us he would in time support the tax increase.58 At this diet he was one of the two most loyal politicians (and most under attack from the pasquils) battling to see the tax increase take place. One pasquilist called him “pessimus civis,” whom the devil had sent to destroy the homeland;59 another called him a “traitor to the country” outright, one who was selling Hungary as a Judas might.60 It seems that the loyalty Gábor Prónay displayed to Maria Theresa would result in its just reward from the hand of Joseph II in terms of Prónay’s sons’ careers. Gábor and László Prónay would together be awarded the title of baron on 8 March 1782.61 Both would rise as high as the rank of supremus comes: after posts in Nógrád County, László would become royal commissioner of the district of Besztercebánya (1785–90), then supremus comes of Csanád County from 1790 until his death;62 Gábor was first appointed by Joseph II to be director of Pozsony educational district, and then was supremus comes of Gömör County until his death.63 When Duke Alexander Leopold was elected palatine in 1790, one of the names in the unopened envelope with two Protestant palatinal nominations was that of supremus comes Baron Prónay. While he would not have had any chance of becoming palatine even if the envelope had been opened, the mere fact of the candidacy is a sign of great prestige.64 The sixth career path will again return us to the debate of 1729: Pál Katona, János Radvánszky, Sámuel Bohus (and most probably Gábor Máriássy) were Protestant county deputies who, during the confessional disputes of 1729, found themselves drifting to the king’s side (thereby contradicting their original, oppositional standpoints—for example, on issue of tax). It is immediately clear that this group is similar to that described with the second career path, where religious conviction as a fundamental motivation presents itself in the background. (I believe Imre Kubinyi can also be mentioned here.65) This not only induced fully pro-government activity at the diet but also was consistent with a mixed political profile.66 In the religious conflict of 1729, the Catholic majority of the estates was in opposition on this point, and the Protestant deputies were those turning to the royal court for protection, which they would be granted. It is in effect a paradox that on 24 July 1728, on the occasion of the earlier taxation vote—an

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issue of great importance to the government—they had occupied an oppositional position.67 In the case of the Catholic deputies furthering partly pro-government and partly oppositional positions, we can imagine three points of departure: alongside self-interested loyalty to the regime and confession-based oppositionality (which, in this period, unlike the more familiar circumstances of the seventeenth century, meant the relentlessness of the Catholics and not that of the Protestants),68 we are bound to presume there was a third kind of motivation in order to explain their political behavior as we can observe it recorded in the sources. This third motivation will later be of particular importance to us, as here we will encounter a new form of opposition politics, one that contained the seeds of what would become the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions. This means that in addition to the two motivations thus far conjectured, namely confessionality and self-interest (or family interest) in social elevation, we encounter a third motivation, that of representing the interests of the “country,” i.e. a particular interpretation of the public good. It is clearly this third motivation that appears in the case of newly appointed baron Márton Szeleczky turning against the government on the taxation question. He embodies the following career path, the seventh. We see that, in certain cases, in the defense of noble privileges and the country’s institutions (its “rights and freedoms,” or, in later parlance, its constitution), even otherwise loyal Catholics can turn against the regime—and not for confessional reasons. The same can be said of Ádám Muraniczi Horváth, who was a county deputy as a baron, and although he appeared oppositional on the issue of the tax increase, he supported the government on the reform of the tax base. It was as if the notion of the public good, or the “national interest,” could be understood in various different ways: as a defense of misera plebs contribuens, i.e. as a weapon used to oppose tax increases (Muraniczi Horváth) or as an espousal of noble privileges, taking a stand against the reform of the tax base (Szeleczky). Later it was clearly the latter that amounted to a defense of the constitution. János Mohos would also allow himself certain oppositional airs while in possession of a government post, but this did not become permanent in his case, as on other questions he remained loyal. We can include him among the politicians following the seventh career path—that is, those who displayed a mixed political profile (political positions that were partly pro-government and partly oppositional), behind which we must assume there were considerations of principle. On 5 March 1729, when a small majority in the lower house gave a positive response to the question of the personalis (“Should noble land be included in the planned survey of the tax base?”), three on the royal court of justice voted against, and deputy lord chief justice Márton Szeleczky was one of them.69 Even a recently granted baronial title was no guarantee that an officeholder otherwise loyal to the king would support the government on all key political questions.

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The confessional conflicts toward the end of the diet would again illuminate Szeleczky’s loyalty, however. Together with the personalis, he attempted to soothe the angry Catholics and replied to prebendary Kellió as follows: “If the feast comes, then pray, rather than scheme under the guise of Mary the Virgin.”70 We do not know what effect Márton Szeleczky’s oppositional behavior on the question of the tax base had on the later development of his career. But two years later, when he applied for the vacated office of personalis, it was given instead to the crown prosecutor, i.e. director of royal legal affairs, Antal Grassalkovich.71 If some deputies initially rejected the taxation proposals before giving in and becoming supporters of a tax increase, they were acting similarly to the Protestants we devoted the fifth career path to: those who would ultimately adjust their political positions to serve their own personal progress. If we examine those Catholics who did likewise, we see that some of them shared the short-term lack of success of the Protestants (eighth career path: Mihály Mágocsy, Ádám Tallián, János Trumer, György Mihályffy, Ferenc Rosty, József Demkovics, and János Okolicsányi), while for others this behavior could even lead to success. (We will discuss them later.) The life of János Okolicsányi is typical of this career path. Okolicsányi appeared twice at the diet as deputy for Zemplén County, in 1741 and 1751.72 His combative speeches made him look like one of the leaders of the opposition at his very first diet. On 31 July he recommended that the diet submit a new petition to the queen with the requests left unchanged that Maria Theresa had rejected. When, on 24 September, after the famous Vitam et sanguinem! scene and the offer of thirty thousand soldiers to the queen by the diet, the negative response to the postulata of the estates arrived in the form of the queen’s second royal rescript, it was at the suggestion of János Okolicsányi that the diet accepted the proposal to send Maria Theresa a third petition: they would not even continue to discuss the noble levy until their demands were met. On 29 September he was again one of the voices at the lower house who supported the opinion of Count Imre Eszterházy Jr., bishop of Nyitra, that some kind of deceit had taken place during the editing of the second royal rescript rejecting the nation’s requests (probably on the part of the “German ministers”), because Maria Theresa wanted to satisfy all of them. (The combative activity of the opposition did indeed bring partial results.73) In 1751 Okolicsányi again appeared as the member of important committees;74 indeed, one pasquilist named him, alongside Gáspár Csuzy, leader of the opposition at the diet.75 In the debates in June, which are better known than most, he was one of the most outspoken: on the basis of his speeches, Okolicsányi stood out from the average at the lower house, alongside Csuzy and the progovernment personalis.76 It was true for all diets that hostile oppositional attitudes weakened with time, that the opposition was gradually eroded, and this was true of 1751. Yet it was as if this had not touched Okolicsányi: according to the opposition pasquil Responsio Hungariae, there came a point at which János Okolicsá-

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Figure 6.1. Lord Chief Justice Count György Fekete (1711–88), earlier personalis, by an unidentified painter. Kiscelli Museum, Budapest. Photo by Szilas. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

nyi alone fought for the country’s interests.77 This makes it all the more surprising that he was nevertheless willing to back the government on a question of lesser significance: on 26 August he expressed his agreement with János Jeszenák’s proposal that, as the emperor had offered, the special registration fee be waived for barons Koch and Toussain when granting them Hungarian naturalization.78 He also warned against the delay, instigated by the demands of the cathedral chapter of the city, of the ratification of the royal free city privileges of Győr, which had been urged by Maria Theresa. This speech of Okolicsányi can also be seen as

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pro-government in attitude.79 Finally, despite what was written in the Responsio Hungariae, even Okolicsányi would support the proposal of personalis Fekete for the increase of annual taxes by seven hundred thousand forints—with the slight adjustment that the part of this amount over half a million forints be given as a gift to Maria Theresa as from her loyal subjects.80 Perhaps these facts, which received little attention at the time or later, explain why Okolicsányi, for all his fervent opposition views, would be awarded the title of royal councilor.81 For the “cunning foxes” who flaunted their political positions, there was opportunity for direct success if they were Catholics. In contrast to the previous group, the following would achieve success as defined by attaining high office: Antal Adelffy, Ádám Vay, Ádám Niczky (ninth career path). For example, the opposition politics of Sándor Czompó lasted not for half a diet but at least a diet and a half, but they did come to end, and his volte-face did indeed bring him an official appointment. At the diet of 1741, alongside László Schlossberg, Sándor Czompó as deputy and vicecomes of Sopron County was considered one of the leading speakers at the diet.82 His opposition status was not so clear, however. In a letter dated 30 July 1741, Márton Szuhányi, deputy for Szatmár County, wrote that amid the moaning following the unfavorable royal proposition, Sándor Czompó was one of those attempting to motivate the lower house to work (as he was being enticed by the post of chairman of the Transdanubian district court in Kőszeg),83 and yet it was Czompó who urged a tough stance on naturalized aristocrats, saying that they had never taken the oath, did not pay the fee required of them, and so had to be taken off the lists of Hungary’s estates. The diet sent out a committee on this subject, despite personalis Antal Grassalkovich’s attempts to prevent this, citing the efforts of an earlier deputation.84 According to the pasquil Arcana Regni Hungariae, Czompó was only attempting to make himself look oppositional but did not in fact want to be disloyal, so János Nagy considers him one of those with loyalties to both sides.85 In any case, according to the annual directory of 1742, he was already chairman of the district court of Kőszeg.86 He did not achieve this coveted office by supporting the government on the tax issue in 172887 but rather by his later visible oppositionality that would on certain issues nevertheless be paired with compliance.

In Opposition The last main group in our survey of eighteenth-century political careers is that of members of the diet who consistently expressed opposition positions. Let us again begin with the Protestants, who at this time could not hope to attain royal administrative office. In the confessional conflict of 1729 they drifted to the king’s side, i.e. to the government position—at the later diets under investigation here they had no reason to do so, as the confessional question would not again be

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on the diet’s agenda until 1790. The opposition politics of Imre Kubinyi, György Szathmáry-Király, János Bohus, and József Darvas, as well as similar members of the Protestant landowning lesser nobility with strong county backgrounds, was an old-new Protestant opposition politics, one that, repeating the circumstances of the seventeenth century, was again at odds with the government. The confessional question was not the only factor, however; it was mixed with the motivation first noticed concerning the seventh career path and hypothetically referred to as the tendency to see constitutional questions at the core of the dualism of king and estates (tenth career path).88 We do not find a Protestant politician within the group of consistently oppositional politicians who followed any other career path. This makes it clear that at the beginning of the period in question, previous to 1729, Protestant politicians were not in a position to hold a consistently oppositional stance during the diets of the eighteenth century; this would only become a possibility when the confessional issue no longer appeared at the diet. And in this era, when explaining their behavior, we have good reason to assume other motivating factors alongside the confessional one—as the Catholic parallel confirms. As far as the Catholic opposition is concerned, it is striking that not one was put in confrontation with the ruler’s policy purely and exclusively by the confessional conflict of 1729. It is clear from this that the old form of purely confessional oppositionality was invisible even among Catholics, as it existed only in combination with a general resistance to government actions (which we can regard as an early form of the tendency to see constitutional questions at the core of the dualism of king and estates).89 Within this subgroup, the twelve unsuccessful political participations of nine politicians at the diet are contrasted with the successful careers of seven politicians (with nine successful political participations). The latter are as follows: József Török, Pál Tiszta, Ignác Edelspacher, László Kvassay,90 and László Schlossberg (for all of whom it was outrightly oppositional political activity that resulted in administrative appointments), as well as Ádám Zichy and András Pongrácz, two of those eighteenth-century politicians to arrive at the diet as royal officeholders and then be promoted despite their participation being oppositional in flavor.91 It is also significant that these appearances—when, that is, those in royal posts (in all the cases of which we are aware) behaved at the diet entirely like members of the opposition—are all associated with the first two diets of the period under discussion: 1728–29 and 1741. It seems that circumstances changed in the second half of this century, and thus it was no longer customary to recruit the royal administration from the ranks of the political opposition, or to tolerate that the bearers of posts paid for by the king might politically act against him at the diet. We can interpret this as a consolidation of the front lines between government and opposition. Overall, therefore, in the mid-eighteenth century a consistent oppositionality at the diet would for just over half of Catholic politicians bring appointment to a

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royal office or a high court. Can we think of this simply as coincidence? Can we suppose that such an appointment might come as a surprise to politicians who had fought throughout the diet as part of the opposition? It would be strange if a single one of them had been surprised. Although, for lack of sources, we are hardly able to make categorical statements on the private convictions of individual deputies and protonotarii, looking at the group as a whole it is nevertheless clear (and this would be the benefit of a prosopographical approach): there was a good chance an ambitious Catholic politician could achieve administrative office by emphasizing an opposition opinion at the diet—and here we can again assume self-interest as a basic motivation (eleventh career path). Neither can it be a coincidence that, of the five examples just given, three are associated with the first diet (1728–29) of the period in question, as is true for the politicians who had already attained public posts but were later promoted. This path to advancement was still available in the first half of the examined period, and only slowly became obstructed. One of the rarer and later examples was that of József Török. After nine years as vicecomes of Borsod County, he was given a post in the central royal administration92: from 1754 to 1758 he was the lesser noble councilor of the council of lieutenancy.93 He then became a councilor at the chancellery in Vienna.94 He was elevated to the rank of count on 28 December 1774.95 His landholdings put him among the top hundred noble landowners in Hungary.96 Török was first present at the diet in 1741 at the age of twenty-seven, when he was deputy for absentee Baron Ghillányi.97 In 1751 he was already at the diet as first vicecomes and deputy of Borsod County.98 On 1 May he was chosen to be a member of the committee sent to greet Maria Theresa.99 At the debate at the lower house on 11 June 1751, Gábor Prónay, deputy for Pest County, made a speech that was loyal in character. He recommended the diet find a supplementary tax base—i.e. that it allow a tax increase. In response, József Török took up a highly oppositional stance, stating that “the country is not able to give more,” while at the same time demanding the submission of the remaining grievances. When prebendary Huber, representing the chapter of Eger, insisted that more tax had to be collected from the current tax base in order for the estates to retain the queen’s favor and for long-lasting peace to return, to which the estates were bound by conscience, Török’s reply was that all county deputies had been instructed to lessen the burden on their taxpayers. The deputies therefore had to act in accordance with their oath, their instructions, and their consciences. This meant the task of the diet to resolve grievances—only after this would it transpire whether it could raise taxes and to what extent. He also argued that the king’s letter of invitation stated that one of the objectives in convening the diet to discuss the matter of “safeguarding” the country, and that they should discuss this first, not look for a new base in order to raise the annual tax amount.100 Three years after proclaiming these vigorous opposition calls to arms, Török would already be the leading administrator at the

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council of lieutenancy, then at the chancellery; his comital title is proof that he performed his duties with loyalty and expertise. In the early 1790s, he was considered part of the country’s enlightened elite.101 Just as we were unable to say anything about the convictions of “successful” members of the opposition who achieved high office, so neither can we know for sure whether the “unsuccessful” majority of the consistently oppositional Catholic politicians of this period followed this strategy of self-interest, just not with the intended results. It is worth comparing their success with the proportions observed for the third and fourth career paths of outright pro-government political activity. It could be assumed that a smaller proportion of those consistently undertaking opposition activity at the diet might be rewarded with high office than those with a reliably pro-government stance; what is surprising is how small the difference between the two is. The “unsuccessful” larger half of the Catholic opposition probably included two groups: those who were visibly oppositional in order to stand out and thus achieve royal office, but who failed in this enterprise (twelfth career path, which has parallels to the third and the eighth), and those who took up an opposition stance out of principle (thirteenth and final career path). From what we have seen, it is not possible to distinguish these two groups on the basis of the sources that have been processed thus far. But as we have just discovered that there was a Protestant opposition not based on confessional issues, so too must there have been a Catholic opposition, also nonconfessional, which on the basis of observable characteristics seems to have diverged little from the unsuccessful careerist Catholic politicians (those who chose to shine with their oppositionality, not their loyalty), and yet in terms of motivation was completely different: based on issues of principle, they sought to represent the interest of the country, the public interest. We can assume this must have been easier for a Protestant, to whom, in this period, the door to royal office was closed, and so for whom there was less temptation to join the active service of a government party that seemed increasingly at odds with the estates. But it seems pretty clear that there were many among the Catholic opposition whom it would be a mistake to describe as cunning careerists (wanting to use precisely their oppositionality to achieve recognition) who happened not to be successful. We can attempt to come closer to distinguishing the twelfth and thirteenth career path by looking at which diets these political positions were taken. So far, we have seen that in the mid-eighteenth century it was possible to become worthy of a post at a central administrative body or high court with either a loyal, mixed, or outright oppositional political profile. If, however, we look at precisely when these opposition strategies proved successful, we come across a marked difference. If we take the Catholics using oppositionality to achieve public office (eleventh career path), then the majority of them did so following the diet of 1728–29;102 only a minority acquired office or official promotion after the

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later three diets put together.103 The same is true of those with a mixed political profile (ninth career path).104 By contrast, it was primarily at the later diets that successful career-building Catholics followed the path of complete loyalty. The lion’s share of those in this group (fourth career path) came into office or were promoted to a higher post after the diet of 1751.105 A single member did so at the diet of 1728–29;106 the same was true of the diet of 1764–65.107 For the “unsuccessful” third of the Catholic politicians whose politics were loyal to the government, we can assume that they wanted public office in the same way as the other two-thirds; i.e. we can associate them with the same motivation. We cannot think this of the Catholics in opposition but not appointed to royal office: while in 1728–29 there was a real chance that someone could be elevated to such office after being known for their opposition stance, in the second half of our period the government would almost exclusively reward loyalty. By this time, anyone who was in the opposition almost certainly did not do so out of self-interest. Among followers of the twelfth and thirteenth career paths—thus far considered together—the genuinely “unsuccessful careerist” Catholic politicians were more likely those who held an opposition stance at the diet of 1728–29. This is reinforced by the fact that for no less than a third of them, in the cases of Ferenc Szentiványi and Gáspár Farkas, social elevation would take place in the next generation, and so in the long run they can be considered to have been successful (in the same way that we did this for the Protestants in the fifth career path). For this reason, I list Szentiványi and Farkas under the twelfth career path, as unsuccessful careerist Catholics who at this point had not managed to break through. Alongside them we might, from this diet, mention Boldizsár Lippich, Márton Bartakovics, and László Kazy; I would also add György Nemsovay from the concursus of 1736. With a rough and ready but not unfounded approach, we might regard those that remain as principled opposition members (thirteenth career path). The life and career of Ferenc Szentiványi will be the archetype of the Catholic opposition regarded as unsuccessful in the short term. Among the unsuccessful Catholic members of the opposition were Gáspár Csuzy, Ferenc Bacskády, and Zsigmond Szüllő, who probably all opposed the government on grounds of principle. They all maintained a consistently oppositional stance at two diets: one of them at the diets of 1741 and 1751, and the other two at the diets of 1751 and 1764–65—not, that is, in the 1720s. Gáspár Csuzy was assessor and deputy of Veszprém County at the diet of 1741,108 who was not just selected to join important committees109 but, according to Henrik Marczali, was also, alongside János Okolicsányi, one of the leaders of the opposition in the diet.110 And when Maria Theresa’s second rescript arrived, rejecting the requests of the estates, he took up the same position as that of Imre Esterházy, bishop of Nyitra: most probably the German ministers had done something fraudulent, as the queen had wanted to satisfy all the Hungarian

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wishes.111 Neither did he support the noble levy intended to protect Maria Theresa: “They wish to take the nobility to the slaughterhouse.”112 Ten years later he would again represent his county at the diet as an assessor;113 again, together with Okolicsányi, he would count as one of the leaders of the opposition at the diet.114 In his case, that is, a markedly oppositional political position at the diet would be followed by a career at the county level. Yet even this was no obstacle to Csuzy acquiring new land and further elevating his family.115 If it has perhaps proved possible to distinguish the opposition based on principle within the general opposition displayed at the diet, then we may also be able to make a distinction in the case of the eighth career path, the Catholics with mixed political stance, instead of merely seeing all its members as failed careerists. First of all, we can separate the case of József Demkovics, who was visibly ready to compromise (on the question of tax), only then to confront Charles VI on the confessional issue.116 It is as if he had tried to set out on the fourth career path, only to be driven off it by a question of principle. The case of Okolicsányi, already discussed, is a particularly special one: it seems that it was only at the very last minute that he turned his back on principled opposition (thirteenth career path), a position his personal destiny remained closest to. Perhaps similar to this is the career of Rosty, whom we cannot include among the principled opposition on account of a pro-government statement he made that would only later be corrected. It is also interesting to note that all the other figures belonging to the eighth career path (Mágocsy, Mihályffy, Tallián, and Trumer) were active at the diet of 1728–29. They were making partly oppositional and partly pro-government pronouncements during the days when oppositionality was far from an obstacle to achieving high office. That is, perhaps we should only consider the latter group as being properly “unsuccessful careerists” (career path 8a). An investigation of temporality can play a role not only in distinguishing the twelfth and thirteenth career paths or displaying the complexity of the eighth career path (by separating career path 8a). Let us now use the chronology to look at the thirteen career paths of the sixty politicians whose lives are being examined in the middle of the century.

Chronology of Career Paths at the Diet The first career path is that of the Protestant intelligentsia serving the ambitions of the government: they stood fully behind the policy of the ruler of the day, and their pronouncements at the diet unquestionably served their personal advance and that of their families. This political behavior can be found throughout the almost four decades under investigation here, and it evidently appears to bring success in the long run. Catholic politicians also opted for loyal positions (presumably for similar reasons of self-interest) and were either successful (fourth career

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path) or not (third career path). None of this is surprising, of course, and it is typical of the whole of the period studied here. Likewise, the fifth career path, that of the careerist Protestants achieving success in the long run (i.e. over many generations), can be found in each of the diets under consideration here; unlike members of the previous groups, those in this group were not fully pro-government but held a mixed political position. Finally, it appears that the ninth career path, that of the Catholics achieving success by mixing opposition and loyal positions at the diet, presumably motivated by self-interest, is also typical of the entire length of our period. There were also those Protestants who largely embodied the old-school, confession-based politics: they were primarily driven to the same side as Charles VI by attacks from the Catholic estates, and as a result they were entirely loyal to the government in their political activities (second career path). Or their political decisions could also be mixed—in this latter case, it would be even more obvious that all-important confessional considerations would drive them from an opposition standpoint to a loyal one (sixth career path). The seventh career path is also associated with the first diet of the mid-eighteenth century: the profile of those Catholic politicians who were already successful and who had achieved promotion was not entirely pro-government, but contained a tint of oppositionality. The latter could be confession-related (when the tolerant policy of the ruler was at odds with the resistance of the extremist Catholics, and broke it down), and yet is not so. So here we must assume that there is a third motivation at work, different from confessional considerations and from self-interest aimed at social elevation. The eleventh career path, that of the Catholics who went from opposition politics to achieve public office, is largely if not entirely associated with 1728–29, and is a good example of how, initially, oppositionality and pro-government activity at the diets of the eighteenth century had not yet established a bipolar political space. In later years it would still be possible to excel and achieve high office through opposition politics, but the chances of this were much lower. For this reason, the twelfth career path, that of the unsuccessful careerist Catholics—also assumed to be guided by self-interest, as with career path 8a—is also associated with the start of our period. The only observable difference between the two is that the political positions are either entirely oppositional or mixed—but we assume that the motivation behind the two is the same. In the second part of our period, and in contrast to all this, the Protestant opposition movement not exclusively motivated by confessional factors (tenth career path) appears, along with, as its counterpart, the Catholic opposition based on principle (thirteenth career path). Finally, the mixed eighth career path (but not career path 8a) also belongs to this latter half of the era under investigation: the careers of those politicians who peppered essentially oppositional behavior with the occasional pro-government pronouncement, but who would not be rewarded with administrative posts.117

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Thus, the latter, larger half of the mid-eighteenth century cannot be understood without considering a third factor in addition to the old confessional one and that of Namierian self-interest. While the notion of self-interest based on objectives of social elevation applies to Hungarian politics throughout the period under investigation, political motivation cannot simply be reduced to this: the mid-eighteenth century was not a fully Namierian period of Hungarian political history. At the time of the diet of 1728–29, confessionality was still a decisive force in Hungary’s politics—only later did something else step into its place, something we have referred to as the tendency to identify constitutional questions at the core of the dualism of king and estates, that is, the representation of a unique concept of constitution that was typical of the estates. Thus, the political arena of the middle of the century was ultimately determined by three forces: attempts at personal (or family) social elevation, dwindling confessionality, and the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions that would take its place. Equally well-documented is the process by which, with the consolidation of the new dualism of king and estates centered on constitutional questions, the political front lines would be drawn between the loyal followers of the ruler and the opposition of the estates. Previously, and during the first half of our period, oppositionality and government loyalty could blend easily, so with time these two attitudes would become mutually exclusive choices.

Notes 1. A constantly updated database, presently (14 April 2020) containing 22,797 pieces of data, served as the basis for the quantitative examination presented in chapter 6: http:// szijarto.web.elte.hu/ogy.xls. The key to this Diaeta database is found here: http://szijarto .web.elte.hu/segitseg.htm. 2. J. Dewald, The European Nobility, 1400–1800 (Cambridge, 1996), 140–48; A. Upton, “Charles XI and the Swedish Estates, 1680–1693,” Parliaments, Estates and Representation 22 (2002), 86–87. Cf. M.-L. Legay and R. Baury, “Reflexions liminaires,” in L’invention de la decentralization: Noblesse et pouvoirs intermédiaires en France et en Europe, XVIIe-XIXe siècle, ed. M.-L. Legay and R. Baury (Lille, 2009), 18. Jonathan Dewald has recently modified this overall picture, highlighting the falling revenues of the French nobility between 1660 and 1770, due partly to reduced state support: officers were the net losers of this period financially, and officials fared only slightly better. J. Dewald, “Rethinking the 1 Percent: The Failure of the Nobility in Old Regime France,” American Historical Review 124(3) (2019): 911–32. 3. Baumgart, “Der Adel.” 4. L. Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III, 2nd ed. (London, 1957). Cf. J. Black, The Politics of Britain, 1688–1800 (New York, 1993), 92–93. 5. Sámuel Blaskovich was given land, but whether this came after his participation at the diet or before it is unclear. To the best of my knowledge, he did not fill any position at a central administrative body or court of law.

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6. In this study, I will naturally extend the group of those in office to include Sámuel Blaskovich. 7. Twelve appearances brought appointments, fifty-three did not, and, of the eleven officeholders’ appearances at the diet, eight were further rewarded, while three were not. That gives a ratio of twenty successful appearances against fifty-six unsuccessful ones. 8. Cf. O. Khavanova, “Az apai érdemeket a fiúkban jutalmazni … Az iskoláztatás privilégiuma Mária Terézia uralkodása idején,” Századok 139 (2005): 1105–29; Хаванова, О.В. [Khavanova, O.] Заслуги отцов и таланты сыновей. Венгерские дворяне в учебных заведениях монархии Габсбургов, 1746–1784. Санкт-Петербург, 2006. 9. Twelve appearances brought appointments, and, of the fifty-three that did not do so, seven were successful in the second generation, while forty-six were not. Of the eleven officeholders’ appearances at the diet, eight were rewarded following the diet, three were not, of which one family achieved further success in the next generation, and two did not. That gives a ratio of twenty-eight successful appearances versus forty-eight unsuccessful ones in the long run. 10. I have included the concursus of 1736 in this survey because I have adequate data for it at my disposal. In what follows, general conclusions drawn on activity at the diet also apply to this concursus. 11. Here the first of the three approaches is applied, that is, success in the second generation is not considered, and neither is the distribution of the group of officeholders further analyzed. 12. The fifty-third instance is the activity of Pál Prileszky, deputy for an absentee, at the diet of 1728–29. 13. During the study, I was not able to estimate the confession of nine lesser-known politicians with certainty. This relates to a total of ten participations at the diet. As for the “unsuccessful,” they are a further three politicians alongside the fifty listed as being of one confession or the other. 14. Three of the “unsuccessful” politicians had previously (i.e. prior to the diet at which their political position was noted in this investigation) been the recipients of conspicuous royal favor: Pál Prileszky received financial reward for the Pragmatica Sanctio, as did Pál Jeszenák, present at both diets, while István Gyürky received a donatio not long before the opening of the diet of 1741—in their cases, that is, the label “unsuccessful” does not have to be seen as of lifelong validity. 15. No consistent precedent has been established regarding the naming of the districts in the eighteenth century. Following the most common variant, we consider in this study the Cistibiscan and Transtibiscan districts as a single district. 16. There were only three of those who already held office when they arrived and would not later be promoted. It is not even worth trying to analyze them statistically. 17. We analyze the participations of Sándor Czompó at the concursus of 1736 and the diet of 1741 separately. 18. The number of political positions examined with regard to the confessional distribution is 110, not counting the 16 political positions from the ten diet participations made by nine politicians whose religion I could not identify. 19. Continuing to consider pronouncements on taxation with those on other issues. 20. The full number of examined political positions at the diet is not 110 but 108: not only have I not surveyed the ten appearances at the diet of the aforementioned nine politicians not listed in a confessional group, but neither have I done so for the two positions

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21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

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at the diet taken by Pál Prileszky, for, as a deputy for an absentee, I have not included him in any district. (Sámuel Blaskovich was omitted for the other reason.) Unlike the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery and the Hungarian Royal Council of Lieutenancy, the Hungarian Chamber operated an administrative apparatus throughout the country. Thus, an office of the chamber cannot automatically be seen as equivalent in significance to holding office at a chancellery or the council of lieutenancy (where, in the same way, we did not consider lower posts). Edelspacher, on the other hand, was also given a gift of land, something that in the case of Blaskovich we considered an adequate condition of “success.” Tiszta became councilor in the Szepes chamber administration, which was quite a high office, and he was also given land—albeit not after the diet but before it, indeed even before the previous diet. By the diet of 1764–65, János Jeszenák was no longer loyal throughout. A. Vámos, “A távollévők követeinek pályafutása két állítás tükrében,” in Rendiség és parlamentarizmus Magyarországon. A kezdetektől 1918-ig, ed. T. Dobszay et al. (Budapest, 2014), 280. Ember, “Az országgyűlések,” 402. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 135. Csekey, Trónöröklési jog, 253. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 270. A. Vámos, “A távollévők követei a 18. századi országgyűléseken,” in Politikai elit és politikai kultúra a 18. század végi Magyarországon, ed. I. M. Szijártó and Z.–G. Szűcs (Budapest, 2012), 55. 700.489, 146. 700.484, 12. Ibid., 81–84. Téglás, A történeti paszkvillus, 84–85. J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 18. We might recall that in the oft-mentioned case of Sámuel Blaskovich there is no mention of attaining an office, only of receiving a gift of land. Blaskovich also belonged to this category. László Kvassay would also belong here on the basis of his participation at the diet of 1751, after which he was promoted, but I have listed him under the eleventh career path on the basis of his politics at the diet of 1741. J. Nagy, “Idősebb Brunszvik Antal (1709–1780) közéleti karrierjének vázlata,” Századok 153 (2019): 1103, 1119. Z. Fónagy, Nemesi birtokviszonyok az úbérrendezés korában: Adattár, 2 vols. (Budapest, 2013), 1:28; 2:834. J. Nagy, “Rendi ellenzék és kormánypárt az alsótáblán az 1751. évi országgyűlésen—Egy nádorválasztás margójára,” in Helytállás. Tanulmányok a XII. Eötvös Konferencia történeti üléséről, ed. G. László and A. Toronyi (Budapest, 2012), 331. Ember, A Helytartótanács, 204. R. Sebők, “Hivatali pályafutások a 18. századi Királyi Kúrián,” in Politikai elit és politikai kultúra a 18. századi végi Magyarországon, ed. I. M. Szijártó and Z. G. Szűcs (Budapest, 2012), 41–42. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A79 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, a Magyar Királyi Kancellária regisztratúrája. Index individuorum Cancellariae, 1690–1821], vol. 1: Index individuorum

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43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65.

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Cancellariae, 5. I am grateful to András Vámos for this data. Cf. Fazekas, “Kancellária,” 1148. T. Szemethy, “Rangemelésben részesült új főrendek a 18. században,” in Rendiség és parlamentarizmus Magyarországon. A kezdetektől 1918-ig, ed. T. Dobszay et al. (Budapest, 2014), 316. I. Fazekas, “A Magyar Udvari Kancellária és hivatalnokai a 16–18. században,” Századok 148 (2014): 1147. R. J. W. Evans, Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs: Central Europe c.1683–1867 (Oxford, 2006), 182. Cf. O. Khavanova, “Hazafiság a lojalitás jegyében: A Theresianum magyar növendékei és a bécsi udvar,” Századok 140 (2006): 1507. F. Eckhart, “A bécsi udvar jobbágypolitikája 1761–1790-ig,” Századok 90 (1956): 78, 86. R. Sebők, “A professzionalizáció jeleinek vizsgálata a Királyi Tábla ülnökeinek és ítélőmestereinek körében 1724–1785 között,” Századok 150 (2016): 945–65. Evans, Austria, Hungary, 25. Z. Fallenbüchl, Magyarország főispánjai, 1526–1848 (Budapest, 1994), 76. Cf. Sebők, “A professzionalizáció jelei’; E. Reiszig, “Esztergom vármegye története a török hódoltságtól a kiegyezésig,” in Esztergom vármegye, ed. S. Borovszky (Budapest, s.a.), DVD-ROM edition: Arcanum DVD-könyvtár IV.: családtörténet, heraldika, honismeret (Budapest, 2003), record 415279; E. Reiszig, “Bihar vármegye története a mohácsi vésztől a kiegyezésig, 1523–1867,” in Bihar vármegye és Nagyvárad, ed. S. Borovszky (Budapest, s.a.), DVD-ROM edition: Arcanum DVD-könyvtár IV.: családtörténet, heraldika, honismeret (Budapest, 2003), record 373134. 700.478, 175. 700.475, 182–83. Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.466: Acta diaetae anni MDCCLI, 28–30, 315–16; 700.467, 126 and 362, 450; article 26 of 1751. J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 65. OSZK K Fol. Lat. 4073, 32. As this was only his grandson and the benefaction of land was prior to the diet, neither reason in itself would be enough to list Gyürky here, but perhaps the two reasons together are adequate. 700.479, 32–33. 700.467, 5. J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 40. Téglás, A történeti paszkvillus, 89–90. J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 41, 77, 81. Szemethy, “Rangemelésben részesült,” 315. É. H. Balázs, “A nyolcvanas esztendők drámája,” Magyarország története 1686–1790, ed. Gy. Ember and G. Heckenast, vol. 4, Magyarország története, ed. Zs. P. Pach (Budapest, 1989), 1086; Fallenbüchl, Magyarország főispánjai, 73; A. Szántay “II. József kerületi biztosai,” Századok 148 (2014): 1171, 1175. Fallenbüchl, Magyarország főispánjai, 77. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 42. Of the brothers, it was probably—but not certainly—Gábor Prónay who was made a candidate. At first sight, his political participation at the diet of 1728–29 would suggest his inclusion in the seventh career path, that of the nonconfessional Protestant opposition, but in

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66.

67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

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the knowledge of his whole career, it seems more like coincidence that we have not seen any pronouncements from him that the confessional dispute of 1729 would have placed him on the government side. So I include him here, in the sixth career path. In the absence of a better option, I also include György Prileszky in this career path, on the basis of his pronouncements at the diet on the issue of the contribution, which were sometimes pro-government, sometimes oppositional, although in fact I know so little about him that this cannot be regarded in all aspects as a justified decision. 700.484, 81–84. With the Catholics exhibiting mixed political behavior, however, this motivation did not form a subgroup—but neither did it do so in the case of the consistently oppositional Catholics, as we will come to see. This is a clear sign that the era of the dualism of king and estates dominated by confessional questions came to an end in Hungarian politics at the beginning of the period presently under investigation. Ibid., 283. The appendix to the royal commissioner’s report of 10 September 1729: Ungarische Akten, Comitialia 406B. Z. Fallenbüchl, Grassalkovich Antal: Hivatalnok és főnemes a XVIII. században (Gödöllő, 1997), 18. Kolinovics, Nova Ungariae, 663; 700.467, 6. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:233, 247–50. 700.466, 315–16; 700.467, 372 and 450. Cited in J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 41. 700.470, 25–96. J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 42. 700.467, 451. Szijártó, A diéta, 169–70. J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 43. B. Papp, “Az ellenzék hangadói az 1751. évi országgyűlésen,” paper presented at the conference of the working group Diaeta on 12 April 2006 in Collegium Budapest, retrieved 18 May 2015 from szijarto.web.elte.hu/PB.html. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:233. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 540. 700.478, 48. J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 32, 70. As kindly stated by Richárd Sebők. See the pro-government pasquil Descriptio Statuum in J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 26. On the basis of his participation in the concursus of 1736, Gábor Prónay seems to belong here, but his later positions mean he is listed elsewhere. It was confessional considerations that drove József Demkovics to alter his basic progovernment outlook. László Kvassay earned his office by means of his opposition stance (hence his inclusion in this group), but afterward, at the diet of 1751, he pursued pro-government politics. The last oppositional role at the diet to be rewarded with high office was the activity in 1741 of László Schlossberg, who had been given a post after 1728–29; after 1741, he was able to rise from the Cisdanubian district court to the council of lieutenancy. Iván Nagy, Magyarország családai CD-ROM, records 48416, 48431.

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Ember, A Helytartótanács, 202. MOL A79, 1:58. (I am grateful to András Vámos for this piece of data.) Szemethy, “Rangemelésben részesült,” 316. Fónagy, Nemesi birtokviszonyok, 2:1462–63. Kolinovics, Nova Ungariae, 666. 700.467, 5. 700.466, 28–30. 700.470, 27–28, 30, 33. V. Fraknói, Martinovics élete (Budapest, 1921), 100. László Edelspacher, László Kvassay (in 1728–29), András Pongrácz, László Schlossberg (in 1728–29), and Ádám Zichy. The appointment of József Török and Pál Tiszta, and the promotion of László Kvassay (in 1751) and László Schlossberg (in 1741). It was after the diet of 1728–29 that the careers of Ádám Vay and Ádám Niczky became consolidated. That of Sándor Czompó also began at this time, but he was only given public office after the diet of 1741; for Antal Adelffy this would happen only in 1751. József Rudnyánszky, Antal Brunszvik, József Majláth, István Beniczky, and László Kvassay (in 1751). János Sigray. János Csiba. Kolinovics, Nova Ungariae, 662. For example, ibid., 195. Marczali, Magyarország története, 280. Cf. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:233. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:248. J. Nagy, “A rendi ellenzék—vázlat,” 93. 700.467, 6. Marczali, Magyarország története, 280. Papp, “Az ellenzék hangadói.” 700.484, 81–84. The appendix to the report of 10 September 1729 by the royal commissioner: Ungarische Akten, Comitialia, 406B. Another exception is the case of József Demkovics, who did not color his oppositionality with a pro-government pronouncement; rather, he altered his pro-government stance because of the Catholic opposition position he took in the confessional debate of 1729. (We can even distinguish this as career path 8b.) This is a case of the exception proving the rule: it is evident that this confessional question was the “modifying factor” only in the early part of our period; in the later, longer part, some other factor may have shaped oppositional behavior.

103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117.

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Chapter 7

REALIGNMENTS ON THE ESTATES’ SIDE OF THE POLITICAL ARENA

d T

he political system in eighteenth-century Hungary was essentially based on common law, and, within this flexible system, continuous flux was obscured by an outward permanence: the unchanged nature of the institution of the diet hid from the view of onlookers the constant changes at play within it that were so typical of the century. In this time, the diet was not essentially a legislative body but rather the forum for the tractatus diaetalis, at which a bargain was struck between the ruler and the country: the ruler wanted a tax increase, while the estates wanted their grievances to be redressed and their privileges maintained. At the two poles of the dualism of king and estates, both parties had their prerogatives: the king had at his disposal the central executive power and the army, while the estates had the right to levy tax at the diet. These basic rights did not have their basis in law: they were covered by laws, perhaps fortified by them, but they were not established by them. The formation of the power relationship between the crown and Hungary’s estates is clearly reflected in the right of the estates to set taxes: before the new system took effect in 1722, this meant the form in which tax was levied; afterward, it meant the level of the tax increase levied by the diet. As a result of the Rákóczi War of Independence, the country’s annual war tax fell from a level of 3–4 million forints to one of 1.5–2 million, from where it would gradually climb back to the same level half a century later.1 The position of the estates, relatively strong after the Rákóczi War of Independence, would slowly but constantly erode. Only moments of crisis in the international circumstances faced by the monarchy would, temporarily, bring any change to this: in 1741 or in 1789–90.

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The world of the Hungarian estates, however, was restructured in the meantime, a development that can clearly be traced in the changes to the mechanism of the diet; the Hungarian estates were led in the first decades of the century by the lords, but this system had by century’s end given way to one in which the bene possessionati were dominant. The decision-making mechanism gives us an insight into how the importance of the county deputies was gradually increasing. We can also see that the relative weight of the lower house was growing vis-a-vis the upper house. Finally it emerges that this same pattern was developing within the institution of the district sessions.

Bloc Voting The geography book by János Tomka Szászky gives a succinct description of the Hungarian diet. At the end of these few lines he writes that members of the diet “can vote freely” on matters discussed.2 There was no question about the importance of this, but the means by which voting was done were not so clear. Clause 7 of the Treaty of Linz in 1645 and article 5 of 1647, which repeated clause 7, did state that “a decision must be taken at the next diet … on the collection and evaluation of votes at the diet”;3 but this law was never implemented, and the method of voting at the diet would never clearly be regulated. In his great work of public law, which remained as a manuscript but took final form in 1812–13,4 György Lakits observes that at the upper house everyone had an individual vote, a claim strongly borne out by the later specialist literature.5 (Similarly, majority voting was used at the senate of the Polish Sejm.)6 Yet there is no repeated mention of resolutions taken by the lords like this—in part because of the poor sources for debates at the upper house, but more because there were very few decisions of this kind.7 It is only on the basis of procedure at the lower house that we are able to imagine the form in which the palatine might have announced such a resolution. Procedures of voting in the lower house, however, leave considerable uncertainty as to how this can have taken place. The counties at the diet took their places and formed groups according to the district they belonged to: the table (tabula) of the Tibiscan counties, that of the Transdanubian ones, and that of the Cisdanubian ones (or, together, the Danubian ones). Not only the royal court of justice but also other groups in the lower house were called tabula, as in the case of the county deputies’ groupings: in 1712, for example, they spoke of the “tabula of absentees.”8 When in this same year the diet decided on the diploma inaugurale of Charles VI, the lower house gave a single bloc vote to each of the tabulae, namely the clergy, the Danubian and Tibiscan counties, the deputies for the absentees, and the representatives of the royal free cities.9 On the basis of this, György Bónis argues that the votum curiatum system at the lower house worked.10 This would be similar to the

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procedure for bringing resolutions at the German Reichstag and Transylvanian diets. The procedure of the Reichstag was based on the votes of the chambers, even if the votes of the cities were not equal to those of the prince electors and imperial princes. As the prince electors mostly had votes among the imperial princes too, their decisions foreshadowed the resolutions ultimately brought by the Reichstag.11 Until 1791 decisions were also brought using bloc votes at the Transylvanian diet.12 At the session of the Hungarian diet on 1 August 1709, the debate was on whether the children of kuruc insurrectionaries whose assets were confiscated would also lose their share of the inheritance. The affirmative position held by the upper house was countered by many contrary opinions in the lower house. Finally the personalis announced that the lower house had had the chance to debate the issue, which they had considered from every angle, but as they had not been able to come to any kind of agreement, they should now vote on it—and indeed do so on an individual basis. We learn from all this not only that such an individual vote did exist but also that this was an exceptional instance of its use. The customary procedure can have been a decision arrived at during the debate. On this occasion, though, they voted “by name, and each one separately,” on two previously formulated questions to be decided upon. First, could they pass a law stating that the children of the rebels of the future should lose their assets? And should the children of the current insubordinates, those who would fail to turn to the king’s side even in the future, also have to forfeit their property? In this document, however, it is not an overall arithmetic result of such a vote in the lower house that we find but rather the opinion of the various groups in the lower house, which make note of certain minority positions as well. The deputies of absentees and of the counties, for example, in part recommended postponement of the matter until the next diet and in part voted to pass the law. In the meantime, that is to say, individual voting had become a bloc voting; furthermore, questions were answered not with a binary yes/no but with opinions and suggestions for solutions.13 On 8 June 1712 the various groups in the lower house voted on the “six-day systema” reform proposals.14 A few days earlier, on 29 May, the members of the lower house would also vote group by group on a proposal from the lords;15 in 1728 the majority of those same units would reject the royal rescript on the matter of a committee for marking borders as had voted in 1712 on the diploma inaugurale of Charles VI. Later votes on tax questions would also be given by these tabulae. The clergy and the deputies of the absentees were divided, while the counties took up a contrary position. The diet failed to come to a decision in this fashion, however, and an individual vote was required on numerous occasions.16 Here we see not only that there were occasions of bloc voting but also that this would not always be a permanent solution. On 9 July 1728 the lords asked that the lower house, should its members be unable to agree on the census of the nobles, decide using a majority vote. The

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decision at the lower house that followed would, however, involve the positions taken by the tabulae, with their various recommended solutions, conditions, and minority opinions. It was from these that the position of the lower house emerged; word of this decision was taken to the lords by a delegation.17 Decisionmaking was thus not simply the outcome of majority voting; rather, these votes were first counted according to the constituent parts of the lower house. Another handwritten journal of the diet gives a more detailed description of this decision, one that rather changes the look of the whole affair. There is nothing surprising in the way the journal describes the opinion of the royal court of justice, the clergy, the Transdanubian and Cisdanubian counties, the royal free cities, and “around three deputies representing absentees,” namely that a noble’s house and goods be left out of the census and that, while the serfs’ farmland, meadows, and vineyards in the possession of nobles would be included in the census, they as individuals should not be, and thus they should be exempt from burdens associated not with the land but with the serf as an individual (keeping of soldiers, Vorspann). According to this source, however, the Transtibiscan and Cistibiscan counties had a different opinion: the nobles could not be included in the tax census either as individuals or with regard to the serfs’ lands in their possession, with the exception of those nobles who accepted serfdom, as by doing so they had effectively surrendered their noble privileges.18 We therefore learn that the message-bearing deputation did not in the end give the lords a position agreed by all, instead relating how the lower house was divided between the two possible opinions. It can come as no surprise that from the outset the lords requested that the lower house decide on the basis of a majority vote—but, it seems, this request was in vain. At the session of 5 September 1764, the personalis requested bloc votes. János Kis, provost of Veszprém, expressed the opinion of the priesthood (in which he gave support to the opposition position); then a number of the county deputies spoke, all except one against the royal proposal.19 But we would be wrong to think from this report that there was really a vote on a group basis. Although the clergy was united enough to vote as one unit, the counties were not. The prebendary, who really did speak for the whole clergy (and who cast their bloc vote), would be followed by no less than twenty-one speeches from fourteen county deputies in this stage of the debate—here there was no talk of them speaking in the name of their respective tabula, their district. The journal says outright of Ferenc Bacskády, deputy for Nyitra County, that he spoke only for his own county. The “vote” ended with the opinion of József Kiss, deputy of Gömör County, that the diet should demand that the tax increase set at the previous diet be waived.20 The vote was thus performed by stating of opinions, and some tabulae were unable to establish a unified position. In 1790 József Hajnóczy recommended that “voting should take place not by estate, but by tabula, and in all cases on an individual basis,” and that a resolution should require a majority in each house as well as royal assent.21 But in a work

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published a year later, in which he depicts the procedure as it happens in practice at the diet, he wrote that “the method of extracting votes according to estate has not been customary here, and I think that in future it should continue to be avoided.”22 In the debate of 8 February 1791, the rejection of the objection from the clergy was followed by an individual vote: 291 voted for the proposal, and 84 against it.23 In the mentioned debates of the summer of 1728, there were also individual votes. Could this have been the dominant method of bringing decisions?

Individual Voting Postcoronation article 1 of 1608 presupposed that individual voting at the diet was the rule, but the method of voting was never specifically regulated for, meaning there was constant debate on the issue.24 The vote of 1 August 1709, mentioned above, began as an individual vote based on two precisely worded questions but ended up recording positions from the tabulae that were not united into the position of the lower house overall. The story did not end there, however: “At today’s vote, namely the vote on whether the child is to lose their share of the inheritance in the event of treason on the part of the parent, there were 36 ‘yes’ votes, 42 votes for postponement of the issue to the next diet, and 2 straight ‘no’ votes from those outrightly opposed, viz. that children should not have to bear responsibility for the dishonour [i.e. consequences of the wrongdoing] of their parents. …” As the upper house cast its thirty-six votes for the first option (and any internal division is not visible), this decided the issue.25 This means that the journal entry for the previous day, relating the opinions formulated by the groups of the various elements of the lower house, can only have been a summary provided by the journal-writer and county deputy Ádám Mecséry himself;26 in any event, the votes cast were counted and totaled on an individual basis. The next step was to combine this with the supposedly unanimous result at the upper house. This method of combining the decisions of the two houses of the diet to produce a single resolution appears to be unique. But there is no sign that those of the majority opinion in the lower house might have objected to this. On 17 July 1728 the lower house, “by the decision of the majority of the votes,” wished to ask Charles VI to lower the total tax amount, but this proposal was rejected by the upper house.27 Ten days earlier, “with a majority of votes,” the lower house had rejected the lords’ proposal on how grievances should be discussed.28 On 24 July the speaker called upon the members of the lower house to “cast their votes individually” on the issue of war tax, and to do so quietly, without interrupting one another. The clergy were the first to express their opinion. Two of them recommended that the previous tax amount (mostly likely that set at the previous diet) be raised by sixty-two thousand forints, four considered that Charles VI should “forego a large part” of the four-hundred-thousand-forint

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increase he had asked for, and five “cast their vote for not allowing any more than the amount temporarily agreed by the previous diet.” So, from the ranks of the clergy, five categorically rejected the tax increase, while six did not. As such, it is only with a certain arbitrariness that such positive responses can be pooled as one, when the vota specified varying conditions. Of the Danubian counties, five supported the tax increase, and the two deputies from Vas County were at odds with one another, while Zala County was “on the fence.” The majority, fifteen counties, for what they called reasons of conscience, stuck stubbornly to their former position, that is the annual war tax of 2.130 million forints (recte: 2.138 million) set by the previous diet. This was the usual approach among the twenty-one Tibiscan counties. Csongrád County stated that “it was unable to bear any further burden,” and that those counties should give that were able to do so. Overall, then, the counties cast thirty-six “no” votes alongside five “yes” votes (not including the votes of Zala and Vas Counties). Of the deputies of absentees, five cast their votes, probably in the form of speeches, for a conditional tax increase—“and almost everyone chose the increase.” This “everyone” can only have referred to these five deputies, as after this came the list of those opposed to the motion: of the absentee deputies, twenty members of the lower house, mentioned by name, committed themselves to opposing any kind of tax increase. Of the royal free cities, nineteen refused to vote for any more than had been levied at the previous diet. Pressburg and Sopron were of the opposing view, with their deputies supporting a tax increase of sixty-two thousand forints, as well as Székesfehérvár, seven mining towns, and Lőcse, Bazin, Ruszt, and Kismarton, whose deputies also backed the tax increase proposal. Those rejecting the motion would enjoy an overall majority of 20:14 in this group. The journal records the positions of all eight at the royal court of justice who voted. Only protonotarius András Pongrácz was opposed to the tax increase. Protonotarius Szeleczky, for example, recommended an increase of no less than 120,000 forints. The outcome of the vote in the lower house, as determined by the personalis, was taken to the upper house by a deputation: even if the majority were tending toward a gradual increase in tax, views on its amount varied. The deputation cannot have limited its report to the lords to this, as it also told them about “the separated votes and the majority.”29 Relying on another journal of the diet, György Bónis describes this vote as having been taken on an individual basis: there were 69 against the tax increase, and only 61 for it.30 The report cited above did not register 130 votes, only 119 (not including those of Zala and Vas Counties), while the supposed majority of deputies of absentees being in favor of the tax increase cannot be quantified. Yet, according to this journal, 82 votes were cast explicitly rejecting the tax increase, and only 37 urging various levels of increase, some carrying certain conditions.

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(An unknown number of the deputies for absentees contributed to this, but they would certainly not have tipped the balance.) The numbers are entirely different from the data György Bónis provides, yet they do not play a key role in the story. For the deputation brought the primate’s message from the upper house: they should debate not the amount added to the tax by the council of lieutenancy (that is, the recognition of this amount to be added to the annual war tax levied by the diet of 1722–23) but rather the tax increase of 400,000 forints (requested by the king). “The members of the lower house were highly incensed, and announced that if it were his majesty’s specific determination and clear wish to see that the 142,000-forint amount added by the council of lieutenancy be considered as being added to the earlier provisional amount,” then they did not wish to object, and would instead levy this sum.31 This case teaches us multiple lessons about the decision-making mechanism at the diet: first, that the vote was taken on a cleanly individual basis, but the totaling of these votes was done by later historians, not at the time; second, the “resolution” announced by the personalis does not seem to reflect the way the numbers stood, and the decision was not a final one, as the lower house was clearly willing to immediately abandon it at the word of the primate or at the mention of the king’s “absolute wish”; finally, the “vote” was but a step in the decision-making process on taxation that would continue. Relatively speaking, there were a good number of individual votes at the diet of 1728–29. Later this method would not be used with the same regularity. In 1741 the question arose of whether the priesthood was obliged to provide soldiers for the noble levy in proportion to its income from the tithe. The two houses were unable to come to agreement, and the members of the lower house demanded a mixed session with the votes to be counted on an individual basis. The lords were fewer in number, and did not agree to this—but it was not the principle to which they were objecting.32 This suggests that an individual vote was an accepted possibility at this diet—it just did not take place in this instance. The sudden boom in mixed sessions at the diet of 1790–91 brought with it the problem of how joint decisions should be made. The events of the session of 5 September 1790 suggest that a consensus among the members of the lower house was enough for a decision to be made by the diet as a whole, and that this would not be affected by objections from individual lords.33 The discussion at a mixed session of a judicial motion took place on 26 November 1790 in the following manner: with certain amendments, clauses 1 and 2 were approved. After a debate, a decision was taken on clause 3. The journal gives us no greater detail about how this took place. On clause 4, amendments were made, while clause 5 was accepted; as regards clause 6, on one issue they “agreed to” keep the proposal, while on another question a simple majority accepted the deputation’s proposal.34 So a vote was only taken on a single issue relating to a single clause, and here the decision was taken by a majority of individual votes. On 17 June 1792 the mem-

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bers from the lower house of the committee on the distribution of the subsidium (with the exception of the members of the royal court of justice) were selected “by votes.”35 There are occasions toward the end of the eighteenth century, that is, at which decisions are made by a majority in an individual vote. The debate on the mandate of the third deputies for Pest and Hont Counties took place at the eighth session of the diet on 8 June 1790. The argument that the presence of such a third deputy for these two counties was, in terms of voting and the seating arrangements, detrimental to other counties would earn the response from personalis József Ürményi that it was really the votes of the counties that mattered.36 More than anyone else, it behooved the personalis, responsible for announcing the decisions of the lower house, to know how votes were counted. But his statement as quoted reveals that he did not see the mode of the vote as obvious, which again suggests that a vote like this was quite rare in the lower house. Ürményi stated first that the vote of one county was worth the same as that of another one, then that what mattered was the number of those represented. The wish of the Transdanubian district session, submitted in June 1790, was that a deputy who has been voted down should defer to the majority and not cite instructions to the contrary.37 On 11 August the Tibiscan district session accepted the king’s invitation with a majority of votes.38 Later, it was the vote according to county, which was becoming common if not yet universal at the district sessions, that would become the primary if similarly nonexclusive mode of decision-making at the official sessions of the lower house—but these would all be developments of the second quarter of the nineteenth century.39 In short, in the second half of the eighteenth century votes were rarely held, and, if they did take place, they clearly occurred on the basis of individual voting. Rather than bring an expansion in voting, the growing clout of the county deputies instead saw them disappear from the practices of the diet. Márton Schwartner and György Lakits both held that the reason for this lack of voting was that the lesser nobility (i.e. the county deputies) sought to maintain its hegemony, while individual voting would cause it to lose its dominance.40

Decision-Making on the Basis of Public Will We can find many examples in the history of the diets under investigation of decisions driven by public will. On 12 June 1709 the lower house decided with “a common vote” against the incorporation of the order of Teutonic knights into the estates of Hungary.41 On 8 June 1712 they would again “decide with a common vote and understanding,” while on 22 June a journal tells of how they came “to agreement through a common vote.”42 On 2 June 1728 the lower house decided “with the consensus of everyone,”43 on 16 July “with a common vote,” on 3 September “with everyone’s vote,” and on 18 September by acclamation.44 On 17

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Figure 7.1. Lord Chief Justice József Ürményi (1741–1825), earlier personalis, by an unidentified painter. Kiscelli Museum, Budapest. Photo by Szilas. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

June 1709 the diet decided “with a unanimous vote” on the fine to be imposed on those absent from a session.45 One description from the tractatus diaetalis of 1764–65 states that the minority tends to fall in line with the majority that establishes itself among the deputies.46 At the diet of 1790–91 the debate usually functioned as the decision-making procedure itself. Taking the principle of quod omnes tangit to the limit was the liberum veto of the political system in the early modern period. As such, the agreement of every deputy at the Sejm was needed for a legitimate alteration to the prevailing order

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or the approval of any resolution. The year 1652 was the first time that, at the end of the six-week period of the diet as specified in law, a deputy failed to agree to the deliberations being extended; in 1669 a deputy would go so far as to interrupt the deliberations even before the six weeks were up. The Sejm convened some 150 times between 1573 and 1763. On 53 occasions, it was unable to conclude with an agreement being signed; from 1736 to 1763, it did not once succeed in doing so.47 Although the Hungarian diet never went this far, it made tangible efforts in the course of the eighteenth century to establish a consensus. A great many decisions were taken at the end of 1790, but there was never a vote. In each instance, debate continued until the different parties had been “appeased.”48

Voting with Expression of Opinions We observed with regard to the case of 1 August 1709 that the mix of individual voting and bloc voting in the lower house was more an act of necessity, while the norm was more to reach an agreement during debate. Yet in truth, the vota cast on such occasions presented various solutions to the problem in hand.49 The lower house’s decision on taxation on 24 July 1728, taken by individual voting, took no less than four hours.50 The reason for this is given by the diary of the deputies of Nagyszombat, whose report states that the individual voting took place on 1 August 1708 such that the members of the lower house went out one by one to the table of the royal court of justice and expressed their opinions there.51 Previously, with many “individual” votes, we saw that the “votes” cast were really just opinions or proposals for solutions, and thus voting was not a decision based on the proportion of “yes” or “no” responses but instead was based on the expression of opinions.52 During the tax debate of 1764–65, the opposition became eroded as more and more of its members “declared” their support for the tax increase.53 The majority could also become clear even without such declarations. Ferenc Bacskády, the deputy for Nyitra County,54 took a stand against the tax increase, at which the majority of the deputies of the counties, of the cities, and of absentees shouted out their approval.55 The signal of disagreement was outspoken objection: exclamations, shouts, or bellowing. In 1764 the tax increase urged by the government was passed by the lower house without the majority of county deputies actually voting for it. Such an act was not needed. The speaker’s motion was first supported enthusiastically by the chapters, who encouraged the others to do likewise. The deputies of Heves, Békés, Arad, Tolna, Esztergom, and Nógrád Counties, as well as those of many absentees and cities, would indeed follow suit. The other counties, on the other hand, continued to resist. After speeches of encouragement from a few members of the royal court of justice, the personalis announced that Maria Theresa was well aware of the lords’ willingness, and in

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the event of her request being refused, the whole weight of this would fall upon the lower house; at this, as Mihály Horváth puts it, “the opposition finally shut up.” This speaker’s motion would become the house’s resolution, which was sent to the lords, who naturally approved it.56 Thus it was enough to gauge the as yet questionable support of the county deputies for a motion with use of the principle of “silence gives consent.” “As no one objected, they shouted out ‘vivat!’”—this is how the journal reports the election of Count György Erdődy on 23 June 1741 to the office of the guardian of the crown.57 The same happened at the election of the palatine in 1741: once the “first votes” had come from the lords and the members of the lower house, no one opposed them.58 A journal describes the Tibiscan counties’ acceptance of the amount of the coronation gift for Maria Theresa as follows: “First they opposed it, then they went silent and agreed to the 100,000 [forint sum] in a manner that was as unsolicited as it was coerced.”59 Consent, that is, could be silent, while objection had to be loud to be effective. A journal records the agreement of the estates to a compromise proposal in 1790 by stating that they went silent.60 What prevailed was the principle of qui tacet, consentit, as well as taking positions by making speeches. The same is apparent from the events of the session of 5 September 1790 already mentioned: it was necessary to give a voice to opposition.61 The same is true of the planned (but not implemented) house rules of 1790: if one agreed with the last speaker, one should remain silent.62 Those who may not have agreed were silent, the official journal of the diet of 1792 tells us,63 but this would not affect the decision. Nothing tells us as much about this question as the work on public law from the turn of the nineteenth century by György Lakits: “Once, after the lower house had made a resolution, supposedly by common accord, I asked a protonotarius how he could know this was the unanimous opinion of the majority when a mere seven or eight speeches could be heard. The answer was as follows: reliqui tacuerunt, et qui tacet consentire videtur.”64 Those who remained silent, that is, could be considered to be in agreement.65 The majority of decisions made by the diets of the eighteenth century probably took place with opinions being in the form of exclamations, shouts, or bellowing. But on what basis did the speaker announce of any given position that it was the majority one?

Non Numerantur Sed Ponderantur and the Pars Sanior According to article 25 of 1495, if it comes to voting, the master of the janitors66 calls in all the votes at the diet individually, and it would be left to “the wiser” to decide the matter rather than to the majority. Werbőczy explains this as follows: “Such resolutions and decisions have to be made together with the greater and

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wiser part of the people, else they cannot be said to be decisions of the people or of the community. But if the people split into two, then it is the decision of the more eminent and wiser part that counts. And the more eminent and wiser part [sanior autem et potior pars] is seen as that which includes those people whose honour and scholarship make them more excellent and distinguished.”67 That “potior … pars discedit,”—that is, the more distinguished part decides—as we find in the Tripartitum, is explained by the diet of 1708 as “more important, in terms not of numbers, but of value and the weight of the votes.”68 The notion of the decisive part was never precisely defined, however. Clause 7 of the Treaty of Linz of 1645 might have asked for a decision at the next diet on the value of the votes of those invited to the diet, but no such decision was ever taken. The specialist literature is in agreement that the principle of vota non numerantur, sed ponderantur was in effect at the Hungarian diet: votes were weighed rather than counted, and resolutions were brought not by the majority of votes (or, at least, not those expressed as an opinion) but rather on the basis of the view expressed by the more eminent and wiser part, although the speaker had very considerable room for maneuver on deciding what this was.69 There nevertheless had to be a generally accepted interpretation. The lower house might have put up with entirely arbitrary decisions from the speaker on matters thought to be of less significance (as at the election of Francis of Lorraine as co-ruler, for example), but it would certainly not stand for such actions all of the time—particularly in the second half of the century. As a rule, the personalis probably announced the decision of the lower house on the basis of the generally accepted interpretation of potior et sanior pars, and it was only in a minority of instances that he tried to twist arms to ensure that any other resolution was taken. On 19 December 1637 the Catholics still claimed that they represented the potior pars in the diet.70 As far as the eighteenth century is concerned, however, the decisions we have already looked at make it clear that great changes had taken place in this regard. When in 1712 the Tibiscan counties took a stand against the “six-day” systema, they proposed that they should decide on the question at the next diet with the full authorization of the counties.71 They were evidently of the view that the reform could not be introduced if the counties opposed it. But this was really just a demand for the status of pars sanior, as the cited tax debate of 1728 shows that they did not yet count as the “wiser and more eminent part,” as the lower house decided on the tax increase “finally, with a majority vote, as if wrung out of them by the force of others, after lengthy previous resistance from many and from every county deputy.”72 Two days earlier, on 24 July, the county deputies had rejected the tax increase by a margin of 36:5, and yet the diet had approved it nevertheless. At the vote of 6 September 1728, on the other hand, where, according to a journal of the diet, the members of the clergy (with one exception), the deputies of the absentees and the cities, seven counties, and a further two county deputies were on the same side, the opposition view of the ma-

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jority of the counties would nevertheless take precedence. (That, by the following day, the others had almost all changed their minds and joined the counties was typical.)73 The diet of 1728–29 was in a state of transition. The desire of the counties to hold the dominant position within the diet seems sometimes to be satisfied, and at other times not. The lords retained their key role of the seventeenth century into the beginning of the eighteenth. Later, however, the declining importance of the upper house and the increased weight of the county deputies in the lower house would result in the consolidation of the pars sanior status of the latter. The tax debate at the diet of 1764–65 displayed the key role played by the deputies at the lower house: the tax increase could not be approved until it was accepted by a majority of them (more precisely, until they resigned themselves to it). This tendency would become a general one by the end of the century. On 4 February 1791, during the debate on the article of law covering the diploma inaugurale and the coronation, the lord chief justice (as head of the mixta deputatio that prepared the motion) opposed the proposed amendments of the deputies of Trencsén and Nyitra, but “most of the estates of the country stuck determinedly to their earlier views.” After the speech of the personalis, in which he partially adopted the position of the opposition, the majority of the estates of Hungary came to accept the version he proposed. The majority here means that of the deputies at the lower house—who had a critical mass at the mixed session. When at the mixta sessio of 5 September 1790 the lord chief justice Count Károly Zichy and some members of the lower house were debating whether there had been agreement at the previous session on the issue of a clause to be included in the diploma inaugurale, the deciding factor was the personalis József Ürményi acknowledging that at the previous session the lower house sitting in the middle and end of the chamber had come to agreement on the point.74 In this case, the opinion of the other members of the diet was not of interest. By the end of the century, that is, the counties had evidently earned themselves the rank of pars sanior among the Hungarian estates. In this light we can understand why, in contrast to the eighteenth-century trend to decide by voicing opinions, we encountered several instances of votes taken on an individual basis at the debates of the 1728–29 diet. As by this time politics was no longer dominated by the aristocracy—previously the key force at the diet—and the county deputies did not yet enjoy the clout they would go on to achieve, the situation was that of a halfway house: on many occasions it seemed obvious to turn to the individual vote that was in fact prescribed by the law. There was no need for this either earlier or later; neither was it in the interest of the pars sanior, which was able to obstruct the use of this form of decision-making. The county deputies becoming the “more eminent part” was compounded by the process of voting rights of the deputies of the chapters, royal free cities, and absentees becoming strongly restricted. Although the voting rights of the

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members and deputies of the clergy appearing in the lower house were not really brought into question until the eighteenth century, and the system of votum curiatum (according to which the entire clergy as well as all the deputies of the royal free cities together had only a single vote, as a county) would only come later, the rise of the county deputies to pars sanior status would see them monopolizing political decisions at the lower house of the diet. The development of the voting rights of the chapters and city deputies is a striking example of how at the eighteenth-century Hungarian diet it was not the law that mattered; what did matter was the political will, or lack of it, to see that the law was enforced.75 Postcoronation article 1 of 1608 gave the deputies of absentees the right to vote as well as to attend, as these rights were inseparable, and voting in the eighteenth century almost always meant the expression of opinions rather than mere votes. Although the deputies of absentees did have the right to vote in the eighteenth century, votes were held only exceptionally from the middle of the century; the decision would be determined by the opinion of the pars sanior et potior, restricting the opportunities of the deputies of absentees. The pars sanior status attained by the county deputies in midcentury made voting with opinions the primary procedure for decision-making at the diet, while individual voting would in general be pushed into the background. As Lakits put it in the early nineteenth century, the deputies of the absentees might have had individual voting rights in the lower house, but they never decided anything.76 It was only after 1792 that the deputies of the absentees were deprived of their voting rights and the clergy and royal free cities were restricted to the votum curiatum. This was likely linked to individual voting again becoming more common on account of the sharpening conflicts between the ruler and the Hungarian estates.

The Complexity of Making Resolutions In 1712 the vote in the lower house on the diploma inaugurale of Charles VI did not conclude with the houses “sending their votes” to the lords without aggregating them. Later they would “collect votes again” on the matter of the diploma inaugurale.77 This case reveals the key to the system of decision-making: the votes were not simple yes/no responses to precisely defined questions but rather recommendations for the solution of some problem backed up by arguments. Neither did voting mean that the issue in question had been settled then and forever. There are numerous examples of second votes taking place. On 5 March 1729, for example, the personalis, “dissatisfied” with the consensus of the lower house, requested an individual vote.78 The two houses did not always come to agreement with one another at the first attempt but rather did so over a number of stages; the same was true of the diet and the ruler. If some decision of the diet was not acceptable to the govern-

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ment, it could attempt to change the internal power relations at the diet to bring about a resolution that was preferable to it, and it could try this repeatedly. A good example is the determination of the amount of the tax increase. This was a bargaining process like no other. In this regard, voting did not mean the bringing of a resolution; rather, it represented the government, which attempted to use its confidants to guide the workings of the diet, getting a lay of the land. We saw with the tax increase debate of the diet of 1764–65 how they tried to constantly nudge the tax level upward. It was this form of decision that best suited the tractatus diaetalis. To use the telling term of the period, the voting was an interrogatio: the members of the lower house were not invited to make a single, lasting decision but merely to report their opinions. The complexity of the resolutions brought by the eighteenth-century diet is clearly shown by the tax debate of 1728 as mentioned above. Here we see bloc voting, which remained inconclusive, and individual voting, which was used on more than one occasion as the government made repeated attempts to drive through what it wanted. The vote on 24 July was also on an individual basis, but we know that it lasted for no less than four hours, i.e. it took the form of opinions being expressed rather than the casting of yes/no ballots. On this occasion, it really was an individual poll, yet it would not be a majority who made the decision. The king, with some of the estates on his side, got his way despite the opposition of the majority of the lower house, and the estates accepted the earlier tax increase brought illegally by the council of lieutenancy. But not even this would put an end to the war tax question: further tax increases would come later. The lower house of the eighteenth-century diet did not follow any obvious rule in the way it brought resolutions. Voting was not always done individually, though there were examples of this, with most occurring at the diet of 1728–29. Decisions were taken by consensus, but not always. Voting would usually take place in the form of opinions being expressed, with deputies stating their positions, one tabula after the other. Opposition always had to be expressed loudly. The decision-making of the eighteenth-century diet did not follow any one rule; instead, it reflected changing practices and shifting political power relationships. They show us how, from midcentury, the pars sanior status of the county deputies would increasingly assert itself at the expense of the significance of the other elements of the lower house. This process was profoundly intertwined with the development of the relationship between the two houses of the diet.

The Relationship between the Two Houses In the tractatus diaetalis the lower house retained the right to initiate proceedings, one it would largely manage to assert in the course of the eighteenth century as a whole—if not without exceptions.79 In 1741, for example, the lords violated

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this as they attempted to appropriate the glory of formally initiating the election of Francis of Lorraine as co-ruler, but they were forced to retreat from this.80 At the diet of 1712, however, we still find the lords in a distinctly powerful position. Not only were they able to apply pressure to the lower house to accept the proposals made by the reform committee, but they even directly threatened its members. The lords raised the possibility of submitting these to the ruler for approval in their own right. On 13 June they came forward with the suggestion that each house should submit its own version to the king, who could then decide whether to maintain the old custom or to introduce the reform. On this day, Count László Nádasdy, bishop of Csanád, who led the deputation bearing the message of the lords to the lower house, stated that “the nobles would not be able to convince the lords if they were King Solomon’s wise men.” Behind this inflexibility lay the assumption that the upper house and the king could pass legislation without the approval of the lower house. This supposition, flying as it did in the face of the law, was explicitly laid out by the bishop of Győr with reference to another matter. He urged the lower house to agree to a proposal on the tithe, as otherwise the lords would submit the petition to Charles VI themselves, who would accept it. Such disunity between upper and lower house occurred relatively rarely, however. Indeed, in this instance the lords attempted even at the last minute to achieve a compromise with the lower house, and it was only after its negative response that the upper and lower houses submitted separate petitions to Charles VI in late July.81 The dominance of the upper house in the early part of the century, associated with the pars sanior status of the lords, is also reflected in another decision. In 1715, to inaugurate the rights of Debrecen as a royal free city, the clergy laid down the precondition that Catholics be admitted into the citizenry. The majority of the lower house at the session of 6 May was in favor of Debrecen being given back its rights without any restriction; the clergy and a few others were, however, against this. The decision of the diet was not what it would later become, but—what with the lords taking up the position of the minority in the lower house—the status of royal free city was written into law, together with the articulus containing the clause listing the above precondition.82 In 1741, however, it was the lower house who were considering sending a separate deputation to Maria Theresa in the event that they were unable to agree to terms with the upper house. After being turned down by the palatine and the primate, they looked to none other than Francis of Lorraine to be their prolocutor.83 Much data points to the waning clout of the upper house come the middle of the century. On 31 August 1728 Count János Pálffy, viceroy of Croatia, and Ádám Zichy, protonotarius to the palatine, were nominated to the delegation sent to the king, representing the upper house and lower house, respectively. The former did not accept the nomination on account of ill health, while tavernicum regalium magister Count Zsigmond Csáky, proposed in his place by the upper

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house, was not acceptable to the lower house. They suggested an alternative nomination alongside Csáky, and they recommended Count József Esterházy for this. The lords responded that they could not send him “for certain serious reasons,” but, in a partial concession, they delegated Count Ferenc Esterházy as well as Csáky.84 The members of the lower house were, that is, capable of intervening in the selection of the delegates from the lords. On 3 December 1728 the lords used a deputation sent on the question of gratuitis labor to urge a compromise. “The personalis replied that the members of the lower house have stated seven times that they do not wish to retreat from their previous decision.”85 The instance is noteworthy both for the fact that the lords refused to accept this rejection from the lower house, trying instead on a full eight occasions to change their view, and that its members turned them down each of these eight times. The episode tells of an impasse, one in which the two houses are of roughly similar political weight; the individual votes, employed in the eighteenth century almost exclusively at this diet, also allude to such a situation. Behind all this was the transitory balance in power between the lords and the county deputies. This diet represents an interim position in the history of the internal development of the power relationships among the estates. From the 1730s, the scales would start to tip in favor of the lower house being dominant— almost imperceptibly at first, but irreversibly. In 1736 Charles VI’s resolution to the council of lieutenancy about convening the concursus established the list of participants quite precisely. He asked for a deputy from each county, yet only extended an invitation to six city deputies, four prelates, six high dignitaries, six counts, two barons, and a few other members of the court of appeals and of the royal court of justice.86 That all the counties were present, while the presence of the other groups at the diet was usually restricted, is telling: by this time the ruler did not think that an assembly for levying tax could be legitimate without all of Hungary’s counties being represented. In this we can glimpse one of the earliest, yet clear signs that by the middle of the eighteenth century the political significance of the counties had unquestionably begun to grow. In 1741, on account of the foreign attacks that Maria Theresa’s monarchy had endured, the position of the Hungarian estates vis-à-vis their ruler was particularly strong. Among the members of the diet, on the other hand, the debate on the diploma inaugurale demonstrates the strong position of the lords, allowing them to successfully implement their aulic policy despite the usual resistance from the lower house: the suggested amendments to the diploma inaugurale were not implemented but instead squeezed into articles of law. The upper house was also one of the obstacles to the reforms that the members of the lower house were pushing for, as it was to fundamental changes like the abolition of the council of lieutenancy and its replacement with a ministry made up only of Hungarians. The lords did not support the lower house in its efforts to see

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Maria Theresa governing Hungary through this ministry, or believe that such a ministry should be included in the discussion of the highest-level conferences at which Hungarian matters would also be discussed.87 The lords held a similarly aulic stance on the issue of electing Francis of Lorraine as co-ruler, while the lower house presented an oppositional platform.88 When the upper and lower houses found themselves at odds on the question of whether to insist on their previous decision in a new petition, or just to formulate articles of law from favorable royal rescripts, the lords were no longer in control of the situation. The conflict seemed to be between two equal sides: “Right up to yesterday there was a terribly big collision between the status [members of the lower house] and proceres [lords].” The former, holding the weapon of regulating the noble levy, could now rise to the occasion with unprecedented confidence: “We have risen above the magnates,” one witness wrote.89 At this diet we see not only that the lords continue to enjoy considerable power but also that the lower house develops its own voice, a phenomenon that Ferenc Salamon puts down to the rise of a new generation. The complaint of viceroy of Croatia József Esterházy is a clear reflection of the decline in fortunes of the lords and the increased independence of the members of the lower house: while, in the past, they had listened to “one sharp-minded member or other … as if to some oracle,” now one could not finish one’s speech before twenty people would speak out.90 By the mid-eighteenth century, the single important question had become that of tax. The lower house was traditionally strong on this question, and by 1764–65 the leading role of the county deputies would become clear. The lower house, demanding that the tax increase of 1751 be abolished, argued that at the time the increase had only been set until the following diet, which should have been held three years later, and the country had been paying it for thirteen years. The upper house agreed that the tax burden was unbearable while proposing different amendments to ease the strain placed on serfs. When the members of the lower house mocked these, saying that they would not raise the tax ten forints let alone a hundred, the upper house held up its hands and joined their position. The same occurred with the other half of the royal propositions. After a short debate, the lords accepted the view of the lower house that the institution of the noble levy must not be touched.91 The details of the second period of the debate on the tax increase demonstrate how the political clout of the lower house was now greater than that of the upper house: the entirety of the upper house and certain elements of the lower house had long been supporting the tax increase when the balance had not yet tipped in favor of the king’s desire for it. Even if we take into account the aftereffects of the unusual circumstances generated by Ádám Kollár’s book, these facts make it seem likely that the lower house had more power. As a contemporary put it, “The lords themselves are aware that their own individual votes cannot compete for significance with those of deputies representing whole

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counties.”92 In 1728–29 the triumphant leaders of the fight to guarantee tax exemption for land were not county deputies but lord chief justice József Esterházy and protonotarius Ádám Zichy.93 At the diet of 1764–65, however, when Maria Theresa was advised to invite the leaders of the opposition prior to the negotiations at the diet, the list of names was full of deputies from the counties.94 In 1791–92 Hajnóczy tried to convince the magnates to relinquish their personal voting rights. In return, he promised that this would make them eligible to act as county deputies.95 At this time, oppositional attitudes were also common among the lords. It is telling that those lords who hungered for positions of leadership were in reality active in the lower house and at the district sessions. A number of aristocrats chose this form of political activity—not, of course, giving up any of their existing privileges—and simply had themselves elected county deputies. Aristocrats first appeared as county deputies in 1790: Count János Fekete, Count István Illésházy, and Baron József Podmaniczky.96 This development reveals a great deal about the readjustment of the political center of gravity of the diet. At the session of 5 September 1790 it transpired that a consensus among the members of the lower house was enough for the entire diet to make a decision.97 The frequency of the mixed sessions also pointed toward the establishment of an assemblée constituante. Károly Jezerniczky’s argument for this, borrowed from Péter Ócsai Balogh, was as follows: legislation “is all with the lower house, thanks to the majesty of the nation.”98 According to Elemér Mályusz, the upper house, still strong until 1741, had lost its prestige, and now did not even try to put up resistance to the lesser nobility.99 This was the situation in the early phase of the diet, in any case. But neither would everything be reversed later, following the Treaty of Reichenbach. At the debate of 5 March 1791 the primate was the first to take a position on a certain question, followed by the personalis and then Jezerniczky, one of the speakers for the county deputies. It is telling that it was the presiding lord chief justice who submitted Jezerniczky’s proposal—and that the diet actually accepted it.100 In 1792 we see the consolidation of these structural changes: aristocrats appearing as county deputies (Count László Teleki, Count János Fekete, Baron Miklós Vay, and Baron István Perényi),101 and county deputies dominating the committees. The directions given by the counties to their deputies were what mattered, and it was their word that would be decisive on the question of the subsidium. Nowhere was their dominance as visible as at the district sessions.

The Districts in the Early Eighteenth Century While the advanced incarnation of the district sessions as seen during the age of reform (1830–48) is well documented, little has been explored of their origins

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in the eighteenth century. At the diets of the early part of the century, Hungary’s districts were already involved in collecting grievances, but not as yet in the form of district sessions, and rather by delegating compilatores who at the time were members of a mixed committee of the diet.102 In the eighteenth century we do not first encounter the district session at the diet but rather at the concursus convened on 15 October 1717, when the county deputies submitted their grievances at the district session and the chairmen of the three districts handed them to the palatine.103 These were already proper district sessions that were being held, albeit as yet in rather unusual form. Sources tell us that the grievances of the counties in particular were being collected. One of the districts is referred to as the “district of the Transdanubian counties,” but it seems that everyone was present here (with the possible exception of the cities), as in the Transdanubian district the position of chairman was filled by a prelate, Count Ottó Volkra, bishop of Veszprém. The concursus of 1719 began its work with district sessions before the royal commissioner arrived. After grievances were heard on 18–19 September, the next item on the agenda was the distribution of the war tax within the country, as elaborated by committees. By the time of the plenary session held on 28 September, the palatine was already submitting the agreed proposal of the district sessions.104 The official journal of the concursus noted its primary objective as being the proportionate distribution of the contribution “between the districts of the country.” Participants were also listed by district. At this time, all four districts were represented, and with equal weight.105 This did not mean that there necessarily had to be four district sessions: in general, there were probably three, as the Tibiscan districts mostly held their sessions together. In this period, that is, the districts operated not as bodies of the counties (i.e. the lesser nobility) or of the lower house as a whole but rather, with the participation of the lords, as organs of the Hungarian estates in general; for this reason, they were still very different from what would later be the district sessions of the diet. The districts of the Transdanubian and Cisdanubian counties and the thirteen counties of “Upper Hungary” (Northeast Hungary, i.e. the Tibiscan counties) were in session at the diet of 1722–23.106 The objection of the counties of the Cisdanubian and Transdanubian districts to the redistribution of the war tax107 meant either that two concordant declarations were submitted simultaneously (i.e. that there were separate district sessions) or that there was a joint session. From the counties, three groups delegated members to the committee compiling grievances: Transdanubia and Cisdanubia each sent four deputies, while the “upper parts” sent six.108 (It was thereby recognized that the country effectively had four districts, and thus the Tibiscan or Upper Hungarian ones deserved more numerous representation.) Like the concursus of a few years before, the lords also participated in the district sessions at this diet.109 Even at the diet of 1728–29, the personalis appointed the chairmen to lead the district sessions at which the proportional distribution of the contribution

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would be discussed: Count Tamás Nádasdy to run the Transdanubian district, and Count József Esterházy to be head of the Cisdanubian one. The chairman of the Transtibiscan district was Count Sándor Károlyi, while the Cistibiscan one was chaired by Count Mihály Pető.110 The district sessions, chaired by the lords and presumably with the participation of the lords, display similarities to the district sessions of the concursus of 1717 and 1720–21 more than to those of the later diets. Here we encounter four district sessions. The collection of grievances began in the districts,111 but once the grievances, elaborated through a “private” procedure by the districts, had been read out on 2 June 1728 both at the lords and in the lower house, it was finally decided that a mixed committee of the diet should edit the final petition of grievances.112 As the clergy and often the cities would compile separate lists of grievances, they evidently could not have participated in the sessions of these four districts.

The Development of the District Sessions at the Middle of the Eighteenth Century On 2 June 1741, at the beginning of the diet, the members of the lower house saw to it that it should not be the personalis who chaired the session preparing the grievances, one that was considered private in nature, but rather that it should be the districts that handled this work.113 The four districts met in three sessions: the eleven Cisdanubian counties at the house of László Schlossberger, deputy for Pozsony County, by the Saint Michael Gate; the 13 Transdanubian counties at the residence of Sándor Czompó, deputy for Sopron County, in a bourgeois house in the outskirts of the city, by the Lawrence Gate; the twenty Tibiscan counties at the lodgings of the absent Count Sándor Károlyi, nearby.114 In June 1741 the city deputies also took part in the district sessions, alongside the county ones.115 This was when the external, essentially governmental oversight of the district sessions (done, in the final period, via protonotarii) came to an end. What is more, on 12 June 1741, at the conclusion of their task and as the next step in this transformation, the districts held a joint session that was closed to the public, and at which those points were read out that the members of the lower house wished to lift from the wish list of the districts into the diploma inaugurale.116 We can only presume that this was the first joint district session, at least in the eighteenth century. Thus, before the mixta deputatio convened to combine wishes and grievances at a national level, it was the districts themselves who tried to come to agreement.117 One interpretation of this is that they were trying to take over the role of the mixed committees, i.e. they were taking a step toward completely excluding the lords from the work of compiling the grievances and the wishes. Indeed, at this time these wishes included questions of no less importance than the desired diploma inaugurale. This broadening of the role of the districts did

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not escape the notice of contemporary observers,118 as the districts were by now effectively operating as a general forum for the preparation of decisions. But the mixed committee was also established to debate the key points of the diploma inaugurale and the most important grievances.119 In June 1741 the preparation of decisions done by the committees was an equal competitor to that of the districts. Both had their own role, and neither could take over that of the other. The increasing political weight of the county deputies was closely linked to the fact that, by the age of reform, the district session would ultimately become the most important forum for decisions to be prepared. But even at the end of the eighteenth century, the committees established by law at the end of the diet of 1790–91 showed that this alternative form of institutions had not yet been rendered completely redundant. It was already with reference to an allegedly “long-established custom” that on 14 May 1751 the diet delegated the discussion of the grievances to the districts of the counties, and for the duration of this process the plenary sessions were suspended. The motion of the upper house, that in the interests of speeding up this process two committees should debate the royal propositions and the grievances, was rejected.120 There must have been three district sessions at this diet, because the Tibiscan districts submitted their grievances together, while the Transdanubian and Cisdanubian districts submitted theirs separately.121 It was only after the grievances were compiled at a district level that the documents were put before a mixed committee for revision.122 At the diet of 1764–65 the three district sessions compiled the grievances. These would be deliberated in the usual way: first at a mixed committee of the diet, then at a plenary session of the lower house, and finally at the upper house.123 It seems that the royal free cities and the mining towns did not take part in the sessions of the districts, as they collected and compiled their grievances separately.124 A description of the workings of the diet by one of the church deputies claims that when more serious or complicated issues arose, it was not uncommon for Hungary’s four districts to meet, not in the parliament building but elsewhere, and to discuss the question at district sessions.125 The general decision-preparing function of the district session had, that is, become firmly established.

The District Sessions at the Diet of 1790–91 and in 1792 On 7 June 1790 the Tibiscan districts held a mixed district session together with the Danubians. What is more, on 8 June, the county deputies of all four districts assembled, together with the deputies of the chapters, the cities, and absentees.126 While the union of all the districts and the inclusion of the other elements of the lower house along with the county deputies did not become final from one day

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to the next, the events of early June 1790 nevertheless marked the direction that change was taking. The Danubian districts held joint sessions on 5 June, then 6 June.127 All four districts held a joint session on 7 June, to which the Tibiscan districts invited the Danubian ones to the county hall in Pest,128 and another took place on 8 June in the assembly in Buda.129 Following the latter, the three districts each held district sessions separately.130 On 9 June the Cisdanubian district did not hold a session; only the Transdanubians and the Tibiscans did so.131 The following day the two Danubian districts again held a joint session; indeed, according to the minutes of the session of the Tibiscan districts, the Transdanubian and Cisdanubian districts were united “in order to hasten the discussion of matters to be discussed as a rule by the district sessions.”132 Henceforth, holding two (Danubian and Tibiscan) district sessions would be the rule,133 and any other arrangement the rare exception.134 From time to time there would even be joint sessions involving all four districts. In autumn 1790 the intended antecoronationalis articles on the religious issue were prepared by the “Tibiscan district” and by the Danubian districts, in two versions, but by 4 November it was the joint session of the four districts that approved the list of grievances of the counties to be submitted to the mixta commissio. A day later they would again come together for a united district session, presided over by the personalis, then on the following day the districts again met for a joint discussion. On these days the formulation of military and economic grievances was on the agenda.135 The joint session of the four districts represented a higher level of decision-making with respect to the separate district sessions.136 Despite the prevailing conventions, this diet already saw deputies for the cities and absentees invited to the district session,137 even if this did immediately become standard practice. The argument that apparently decided this question is a telling one: there was a place for them at the district sessions because these sessions would be debating affairs facing the country as a whole. Thus, the county deputies supporting this proposal thought it right to invite deputies for the cities and absentees (as well as for the chapters) because the position of the lower house was no longer formulated at the plenary sessions. As a first step, the 5 June session of the two Danubian districts decided to include the deputies of absentees and of the cities in the debate agreed for the following day—there was no mention as yet of deputes of the chapters. Yet at the session of 6 June, alongside the city deputies and a few deputies of absentees, the deputies of the chapters were also present.138 We know for certain that among the participants at the session of the Cisdanubian district on 8 June were deputies for the chapters and for the cities, while at the Tibiscan district session, in addition to the deputies of the chapters and the cities, some of the deputies of the absentees were also present, as all of these categories would be represented on

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this same day at the joint session of all the districts, as had been the case for the Tibiscan session of 19 June.139 The lower house also invited the supremi comites to the district sessions but did not allow them voting rights, rather hypocritically citing the fact that the district session was only a forum for preparing decisions.140 On 14 June 1790, at the session of the two Tibiscan districts, the request of Szabolcs County was read out, namely that its supremus comes, Count Mihály Sztáray, be able to participate in the sessions of the lower house and in the district sessions as one of the deputies of the county. The Cistibiscan and Transtibiscan districts determined that Sztáray could not participate in their sessions as supremus comes, only as a noble, with no voting rights.141 As the procedure of the district sessions became established, deputies in Cisdanubia took turns presiding in the alphabetical order of the counties, while in the Tisza region they did so following the order of the seating arrangement. It was the permanent notary who held real political power. In the Danubian districts, this position was filled by Károly Prileszky, deputy of Trencsén County; in the Tibiscan ones it was by Lajos Domokos, deputy of Bihar County. The chairman and notary of the district signed the prepared documents. The districts communicated with one another using deputations, and they sometimes held joint sessions or sent out joint committees. They kept regular minutes of their meetings.142 On 9 June 1790 the session of the Tibiscan districts began with the minutes of the previous day’s session being read out and approved.143 The institution thus formed was a solid one, which not only debated certain issues but came to a decision, with the insistence that this should remain unchanged at the plenary session. On 10 June 1790 the upper house specifically supported the “decision of all the districts,” according to the wording of the message it sent to the lower house.144 The proportion of mixed sessions at the diet of 1790–91 was distinctly high by comparison to previous diets, and the sudden increase in the role of the districts can also be linked to this diet. Obviously, the diet was looking for the means to express the increased political significance of the lesser nobility. One path for this could have been the union of the two houses of the diet on the model of the assemblée constituante, a union in which the lower house and its leading force, the counties, would be dominant. In 1790 it seemed at first that the regular use of the mixta sessio could be a step in this direction. Here, the lower house had enough strength to make a decision on its own, something that could not happen at separate sessions on account of the legally equal status of the two houses. With the changing political climate after the Treaty of Reichenbach, the mixed session also became an arena for the failure of the opposition: the mixta sessio was confidently controlled by the lords, the clergy, the cities, and certain pro-government counties. This meant that progress followed the other route, and by the nineteenth century the district session became the genuine decision-making body of the diet as well as an expression of the political dominance of the counties.

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The following case is a good example of the “rivalry” between the two forums. On 22 January 1791, after certain rescripts were announced, the lord chief justice recommended that “the way in which the deputies want to delve into the investigation of these” should be decided first, and the rest of the rescripts announced only thereafter. The members of the lower house, on the other hand, wished to debate the rescripts at district sessions. The personalis stated that they were free to do so, but in the interests of the faster progress of the issue they should send mixed committees to debate the propositions in which lords could also be present. The members of the lower house insisted on “discussion in the district,” however. To this, the personalis “found the middle way” of convening a new mixta sessio to decide the issue, at which the remaining rescripts could also be read out. This would indeed take place at the next session on 24 January. The lord chief justice then announced that the palatine did not wish to hold another session until the lower house had discussed the royal propositions among themselves. (This capitulation was what the “middle way” would achieve.) At the next mixed session two days later, the personalis was already able to table the decision agreed by the districts.145 To no avail did the officers’ corps of the diet attempt to make use of the institution of the mixed session; the members of the lower house insisted on a debate at the district session. And as they could establish their mutual stance there, the issue had in fact been decided. The elevation of the district sessions to comprehensive decision preparation and substantive decision-making is a clear sign that certain lords had ambitions to be admitted to them. Personalis József Ürményi even turned to the districts for a decision on house rules.146 At the session of the Tibiscan districts held on 14 June 1790, Ürményi further recommended that “the districts should inform him in advance of their decisions on the proposals to be tabled at the session of the diet, or of the matters they intend to raise.” It is clear that as chairman of the plenary session he had to know about the circumstances almost certainly deciding the session’s progress—and the position of the districts could by now be considered part of these. The district session gave a positive response, and a self-confident one, displaying an awareness of both its autonomy and its importance: they would inform the personalis “whenever at the district session there arise such matters or proposals to be submitted to the diet of which the estates consider it necessary to give the personalis advance notice.”147 The secret police reports also show that in 1790 the district sessions became a general forum for preparing decisions for the diet.148 In 1792 we again encounter the district sessions that had been established two years previously: the two Danubian and the two Tibiscan districts met separately,149 while the duties of the two permanent notaries again fell to Károly Prileszky and Lajos Domokos. The discussions at this diet include many references to the increased significance of the district sessions. On 5 June, at the sixth plenary session of the diet and in light of the questions that had been raised at

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a mixed committee, the personalis recommended extending this committee to include protonotarius István Aczél and the notaries from the two district sessions. The lord chief justice, meanwhile, considered that it “would be necessary” for the districts to hold sessions every morning, so that the mixed committee could make faster progress. The district session now seemed a prerequisite not just for the plenary debate but also for committee deliberation; the two district notaries were included in the committee in order to represent the opinions forming in those districts. Speaking for those excluded from this, Count József Majláth noted that the resolutions of the district sessions should be made public as soon as possible, as these mostly “concerned the country as a whole.” Many others also argued for this, and the personalis had to fight to reject this demand, citing convention. He tried his best to keep to the practice that the documents prepared at the district sessions, officially only considered as private in nature, only be submitted to the mixed committee. Only the version prepared by this committee should see the light of day in a printed version once put before the plenary session.150 While the practice of holding a single district session—together with the custom of everyone from the lower house, except the royal court of justice, attending it—had not yet become consolidated by 1792, the history of this institution over the eighteenth century is nevertheless a clear sign of the county deputies’ growing hegemony at the diet. This was a process that appeared in the complex history of the decision-making mechanism of the diet, and also in the definitive shift of the power relationship between upper and lower houses in the latter’s favor. We can register this process as one of the most important developments in the eighteenth-century history of the Hungarian estates, alongside the development of the power relations between king and estates, the strengthening confrontation between these two, and the evolution of the tendency toward the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions. The next question asks how we can interpret all of these changes, looking at the eighteenth-century history of the diet and the Hungarian estates as a whole.

Notes 1. Szijártó, “Rákóczi Revolt,” 71–73. 2. Tomka Szászky, Introductio (1750), 499. (Also, slightly amended: J. Tomka Szászky, Introductio in orbis antiqui et hodierni geographiam … Plurimis in locis emendata, novisque aucta supplementis, opera ac studio Ioannis Severini [Pressburg and Kassa, 1772], 577.) 3. Cited in Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 2:65. 4. As kindly noted by János Poór. 5. MOL I30 10, 1323; Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 53; F. Eckhart, “La diète corporative hongroise,” in L’Organisation corporative du Moyen Age à la fin de l’Ancien Régime, preface by A. Coville (Louvain, 1939), 223–24; Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 305; A. Csizmadia, K. Kovács, and L. Asztalos, Magyar állam- és jogtörténet (Budapest, 1972),

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

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216 (the author of the cited passage is Andor Csizmadia); J. Kalmár, Magyarország története a 16–18. században (Budapest, 1990), 19. Ring, Lengyelország, 136. Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 58; Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 305. Cf. Eckhart, “La diète,” 223–24; K. Kecskeméti, La Hongrie et le réformisme liberal: Problèmes politiques et sociaux (1790–1848) (Roma, 1989), 93. Ráday IV.f.3, 6. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 1, 408–9; 700.503, 45–46. Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 305. Aretin, Das Alte Reich, 1:139. W. Kessler, “Stände und Herrschaft in Ungarn und seinen Nebenländern im 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert,” in Stände und Landesherrschaft in Ostmitteleuropa in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. H. Weczerka (Marburg, 1995), 186. 700.498, 526–29. Cf. 700.499–IV, 217–18. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 20. 700.503, 89; Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 16. Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 305–6. 700.484, 56. 700.482, 84. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:393. MOL N114, vol. 15. J. Hajnóczy, “A magyar országgyűlésen javaslandó törvények lényege” [Ratio proponendarum in comitiis Hungariae legum], in Hajnóczy József közjogi-politikai munkái, ed. A. Csizmadia (Budapest, 1958), 59–61. Hajnóczy, “Magyarország országgyűléséről,” 252. Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 2:294. Timon, Alkotmány- és jogtörténet, 659–60. Ibid., 531. Cf. 700.499–IV, 217–19. 700.482, 88. 700.484, 53–54. Ibid., 81–83. Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 306. 700.484, 83. Cf. Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 306. Hajnóczy, “Magyarország országgyűléséről,” 251. Naponként-való 1790, 158–59. Ibid., 259–61. Naponként-való 1792, 117. Ibid., 52. Cited in Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 1:351. Ibid., 2:192. S. Szőcs, A városi kérdés az 1832–36. évi országgyűlésen (Budapest, 1996), 25–26, 224. MOL I30, 10:1332–33. 700.499–IV, 195. 700.500, 170 and 186. 700.482, 76. 700.484, 68 and 131, 147.

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45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

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700.498, 417–16. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 315. Ring, Lengyelország, 136–37. Cf. Müller, “Polen,” 103–4. Naponként-való 1790, passim. 700.498, 527–29; 700.499–IV, 217–18. Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 306. 700.499–IV, 218. For example, ibid., 202. M. Horváth, “Az 1764–ki,” 1:408. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:367. M. Horváth, “Az 1764–ki,” 1:407. Ibid. 413–14. 700.478, 141–42. 700.475, 66. 700.478, 181. Naponként-való 1790, 45. Ibid., 158–59. H. Marczali, “A magyar országgyűlés első házszabálya,” Budapesti Hírlap 25(101) (11 April 1905), 5. Naponként-való 1792, 127. MOL I30, 10:1333. Cf. P[aule]r [Tivadar], “Alsó-Tábla,” in Egyetemes magyar encyclopaedia, ed. J. Török, 8 vols. (Pest, 1859–71), 2:1006. Janitorum regalium magister—he was one of the high dignitaries of Hungary. Werbőczy, Tripartitum, 481. (Part III, title 2, §8.) Podhradczky, Szavazati jog, 141. Kérészy, Rendi országgyűléseink, 51–52; F. Eckhart, “La diète,” 223–24; Eckhart and Degré, Állam- és jogtörténet, 26–27 (the author of the cited passage is Ferenc Eckhart); Csizmadia, Kovács, and Asztalos, Magyar állam- és jogtörténet, 216 (the author of the cited passage is Andor Csizmadia). Komáromy, “Berényi,” 131. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 23. 700.482, 91–92. 700.484, 81–83, 135. Naponként-való 1790, 158–59, 326–34. Szijártó, A diéta, 313–16. Cf. MOL I30, 10:1323; Podhradczky, Szavazati jog, 125–27. MOL I30, 10:1323 and 1333. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 7. Cf. ibid., 20. 700.484, 283. Szijártó, A diéta, 320–21. Cf. Ring, Lengyelország, 136. Count Ferenc Károlyi’s letter dated 21 September 1741 is cited in Éble, Károly Ferencz, 589–90. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 15, 20–24, 32–34. Cf. Kónyi, “A rendszeres bizottság,” 147; Bónis, A bírósági szervezet, 62–64. Balogh, “Ráday Pál,” 69–70. Éble, “Törvényhozás az insurrectióról,” 179. 700.482, 99–100.

Realignments

85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

93. 94. 95.

96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120.

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700.484, 204. 700.479, 2. Salamon, “Az 1741–iki,” 103–9. Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 535. Sándor Gáspár’s letter to Ferenc Károlyi is cited in Éble, “Törvényhozás az insurrectióról,” 177. Gabriel Kolinovics is cited in Salamon, “Az 1741–iki,” 107–9. Szerémi (ed.), “Soós Mihály levele Kosztolányi Lászlóhoz (1764),” Történelmi Tár 1896 [years are not marked, first name of the publisher is not given], 382–83. Cf. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:392–94. Cited in M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:217. Cf. Gy. Bónis, “The Powers of Deputies in the Hungarian Feudal Diet, 1790–1848,” in Liber memorialis Sir Maurice Powicke, ed. H. M. Cam, vol. 27, Études présentées à la Commission internationale pour l’histoire des Assemblées d’états (Dublin, 1963), 172. L. Tóth, “Bevezetés,” 402. M. Horváth, Magyarország történelme, 7:367. Cf. Marczali, Magyarország története, 293. J. Hajnóczy, “Egy magyar hazafi gondolatai néhány, az országgyűlésre tartozó dologról” [Gedanken eines Ungarischen Patrioten über einige zum Landtag gehörige Gegenstaende], in Hajnóczy József közjogi-politikai munkái, ed. A. Csizmadia (Budapest, 1958), 37. See Szijártó, A diéta, 439. Naponként-való 1790, 158–59. Cited in Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 2:194. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 17. Naponként-való 1790, 393–97. See Szijártó, A diéta, 439. Ibid., 331–36, 479–83. P 1717–1722 3, 173–76/168–71 (old/new page numbering). Demkó, “Országos conscriptio,” 96–97. MOL N50, vol. 6 (without page numbering). MOL N114, 7:1. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N49 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaetae antiquae], bundle 2, fasc. K, No. 6. 700.486/1, 35–37, 95–96. See Éble, Károlyi Ferencz, 138. 700.484, 141. Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 301. 700.482, 75. 700.478, 36–44. Salamon, “Az 1741–iki,” 98–99. 700.478, 44. Salamon, “Az 1741–iki,” 112. Ibid. 115. Bónis, “Die ungarischen Stände,” 301. 700.476, 42–44; 700.478, 45–53; 700.477, 44–45. 700.469, 11; 700.467, 58; 700.470, 11; 700.468, 87.

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700.468, 93–262. Ibid., 263. Podhradczky, Szavazati jog, 138. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N55 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1764–1765], bundle 1, fasc. B: Gravamina et postulata per stutus et ordines regni Hungariae partiumque eidem annexarum, sub diaeta anni 1764/5 exhibita. Kaprinai, Hungaria diplomatica, 316. Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 1:349–50. 700.447, 301. MOL N56 3, vol. 3. Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 1:349–30; MOL N56 3, vol. 25. 700.447, 65–67, 303; MOL N56, 3:4–5, 25–31; S. Hoffer, Krónika, 249. 700.447, 304. Ibid., 67–68; MOL N56, 3:22 (quotation is from here). 700.447, 68–70; S.Hoffer, Krónika, 289; OSZK K Quart. Lat. 2317, 33 and 46. For example, S. Hoffer, Krónika, 266. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N56 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1790–1791], bundle 1, fasc. C. MOL N56, 3:27. Naponként-való 1790, 46–47. 700.447, 301. MOL N56, 3:4–5, 25, 28–29, 48–49. Naponként-való 1790, 44–45. MOL N56, 3:33. Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 1:351; MOL N56, 3:4, 30. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N56 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1790–1791], 4:6. MOL N56, 3:16. Naponként-való 1790, 316–18. Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 1:382–83. MOL N56, 3:34. S. Takáts, Kémvilág Magyarországon (Budapest, s.a. [1932]), 2:57. See, for example, A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N57 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1792], bundle 1, fasc. E, fol. 400. Naponként-való 1792, 59–61.

125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150.

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Part III

INTERPRETING HUNGARIAN POLITICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

d J

ust as for any historical or other phenomenon, the history of the Hungarian diet in the eighteenth century, especially the perceived transformation of the diet and the estates, cannot be interpreted in isolation. It only gains meaning when placed in its various contexts. As thus far we have striven to limit the interpretative aspect that it is impossible fully to avoid in any work of historiography, we here give full rein to this, outlining a number of possible systems of relationships that give us differing interpretations of the developments we have seen in Hungarian politics during the eighteenth century. The first interpretational cluster is composed of deliberations on legal history and the history of ideas. In the first instance we concentrate on the meaning that the historical actors themselves attributed to their actions and the things that happened to them. Through the history of the diploma inaugurale, of such crucial importance in this era, a legal historical interpretation can emerge; we then turn to the analysis of various texts in which historians can build their interpretations on those constructed by contemporaries. Taking Koselleck’s considerations from conceptual history as our starting point,1 the eighteenth-century concept of time and questions of sovereignty offer focal points for our interpretation that can, through the investigation of the political languages used at the diet, lead us to the point where we can glimpse the changing role of the key concepts of “common good” and “constitution.” In this way, a certain interpretation of eighteenthcentury Hungarian politics comes to the fore, one that places the emphasis on the birth of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions.

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A second possible system of relationships contains the various aspects of the social historical background of politics and offers a social-historical explanation for the key development in the history of the Hungarian estates in the eighteenth century by which the county deputies achieved pars sanior status, one that is inseparable from the birth of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions. Here it is the institution of the Hungarian county that is our focus; more precisely, we will concentrate on the strands that connected the diet and the counties. The eighteenth-century process of emancipation of the bene possessionati from the dominance of the great landowner aristocracy is gradually revealed: we can interpret this process as one of the driving forces behind the realignment of the eighteenth-century Hungarian estates. The outline of the third interpretative context that presents itself, namely the utilization of the historiographical approach, will, on the one hand, place the current piece of historiographical confrontation with the problem of the eighteenth-century Hungarian diet within Hungarian historical discourse; on the other, it will position the Hungarian estates within the system of the absolutism in eighteenth-century Europe, on the basis of the international specialist literature. This offers a point of reference to judge this period of the history of Hungarian parliamentarism in comparative fashion. There is a possibility for an approach that emphasizes the breadth of political participation, in contrast to stressing national considerations and to historical narratives focussing on social progress. Comparisons at the European level only add to the justification for such an approach. Although the first and second parts of the book did of course include some interpretations of the Hungarian diet of the eighteenth century, the emphasis now moves from description to interpretation, in such a way that light can also be shed on the further characteristics of the nature of Hungarian politics in the eighteenth century.

Note 1. See O. Brunner, W. Conze, and R. Koselleck (eds.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprachen Deutschlands, 8 vols. (Stuttgart, 1972–97).

Chapter 8

TEXTS AND DISCOURSE

d T

he common characteristic of what we might call cultural historical approaches is, on the one hand, the attention placed on the lived experience of the historical protagonists and, on the other, the emphasis on the way in which they themselves perceived and interpreted what happened to them.1 The self-reflection of societies of the past, the depictions they made of themselves, are mostly easily found in written form. This is why it is worth examining the image that eighteenth-century Hungarian politics had of itself. It also seems reasonable to list the possible interpretative frameworks in an order that fits the values of the period and to focus on those that the historical actors themselves would have considered to be of crucial importance. Following one investigation into the history of institutions and another into motivations, concentrating on the role of self-interest, it is not my intention to apply an approach that would deny the relevance of self-interest in politics. The point is merely that the proponents of the cultural historical approach consider that the identity and needs of certain social groups should be seen as encapsulated in political practice rather than as given a priori, as individuals can have all kinds of interests and take up all kinds of positions.2 And when we make discursive reality the object of our investigation, it is worth first following the entire history of a text that was seen as more important than any other text in eighteenth-century Hungarian political life.

The Diploma Inaugurale Alongside the levying of tax, the passing of legislation, and the election of the palatine and the guardians of the crown, coronation was one of the acts that

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could exclusively take place at the diet.3 The significance of this did not vanish in the period of the hereditary monarchy, for, on the basis of the “old common law, i.e. the legal conviction in the nation,” “the hereditary king also gains his legitimate authority from the Holy Crown.”4 According to the decretum of 1687, meanwhile, the taking of the coronation oath and the publication of the diploma inaugurale were prerequisites for coronation.5 All this gave the coronation a contractual feel, also explaining why it had to take place at the diet.6 The coronation oath and the publication of the diploma inaugurale were linked to the act of coronation rather than of accession to the throne. It was not only Hungarian kings who took an oath as well as publishing a diploma inaugurale. In this period, rulers would generally have no choice but to take an oath on the occasion of their coronation to honor their country’s laws and freedoms.7 Similarly, the elected king of Poland first signed his electoral conditions, then, at the following Sejm, which was convened for the purpose of the coronation, the king undertook to keep his promises.8 The coronation oath and the diploma inaugurale were expressions of the real power of the Hungarian estates. Great significance was attributed to both of these at the time, and fierce debates raged over their content. Rulers were more likely to sense the obligation of the diploma inaugurale than that of the laws they would later sanction; the estates, for their part, saw more guarantees for their rights and privileges in the diploma inaugurale than in the laws. The diploma inaugurale was a certificate written before the coronation and published in celebratory form, in which the king essentially took a vow to respect the country’s rights and laws.9 It was enacted together with the fact of the coronation and with the coronation oath as the first articles of the decretum. As the oath was read out aloud at the coronation ceremony, and the coronation could not be annulled should a different oath be read out from that agreed upon, the diploma inaugurale, in any case rather more detailed than the oath, provided the estates with a more surefire guarantee. This was not only negotiated but also published before the coronation. The debate on the diploma inaugurale was different from the usual tractatus diaetalis in that the king was as yet uncrowned when it was in progress, and thus he could not yet feel his position to be safe and strong. The diploma inaugurale was a leftover from the conditions of election10 for which approval continued to be required during the reign of the House of Habsburg, if in less severe form than before. The first to be enshrined in law after 1526 was the 1618 diploma inaugurale of Ferdinand II, listing seventeen conditions, which was enacted after he acceded to the throne (article 2 of 1622). Henceforth the rule in the seventeenth century was that the diploma inaugurale was connected to the coronation, which, for the sake of certainty, would take place while the father of the incoming ruler was still alive (following the imperial model: it was customary to crown the heir to the throne as king of the Romans

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while his father, the emperor, was still alive), and the king of Hungary would include the diploma inaugurale in the decretum of the first diet after his accession to the throne.11 Article 2 of 1687 put into law the obligation of the king, from then on acceding to the throne on a hereditary basis, to publish his diploma inaugurale, sanctified by an oath, before his coronation.12 The practice of electing and crowning kings while their predecessors were still alive did not continue into the eighteenth century—the era of the hereditary monarchy—and rulers would publish their diploma inaugurale at the diet convened for the purpose of their coronation, directly before the coronation took place. Charles VI published his diploma inaugurale in 1712, and this entered the decretum as article 2 of 1715; that of Maria Theresa became article 2 of 1741, that of Leopold II (published in 1790) would become article 2 of 1791, and that of Francis I would then be article 2 of 1792.13 In the electoral conditions that a Polish king was made to sign after his election, the new ruler usually had to promise to maintain the army at his own expense, to recapture the lost territories of Poland, to protect the dominance of the Catholic faith, and to respect the privileges of the estates.14 The ruler of the Holy Roman Empire was also elected, though the Habsburgs mostly followed one another in succession on the throne. (In the eighteenth century the series of members of the House of Habsburg or the House of Habsburg-Lorraine was only broken by Charles VII, during the War of the Austrian Succession.) From Emperor Charles V to Emperor Francis II (who as king of Hungary ruled as Francis I), every emperor came to agreement with the prince-electors in electoral conditions (Wahlkapitulation) similar to the Hungarian diploma inaugurale. In these he confirmed the fundamental laws of the empire, the privileges of the imperial estates, and the empire’s territorial structure, as well as giving the estates the right to influence the empire’s affairs: foreign policy, questions of war and peace, alliances made, and measures taken to restore domestic peace, as well as increases to imperial taxes. Without the agreement of the prince-electors, the emperor could not even announce a Reichstag. In line with the terms of the Peace of Westphalia, they attempted to establish a permanent Wahlkapitulation.15 In 1711 the prince-electors and the imperial princes agreed on a text, but as this was not ratified by the emperor, it did not become law, merely functioning as a model (as the preceding Wahlkapitulation had done). The free negotiation, which always led to the alteration of electoral conditions, remained.16 In eighteenth-century Hungary the opposite was true: it was the Habsburgs who strove to preserve a permanent text for the diploma inaugurale, which would then be altered to some degree on a number of occasions as a result of the estates’ endeavors. If we are curious as to the self-image of the politics of the estates and try to approach this through textual sources, then it is best to take the diploma inaugurale as our starting point, as these were very clearly the most important documents in the politics of the eighteenth-century diet.

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Figure 8.1. Emperor Charles VI, painted by Jakob Michel (1712). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

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Versions of the Diploma Inaugurale from Joseph I to Francis I Joseph I was the first ruler from the House of Habsburg crowned king by succession instead of election by the Hungarian estates. For this reason, his diploma inaugurale became the model for all later ones.17 In the following diploma we essentially find the assurances published by Joseph I, though the complete text of each diploma inaugurale could not be identical with his, if only because of the changes made to the system of succession. (In Charles VI’s diploma, the succession of the Spanish branch of the Habsburg family was dropped, while Maria Theresa guaranteed the estates of Hungary the free election of their king in the event of the end not of the male but of the three female lines of the dynasty.18) Nevertheless, through this period, the court continued to insist on its principled stand emphasizing the immutability of the diploma inaugurale. As Leopold II asserted in 1790, “Hungary is a hereditary monarchy, which means an uninterrupted process of rule; as such, the new capitulations possible in an elective monarchy cannot be allowed in this case.”19 The paragraphs of the diploma inaugurale of Joseph I of 1687 were as follows: 1. With the exception of the country’s right to resistance specified in the Golden Bull of 1222, he reaffirms its laws, “just as soon as the estates and the king come to a mutual agreement at the diet as to their meaning and their use.” 2. The king and his successors shall reside in Hungary. 3. The Holy Crown of Hungary shall be guarded in Hungary. 4. The recaptured territories shall be annexed to Hungary. 5. After the end of the male line of the Austrian and Spanish branches of the House of Habsburg, the country is entitled to the free election of its kings. 6. Every king to be crowned will publish a diploma inaugurale. 7. Joseph I will not intervene in the affairs of the country during the lifetime of King Leopold I.20 The first paragraph sets the condition that the king and the estates have the right to interpret laws together at the diet (i.e. the ruler is not obliged to accept the interpretation of the estates) and that the king should retain Hungary’s privileges, laws, and customs in line with this. This is the so-called revision or joint interpretation clause. According to one legal historical interpretation, the history of eighteenth-century Hungarian politics is essentially the process during which the estates attempted to find reparation for the damage caused by this condition

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(that had arbitrarily been inserted into the text in 1687 without the agreement of the estates).21 Step by step, Hungary’s rights in this regard would be restored to a considerable degree as the range of this clause was circumscribed. Article 3 of 1715 withdrew the governance of the country according to its own laws from its authority, while this same article did the same for preserving the territorial integrity of Hungary: this would later be included in the diploma inaugurale in 1741. In article 8 of 1741 Maria Theresa undertook not to utilize the revision clause with regard to the crucial privileges of nobility, especially to tax exemption. When Leopold II ascended to the throne, the estates of Hungary managed to include article 8 of 1741 in the diploma inaugurale itself; thanks to this, it was therefore guaranteed that the fundamental noble privileges would not be affected by the revision clause. After coming to the throne in 1708, Joseph I convened the diet and presented his diploma inaugurale, published twenty years previously, to be enacted. But in the period of the Rákóczi War of Independence the rump, so-called labanc diet responded with fierce opposition. Accepting the hereditary monarchy, they insisted that Hungary be governed as a free country, according to its own laws, and that the king not cite the joint interpretation clause to try to force a new interpretation of laws and privileges. For this reason, they requested the publication of a new diploma inaugurale.22 The debate at the diet on this issue began, but was not resolved.23 On account of the death of Joseph I, nothing ultimately happened regarding the diploma inaugurale issue, just as the diet he convened failed to publish any decretum. The diet was continued by Charles VI. With his coronation, he essentially repeated his older brother’s diploma inaugurale, although the estates would have been happier with the publication of some earlier version that more strongly restricted the king’s power24 or that withdrew the joint interpretation clause.25 The diploma inaugurale of Charles VI can be summarized as follows: 1. With the exception of the resistance clause of the Golden Bull, the king reserves Hungary’s privileges, laws, and customs, “the use and meaning of which were decided upon at the diet by the king and the estates.” 2. The crown shall be guarded in Hungary by secular Hungarians. 3. The recaptured territories shall be rejoined to the country. 4. With the extinction of the male Habsburg line, the right to elect kings is returned to the country. 5. The descendants of Charles VI will also publish a diploma inaugurale and take an oath. To reassure the estates, however—and as we have just seen—he registered in an article of the decretum in 1715 that he would rule according to existing laws

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Figure 8.2. Portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II in field marshal’s uniform with medals, by an unidentified painter (unknown collection). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

and laws to be passed in the future, and that he would not use the joint interpretation clause either to break off individual territories of the country or to bring into Hungary systems of government used in other territories. Compared to later versions, the reference to the succession of the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg is missing, as is the promise that the ruler will reside in Hungary; the last point is also missing, as this is not the diploma inaugurale of a king crowned during his father’s life.26

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Maria Theresa was also able to publish what was effectively her father’s diploma inaugurale with little in the way of modification. The government helped her in this by not taking the defeat at the hands of the Prussians at Mollwitz seriously enough, hoping instead for assistance from its allies against Frederick the Great, while news of the French-Prussian alliance had not yet reached Maria Theresa as she prepared herself for coronation.27 For this reason, she judged that she was in a position to clearly resist the attempts of the Hungarian estates. In the debate at the diet on the diploma inaugurale,28 the version of the districts was prepared first, then a newer incarnation was completed by a mixed deputation, with the participation of the upper house. The third phase involved the lower house taking a position, blending the two previous documents; this was then negotiated with the upper house. As recommended by the districts, the first point, that obliged the king to keep the laws, had to be changed relative to 1712, with the addition that the legislature could not decide on questions of noble privileges and freedoms, more precisely on tax exemption. The mixed committee supported the amendment, and this demand later became article 8 of 1741. Both the districts and the mixed committee suggested leaving unchanged the second point on guarding the crown. On the third point (the restoration of the country’s territorial integrity), the districts recommended an amendment requiring no agreement between the king and the country’s estates. The mixed committee supported this, but not the demand that the reintegration of the territories take place during the diet that was underway. It was from this, and with weaker wording, that article 18, proposing the reincorporation of Transylvania, the Partium, and the military frontier zone, was born. The estates also recommended the entry of another paragraph into the diploma inaugurale stating that the post of palatine should be filled within a year of it being vacated; the king should govern Hungary through Hungarian councilors, should live in the country, and should donate those lands that have fallen to him exclusively to Hungarians. Unlike the first demands, these last two did not win the mixed committee’s support. The next paragraph of the diploma inaugurale, regulating succession, would have been a repetition of the Pragmatica Sanctio, while the last paragraph, stipulating the renewal of the diploma with each succession to the throne, would have been a repetition of the relevant points in the diploma of Charles VI. Maria Theresa rejected the estates’ request, however: except for the passage on female succession, she wished to publish her father’s diploma inaugurale. The lower house also appeared intractable, but the lords judged that the coronation could not be delayed, and so they suggested that the additions to the diploma inaugurale be separate articles and that the coronation oath refer not only to the diploma but to all articles of law. They also rejected the proposal of the members of the lower house to submit a petition to Maria Theresa on the matter, saying that there was no time for this. The differences would be bridged by the compromise suggested by the personalis: they should request a verbal guarantee from the

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queen that she would confirm the items to be left out of the diploma inaugurale as articles of law, and that the coronation oath should also apply to keeping to the laws in general. Maria Theresa’s reply arrived the following evening, the day before the coronation; with this she was effectively providing a further guarantee alongside the diploma inaugurale. In this she made the following promises (which would become articles of law): Transylvania would be governed by her and her successors as Hungarian kings; the high dignitaries would be retained with their full authority; the offices would be given to Hungarians; she would bear them in mind when conferring benefices; grievances would be dealt with at the diet; and, finally, she would get Hungarians to deal with Hungarian affairs. In 1741 there was in fact plenty of time to debate the diploma inaugurale: the debate at the lower house and the negotiation between the two houses had already taken place on 19 June 1741.29 Maria Theresa’s response to the compromise proposal, i.e. the ruler’s final reaction, came only at 7:00 p.m. on 24 June, the evening before the coronation, when the crown was already in Saint Martin’s Church in Pressburg.30 In such a situation, there was considerable pressure on the estates, and it was hardly conceivable that they might be so obstinate as to have the whole coronation ceremony delayed until they had extracted a more favorable diploma. The version signed by Maria Theresa was thus largely similar to that of Charles VI, but it was not only on the matter of succession that it differed from it. The third paragraph, on the country’s integrity, was changed to better reflect requests: it no longer included the claim that the implementation of the laws on this fell within the remit of the legislature; that is, in harmony with article 3 of 1715, the question of the country’s territorial integrity was released from the revision clause. The laws guaranteeing noble rights and privileges remained under the authority of the revision clause, however; as far as these were concerned, all that tied the hands of the ruler were the laws weakened in value by mutual interpretation. Joseph II did not have himself crowned, and so he did not have to publish a diploma inaugurale. In 1790 the estates came to the conclusion from this that the tyrannical rule of Joseph II had brought the line of succession to an end, and new rules of succession had to be drawn up for Leopold II to come to the throne.31 Unlike before, in summer 1790 a “constitutional debate” was underway; the counties would also use this term.32 A mixed committee formulated the proposal for the diploma on the basis of the documents from the district sessions. It was based on the most radical Tibiscan proposal, and though the committee “ground down” its “sharpest teeth”—the right to reject taxation, for example, was omitted33—and the plan contained somewhat softer constraints on royal power, it nevertheless remained kuruc in spirit. It would have established an independent Hungarian state under the dominance of the nobility. The 30 August proposal of the mixed committee would have stipulated that a coronation diet had to be convened within six months of the death of the

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Figure 8.3. Maria Theresa as Queen of Hungary on the Coronation Hill in Pressburg, painted by C. Hirsch Jr. (c. 1750). Bratislava City Gallery. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

king. Coronation would essentially have been at the whim of the estates, who demanded more guarantees and a greater part of power, such as the restoration of the resistance clause, automatic diets every three years, and the king being primarily resident in Hungary. They also stipulated that there should be an independent Hungarian Royal National Council, while the king should not have

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the ability to block the acceptance of an item of legislation forever—at most until the third diet. According to the proposal, furthermore, the chamber and the ministers would have been responsible to the diet, meaning the estates would have been able to influence just about everything. They wished for an independent Hungarian military council to come into being, with the result that the king could only decide on matters of war and peace together with the diet and the council.34 The final framing of the new diploma inaugurale at a mixed session would only take place in September, in changed circumstances, which made its imprint on the diploma proposal. Leopold II came to an agreement in Reichenbach with representatives of Prussia: as with this the risk of Prussian invasion abated, he immediately transferred six cuirassier regiments from the now disengaged army to Hungary. With this, the Hungarian estates’ hopes of reorganizing the country’s public and political apparatus, realistic for half a year after the death of Joseph II, were drastically reduced. Some of their demands were still transferred into antecoronationalis (precoronation) paragraphs, while the rest were omitted. The text suggested by the diet, while still strongly oppositional, also won the approval of the chancellery, but Leopold II insisted on the old diploma, promising to deal with the nation’s justified grievances and requests in articles of law.35 He argued that his hereditary rights would be weakened were he to publish a different diploma inaugurale from that of Charles VI.36 On 5 September 1790, during the negotiations on the diploma, a deputation took a compromise proposal to Vienna, but, after asking for the opinion of the secret conference, Leopold II (in the words quoted above) rejected any substantive changes. With the intervention of lord chief justice Count Károly Zichy and personalis József Ürményi, Leopold II made a promise to confirm, at least in the form of articles of law, those points of the proposal that corresponded to the old laws. The king did this in his rescript of 21 September, approving the chancellery’s proposal without asking the members of the State Council—something he would later come to regret.37 The reason it proved possible to extract important concessions from Leopold II was that the focus of his advisors was to see that the diploma inaugurale remained unchanged. The later article 10 and articles 12–17 of 1791 on the country’s independence contain the important parts of the diploma proposal.38 In the end, apart from some stylistic differences, the diploma of Leopold II was essentially identical to those of his predecessors. The difference concerned the joint interpretation clause, namely that it did not apply to the question settled by article 8 of 1741 and that the guardians of the crown could be elected irrespective of their confession. Two years later, as advised by the palatine (that is, his younger brother, Archduke Alexander Leopold), the primate, the Hungarian chancellor, the lord chief justice, and the personalis, Francis I agreed to amend the diploma inaugurale in the estates’ favor.39 In its first and fifth paragraphs, he inserted a reference to

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Figure 8.4. Portrait of Emperor Joseph II, attributed to Anton von Maron. Palace of Versailles. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

article 3 of 1791, which stipulated that coronation should take place within six months of the ruler coming to the throne. The estates gratefully received this gesture. This unusual level of harmony does not, however, obscure the circumstance that even then there was little time for the diploma inaugurale to be debated and for negotiations to be completed. Francis I arrived in Buda on the evening of 2

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June 1792, and the coronation took place on 6 June, “in the friars’ old church, near the Vienna Gate [of Buda Castle].”40 The government party knew very well that the amendment of the diploma was a concession for which they could expect something in return: Francis I asked for a war subsidium to be levied for the campaign against the French, leaving it up to the country to decide on the amount. Palatine Alexander Leopold, who presented the request to the diet, reminded the estates that the diploma had been amended by his brother on a voluntary basis.41 Overall, despite their actions increasing in vigor over the course of the eighteenth century, Hungary’s estates did not manage to see any fundamental changes brought to the diploma inaugurale, but they were offered compensation for this in terms of laws that were passed.42

The Coronation Oath and the Coronation Ceremony The text of the oath of the Habsburg kings of Hungary dates back to the reign of Ferdinand I. At the coronation of Joseph I, the only change made was that the resistance clause of the Golden Bull was mentioned as an exception to the laws that the king was to keep,43 while the revision clause present in the diploma inaugurale was included in the oath.44 The oath taken by Charles VI45 was essentially the repetition of the first and (roughly speaking) third points of his diploma. By taking it, the king undertook to keep Hungary’s privileges, laws, and customs (except the resistance clause of the Golden Bull), “the use and meaning of which had been agreed at the diet by the king and the estates.” The territories of Hungary, meanwhile, would be enlarged rather than decreased. In 1741 the estates also wanted to see the formula of the oath renewed. Similarly to their proposed version for the diploma inaugurale, they would have amended it such that the country’s rights and freedoms (including, of course, noble tax exemption) should not depend on agreement between the king and the diet.46 The Hungarian estates achieved more in terms of amendments to the oath than they had with the diploma. Maria Theresa’s oath differed from that of her father as follows: at the point at which she promised to uphold privileges, customs, and freedoms, the condition that “the use and meaning of which had been agreed at the diet by the king and the estates,” i.e. the revision clause, was omitted, while the “laws” in general were added alongside the “rights” she was to uphold. The oath of Leopold II was identical to that of Maria Theresa, as was that of Francis I.47 The history of the debate on the diploma inaugurale and the coronation oath—which can be considered its shorter incarnation—is a clear reflection of the process during which the Hungarian estates came by the eighteenth century’s end to reinterpret noble freedoms (particularly tax exemption), understood as the rights of the regnum, as Hungary’s constitution. The crux of this came to

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be the regulation of the political framework, which is in line with our previous observations: here we encounter the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions. From the coronation oath we need take but a single step in the direction of the cultural historical analysis of the coronation ceremony. As Ákos Barcsay showed, the debates on the formalities of coronation acted as a sort of substitute for the free election of kings. The Hungarian estates insisted on their role in the ceremony being underscored, that is, on the dualist nature of the exercise of power.48 In the eighteenth century, coronation always took place as part of a coronation diet, and usually in the coronation church of Saint Martin in Pressburg. (Francis I, unusually, was crowned in Buda.) The archbishop of Esztergom anointed the king, who wore Hungarian dress, and, together with the palatine, he placed the crown on the king’s head. The coronation robe was placed over him, the mace and orb placed in his hands, and the sword, attributed by tradition to Saint Stephen, was put in his belt. Following this, the freshly crowned ruler would knight a few dozen aristocrats and lesser nobles (in Hungary they were called valiant knights with golden spurs) in the Franciscan church, after which the coronation oath was publicly taken in front of the monastery of the Sisters of Charity. Finally, the king went up on his horse to the coronation hill, where he made a blow with his sword toward each of the four corners of the Earth. The coronation was followed by a celebratory feast. Hungarian and court dignitaries, together with prelates, collaborated at the ceremonies. The first, ecclesiastical part of the ceremony, regulated by the Pontificale Romanum, was quite distinct from the second part, considered a Hungarian specialty: the so-called private ceremony, or Ceremonia privata.49 Benedek M. Varga, examining the coronation ceremony of Maria Theresa from an anthropological perspective, came to the conclusion that this ritual, serving as it did a function of legitimization, was able to make the political community accepting of change in such a way as to preserve the feeling of identity and continuity that is the basis of cultural memory. In the preliminary debates on ceremonial issues, the Hungarian estates considered it important from the point of view of constitutional continuity that it be a rex, not a regina, who was at the country’s helm (the formula recommended by Vienna used the word “queen,” not “king”), and that Maria Theresa undertake the “manly” acts of the ritual right up to galloping up the coronation hill and brandishing the sword—on which Maria Theresa herself also insisted.50 (Except that she made the part of the journey from the Franciscan church to the coronation hill in a carriage, not on horseback, as her predecessors had done.51) According to the speech of the archbishop of Esztergom, who welcomed Maria Theresa when she crossed into the country, Hungarians respected her “as regards her gender, as our lady; as regards her power …, as our king.”52 The ceremony for crowning Hungarian kings confirmed the rulers in their positions, making them a part of cultural memory.53 On the political debates

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surrounding the accessions to the throne in the eighteenth century, Ákos Barcsay has shown that the introduction of the hereditary monarchy in 1687 made no fundamental change to the structure of the dualism of king and estates in Hungary. It was an important check on royal power that the pre-coronation diploma inaugurale would be retained. The free election of kings was replaced by the estates’ informal oversight of the legitimacy of coronation, and the very existence of the symbolic-ceremonial sphere increased the scope of action for conflicts to be resolved.54 The two parties originally displayed limited willingness to compromise: the estates did not wish to concede their privileges and rights, while the court did not allow significant intervention in governance, especially in military affairs. One form of conflict resolution was for the crown to formulate nebulous promises. The high dignitaries and the magnates in general tried to flit between the two sides, and they had the best opportunities to do so in 1741. In 1790 the room for maneuver of the high dignitaries and the lords increased after Leopold II broke the back of the Hungarian opposition with his domestic and foreign policy measures in the summer.55 The system of the dualism of king and estates was, indeed, always able to establish the actual form of compromise that, in theory, lay at its heart. The court was indeed planning to further restrict the rights of the estates in 1687, even establishing the legal basis for this in the form of the revision clause, but these plans would not be implemented in the eighteenth century. It is significant that after 1711 Vienna did not attempt to apply the joint interpretation clause or to limit the rights and privileges of the estates by reference to this. (When Joseph II did so, it was no longer by citing this clause.56) It is also true that while the estates succeeded in defending their positions throughout the eighteenth century, their ever-stronger efforts to expand the scope of constitutionality would always be a failure—essentially until 1848.

Koselleck’s “Saddle Time” and the Problem of Sovereignty Reinhart Koselleck calls the great transformation in the interpretation of key concepts Sattelzeit (“saddle time”). His view is that, in the German history of ideas, this took place between 1750 and 1850, when attitudes to history and the conception of time were also changing.57 As a result of experiences of progress, “the limits of the space of experience and the horizon of expectations diverged.”58 For before the eighteenth century and the birth of the notion of progress, we find two essential concepts of time: one that is cyclical in nature, based on people’s everyday experience, while the other, if one formulated a grand conception at all, portrays one’s own era as being on the declining part of a big curve. One form of this, dominant in medieval times, is Saint Augustine’s concept of time, which saw the high point of the historical world in Christ’s earthly life, followed by a decline

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leading to the last judgment.59 The direct implication of this notion is that the old is good and the new can only be worse. A good place to observe the conflict between the old and new understandings of time in Hungarian politics is the debate on religious affairs at the diet of 1790–91, which, for the political actors of the time, was just as crucial as the diploma inaugurale. While in these debates the historical approach (“older is better”), together with the resulting emphasis on the incommutability of an arrangement previously implemented (“we shouldn’t tamper with something that works well”), evidently reflect an attitude that puts a high value on the past, the opposing school of thought presents the attitude that we will be better and better able to solve problems (as this line of thought places the ideal state not in the past but in the future). As it is relatively rare to find such pure expressions of the concept of time, we attempt to find a proxy factor for this, and to concentrate on another issue through which it might be easier to measure the change in political thinking: the problem of sovereignty. To the medieval mind, the world is governed by a divine order, one that is essentially embodied in old customs and by old agreements and laws reinforced by constant practice, ones that should never be overruled. The notion of absolute power of the ruler (potestas absoluta) was expressed as early as the thirteenth century, but it only gained real traction in the early modern period.60 As quoted earlier, Jean Bodin’s classical definition refers to the full power of the ruler (power still derived from God) as sovereignty.61 At the end of the eighteenth century, other political actors would also register their demand for sovereignty: the people, or the nation—or, as their representatives, the national assembly, or diet. The provincial lords of medieval times were not yet sovereign rulers, for the law of custom, thought of as coming from God, had authority not just over the people but also the prince himself. This was an obligation for all: not even the prince had the right or opportunity to alter this law of custom. Meanwhile the people of a province could justify resistance by appeal to this62—just as the private use of force was also legitimate in a more general sense when defending the common law of the province—that is, in the interests of protecting an order seen as derived from God. It was only the early modern state that would acquire a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, thus also establishing the society of private individuals in opposition to itself: in the words of August Ludwig von Schlözer, societas civilis sine imperio.63 Thus the touchstone for sovereignty is the question of the valid resistance of the ruler’s subjects. According to the ideologues of the French nobility in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the homeland is in danger, the king should be robbed of his powers, and it is the obligation, not just the right, of the nobles to resist him. In this regard, the historian Arlette Juanna speaks of the “obligation to revolt.”64 The moment that a ruler, who also attributes his power

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to divine mandate, acquires sovereignty (the totality of rights), it is no longer possible to oppose him in a lawful way.65 Yet in the early modern concept of sovereignty, not even the power of the sovereign ruler was entirely without restraint. Jean Bodin claims that absolute monarchy is independent of external and internal authorities and can pass laws and levy taxes in the interests of the common good; its measures, however, cannot conflict with the directions of divine and natural law, or with the country’s constitution (basic laws). It was the respect for the latter that distinguished the absolute ruler from the tyrant. But even the infringement of these would not make it right to oppose the ruler, over whom God alone had authority.66 In his theory of moderate centralization, Justus Lipsius also clearly distinguishes governance from tyranny, seeing the essence of the former in promoting subjects’ interests.67 In 1687 the Hungarian estates relinquished the rights of resistance granted them by the Golden Bull of 1222. The unique aspect we can observe in Hungary’s development is that its rulers only attempted to establish their sovereign power relatively late, and only provisionally, and that these attempts were only temporarily and partially successful. Since the end of the Middle Ages, it was not only the Polish king who could not pass laws without the assent of the Sejm,68 but the ruler of Hungary also found himself in the same situation, where the criterion of legislation was that both he and the estates had to agree to laws at the diet. (In Austria, on the other hand, there was no clear dividing line between acts of legislation and royal decrees.69) This is why the forged act 22 of 1604 and the joint interpretation clause included in the diploma inaugurale of Joseph I, in retrospect and without consultation, both became such stumbling blocks in Hungary.70 Werbőczy’s propositions, dominant in the Hungarian political thought of the early modern period, display a medieval attitude: Werbőczy’s thinking reflects common law more than it does natural law. (Common law can be considered the opposite of the natural law approach: the latter takes the old as its reference point, while the former has as its starting point the rationality of the generation currently alive.71) Ádám Kollár, court librarian to Maria Theresa, experimented with a theoretical foundation for Hungarian royal sovereignty when, in his book published in 1764, he states that the passing of laws—even without the approval of the estates—has been the right of the Hungarian kings since Saint Stephen. Yet when the indignation of the estates convened at the diet at this time reached its height, the ruler backed down, ordering the withdrawal of the book—Maria Theresa did not, that is, undertake the political representation of Kollár’s legal position at the diet. One of the most important tasks of the diet held at the end of the quartercentury hiatus after the death of Joseph II was to put Joseph’s decrees into acts of parliament, and most of the debates concerned the ways to do this. Here the issue of sovereignty arose not with regard to resistance but in a less cutthroat political

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context. The debate would often center on whether the diet as legislator (i.e. as the expression of concordant wishes of the estates and the king) was sovereign. Not just in the theoretical sense of whether it can override an order derived from God or recorded by natural law but in the sense of whether it has a free hand, and whether or not it will have one in the future, to act on any particular question as it sees fit. Or, does the diet not have a free hand, given that custom or earlier laws have established structures to which it must accommodate and that limit its room for maneuver? Such a position is of course associated with the value judgment that what was well arranged in the past cannot be better arranged now, and as such can directly be connected to what we have termed the old concept of time; the former position, on the other hand, is based on the optimistic view (essentially characteristic of Western culture since the Enlightenment) that in the future we will be able to find better solutions than existing ones. Neither was this old concept of time—or, correspondingly, the denial of the sovereignty of the diet—alien to the thinking of the participants at the diet of 1790–91, nor was the opposing position, the support of unlimited legislative freedom for the diet (that is, the king and the estates gathered for the diet). Take for instance the view publicly expressed by Hajnóczy and Ignác Martinovics, made for the benefit of the diet, yet said from the periphery of politics: Hungary’s laws can and should be changed.72 But such views would also be given voice at the diet. On 2 September 1790 it was debated whether the protestation of the clergy and certain Catholic aristocrats should be included in the diploma inaugurale. Deputies of royal free cities also asked for their protestation to be registered in the diploma. (To see how absurd the request was, one has only to think of the succinct text of the diploma or of the fact that the king published this before his inauguration.) In response, the majority made the following counterargument: this would be an entirely unusual practice, as “no contradiction against the lawmaking power can stand.”73 This notion was not, however, seen as having universal validity, as many agreed with the view that “the diet has no right to debate fundamental laws.”74 There are questions, that is, that “cannot be subjected to debate without infringing the country’s constitution.”75 The Protestants, for example, had no doubt that the enacted prescriptions of the peace treaties of Vienna (1606) and Linz (1645) were examples of these, as these two “fundamental and eternal regulations of the country were listed in the collection of laws.”76 This same argument comes up from the Catholic side in the debate of 7 December 1790. They emphasized, at the same time, in the same place, and in similar fashion, that there were things that could not be so much as debated at the diet “without infringing to the country’s constitution.”77 This opinion can have been a majority one, as this decision endured. We can assume that behind it was the opinion of the speaker of one of the houses, that is, of lord chief justice Count Károly Zichy or of personalis József Ürményi. From this we might conclude that the representatives of the government were able to speak this language, the archaic

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language of historical argument, rather than appealing to the ruler’s sovereignty or to the common good that supersedes it. (There is no reference to these notions in this debate, which, with the close of the era of Joseph II, is hardly surprising.)

Arguments and Positions in the Religious Debate It transpires from the political debates at the diet in 1790 and 1791 that the intensity of the confessional disputes in Hungary had not lessened at all in the six decades or so since this issue had been taken off the diet’s agenda. During the debate on the diploma inaugurale, the diet was unable to reach agreement on the religious question, which essentially meant a legislative solution to the situation of the Protestants (to replace Joseph II’s tolerance edict). The estates submitted the question to Leopold II so that he decided it on his own. The key issues in the debate were the possibility to convert to a Protestant confession, the religion of children living in mixed households, and the jurisdiction of Protestant church courts in matrimonial legal cases.78 The ruler’s decision had to be requested because there was no chance of the Hungarian estates coming to agreement—something they themselves saw quite clearly.79 The king first sent a rescript to the diet in November 1790, then again in February 1791; the latter would ultimately be enacted.80 There were essentially three voices to be distinguished in the debates at the diet. First, that of the Protestants and the lay Catholic supporters of their cause (at the diet, this latter group was much more active than the former)81—a fact that would be decisive for the final resolution of 8 February, as put by the deputies from Szabolcs County: “The religious issue was conclusively decided by the patriotic endeavor and agreement of the overwhelming majority of the Catholic members of the diet.”82 Second, the voice of the clergy and the Catholic party can be discerned, at first divided into moderate and extremist wings, then later displaying a united front. Third, the voice of the representatives of the government—the chancellery, the members of the State Council, the king, and his officials at the diet, i.e. the high dignitaries—who were all essentially the cadre of Joseph II. Interestingly, on the basis of their opinions and arguments, we can locate at the periphery of this third group such enlightened aristocrats as Count József Teleki from the Protestant side and Count Alajos Batthyány from the Catholic one. The solution to the religious debate and the establishment of a cross-confession majority strengthens the notion that this was already the era of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions. However much the debate may have aroused strong feelings, the political outlook of the majority of the diet was no longer decided by confessional considerations. The arguments used show the distinct variation among the political camps. The arguments used by

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Protestants in the debate were old-fashioned ones, focusing on the past, and opposed to a modern constitutional system. For example, the second clause of the proposal for the diploma inaugurale as modified by the Tibiscan districts would have guaranteed rights for Lutherans and Calvinists, citing the Treaties of Vienna and Linz in 1606 and 1645 and enacted in 1608 and 1647.83 A separate legislative proposal for religious affairs was attached, whose argument was based on the same foundation.84 At the 19 June debate of the Cisdanubian district, the Protestant speakers, Péter Ócsai Balogh and Károly Prileszky, similarly referred to the old peace treaties.85 At the 26 June session of the Transdanubian district, meanwhile, it transpired that, with two exceptions (and despite the fact that only the deputy from one county was Protestant), the instructions given to all the deputies of the Transdanubian counties would have settled the confessional issue with reference to the Treaties of Vienna and Linz.86 That is, this reference to the seventeenth-century peace treaties was the decisive argument even among the county deputies, specifically among the external Catholic supporters of the Protestant party. On the other hand, the Protestant position was at odds with the principle of the freedom of the legislative power, which would have displayed the concept of time focusing on the future. They did not wish to depart from the untouchable nature of the peace treaties, for, if the diet had a free hand to settle the confessional issue, their position would be one of complete dependence.87 In their proposal of 22 June they stated that “it was not possible … to disavow these treaties … using articles of law passed later.”88 In this period this was not an entirely anachronistic position to hold. The sovereignty of the Reichstag was also limited by the system established by the Peace of Westphalia. In the 1790–91debates at the diet—first in Buda, then, after the coronation, in Pressburg—it was more the Catholic opposition that asserted arguments against the Protestants based on the sovereignty of the diet. The “significant difference is thus that one side wants to enact its rights by appeal to a fundamental, immutable basic law, while the other side wants to continue to consider them as amendable by a majority of the diet and the king.”89 But the old-style argument would also appear on the Catholic side. By means of example, in the debate on the diploma inaugurale in summer 1790—in a manner diametrically opposed to their above opinion—the Danubian districts representing the Catholic side mention the treaties signed at Vienna and Linz as an immutable foundation.90 Behind this 180-degree turn on principles lies a single backward stop on substance: if the demand for the limitation of concessions granted to Protestants in the Treaties of Vienna and Linz was no longer realistic, then they should at least not be allowed to ask for new ones. This same duality of principles can be observed in the group we referred to as the third voice. The rescript on religious affairs, sent to the diet as part of the royal propositions, expresses an opinion based on the decree of tolerance. It is not significantly different from the proposal of the Tibiscan district, itself closer to

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the Protestant position.91 Leopold II, the State Council, the chancellery, and the high dignitaries (and, at the debate at the diet, lord chief justice Count Károly Zichy and personalis József Ürményi) were those who held the same position as the Protestants, albeit primarily by citing the common good. This position had previously been taken by other personalities we have considered as on the periphery of the group of active state bureaucrats. Count József Teleki (supremus comes of Ugocsa, and nephew of Sámuel Teleki, chancellor of Transylvania from 1791), for example, in an anonymous study, first appealed to the common good and to natural law in his argument before placing an “old-style” historical argument alongside the former. His starting point was that the Protestants’ religion was not in conflict with the common good, and so “it is clear that they cannot be deprived of their rights on the basis of natural law. To this are added laws and pacts from 1606 to 1659.”92 In the estate of Count József Teleki there is a memorandum recording the Protestant position, the argument of which also displays a characteristic duality: the Protestant denominations are legally accepted religions, something that should be stated on the basis of freedom of conscience. The author, that is, juxtaposes an entirely historical argument with an evidently modern one.93 On most questions, the ruler’s position was informed by the opinion of chancellery councilor Sándor Pászthory. Because of his position, Pászthory could not simply appeal to equality: given that the clergy were a political ally, he could not recommend that the historical foundation be abandoned.94 He argued that the royal rescript that would decide on the religious issue should express, employ, and mark the boundaries (e.g. in the case of the associated countries of Hungary) of “religious and political freedom.”95 The Protestants welcomed the royal rescript of 7 November with delight.96 Hereinafter the Catholic party (now unified, led by the primate) was forced to the defensive. Their line of reasoning included both the modern concept of the complete freedom of the legislative power as well as the historical argument. On the other side, the Protestants combined a denial of the diet’s full legislative freedom with arguments from history. Certain counties made observations in the form of petitions. Gömör County cited old laws (including peace treaties), natural law, the common good, and “Christianness” (arguing in favor of both the royal rescript and the cause of tolerance); Sáros County, by contrast, based its—contradictory—argument on a purely historical basis. The Catholics argued against the enactment by claiming that there was no consensus among the estates on the matter. With this, they not only questioned whether the pars sanior et potior, the political majority among the estates, would have accepted the regulation on the legal status of Protestants, but they also declared the prerogative of the legislative power of the diet, guarded so keenly since 1604 and significantly curtailed during the period of enlightened absolutism. Next, however, the representative of the Catholic party immediately turned to old-style, historical arguments: anything in the royal rescript that was not in line

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with the treaties of Vienna or Linz should not be included in the article of law.97 In other words, the Catholics, feeling their position weakening, had no choice but to retreat back to historical arguments, portraying the confessional agreements of the seventeenth century as the greatest concessions possible. We have just seen that this already emerged during the debates of summer 1790, and from the Danubian districts. Of course, there was a more radical Catholic position than this one, one that no longer seemed tenable within the reality of politics at the diet: not even accepting the Treaties of Vienna and Linz as a legal basis, a position that one pamphlet, attributed to István Katona by the historian Géza Ballagi, takes. It is possible that Leó Szaitz was the real author of the leaflet that states that the king and the patriots are “obliged to persecute and eradicate” those of other faiths. It was with reference to this passage that in the lower house István Vay moved for an investigation to be made into the author’s identity. In response, not only personalis Ürményi but also József Vay spoke out in the defense of free speech.98 As some of the church leaders and Catholics submitted a request to the king and the other Catholics were also unable to accept the rescript, while the Protestants wanted the latter to be enacted, this lack of agreement meant that the diet did not ultimately decide to ratify the rescript but rather again to ask for the king’s decision on 7 December.99 Leopold II was willing to reconsider the issue and to publish a new resolution on the religious question—a good example of how the implementation of constitutional principles can be achieved with a display of suitable political strength. And in this case this was achieved by the Catholic opposition that, based on votes at the diet, may have represented around a quarter of the collected number of participants from both houses at the mixta sessio.100 As the Protestants put it in their petition of 12 December, “the clear majority” supported the tolerance expressed in the royal proposition, but “although the larger part [potior pars] of the R. Catholics actually agrees with the words of the royal response,” the protestors still managed “to have it declared that in general the larger part of the Roman Catholics is against it. …”101 At this mixed session of 7 December, in addition to the Protestants (József Teleki, Péter Ócsai Balogh, Lajos Domokos, István Vay, István Máriássy), a number of Catholic deputies (from Pest, Liptó, Árva, Arad, Nógrád, and various Tibiscan counties), as well as Károly Zichy, Antal Grassalkovich Jr., Ferenc Zichy, János Pálffy Sr., Alajos Batthyány, Ferenc Batthyány, Ferenc Széchényi, József Ürményi, Miklós Forgách, Antal Haller, and József Brunszvik, argued for the acceptance of the conditions of the royal rescript and for the rejection of the concerns expressed at the meeting of the Catholic opposition organized by the archbishop of Kalocsa.102 That is, some Catholics, primarily secular ones, including some representatives of the government, took up the issue of tolerance at the diet. Waiting for the second royal decision, the primate on 9 December clarified in advance during the debate at the diet that they could not agree to an article that

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offended the Catholic faith. This was without question an old-style argument: it held that there existed an immutable divine order that tied the hands of everyone, including the ruler and the diet. This argument was a permanent feature of the Catholic position. In the summer debate, primate József Batthyány had already appealed to the spiritual salvation of the faithful, saying they owed an explanation for their decision made at the diet before “the formidable court of divine justice.”103 This argument reappeared on 8 February 1791, in the debate on the second rescript. First József Boronkay, deputy of Somogy County, in a long speech,104 then the primate, and finally Count László Kollonich, archbishop of Kalocsa, stated that the king could not decide on matters of religious dogma.105 (In this particular instance, of course, the key items of debate were not points of faith but rather the confessional affiliation of children born to mixed marriages, the legal authority of Protestant consistoria, and the freedom to convert to a Protestant faith.) The chancellery prepared a second proposal, which was debated anew by the Staatsrat; finally, Leopold II would make a personal decision on individual issues. On 15 January 1791 a great ministerial conference approved the final text of the second rescript on religious affairs.106 The reading and debate of this at the diet took place on 8 February, to intense interest. The Protestant side again demanded the enactment of the rescript without changes, while many on the Catholic side would only have been willing to accept exclusively that which was based on the peace treaties of Vienna and Linz.107 Making these treaties the solely acceptable basis of any settlement of the religious question, a number of Catholic speakers argued in the debate as if their contributions had been copied from the speeches by the Protestants speaking at the diets of the preceding two centuries.108 Even Boronkay recognized the rights granted to Protestants in the Vienna and Linz peace treaties—but he was not willing to go a step further than these, and he considered it unnecessary to pass a new law.109 (It is well known, of course, that the interpretation of the latter peace treaty and its clauses, not their validity, had already been the central issue of debate previous to this. Its validity had been accepted even by the decretum of 1681, which had become the starting point for the persecution of Protestants thanks to the broad understanding of its clauses “without detriment to the Catholic confession” and “maintaining landowners’ rights.”110) Old-style thinking and historical argument—that is, bringing into doubt the sovereignty of the lawmaking power—would ultimately appear on both sides. Although many suggested postponing the decision (the enactment of a law on the situation of the Protestants) until the following diet, the majority voted against this and in favor of the enactment of the royal rescript (281 votes for and 84 votes against, at a mixed session of the diet). Following this, the primate submitted a protestation on the part of the Catholics.111 In the debate emerging from this act, however, primate József Batthyány addressed Lutherans and Calvinists as his “fellow citizens of Augustinian and Helve-

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tian faith”112 with a speech in an essentially peaceful spirit.113 Although he did say that the difference between the two sides “now exists not so much because of the matter, and more simply because of the words,” in the absence of a better solution he nevertheless insisted on maintaining the rights of the Catholic religion, which the Treaties of Vienna and Linz had stipulated—i.e. on enacting the objection of the Catholics.114 Thus we again encounter a historical form of argument: citing an old regulation that was supposed to solve the given problem “for perpetuity.” On 8 February 1791, a particular form of old-style argument was made by the deputy of Pozsony County—a Catholic opinion. He wished to limit the scope for decision-making in the future, setting as the condition for agreeing to enact the second royal rescript that “the Protestants, satisfied with this, should not be able to raise the question of religion again at the diet.”115 According to this, the settlement of 1791 would serve as an immutable legal basis for perpetuity, limiting the sovereignty of later diets—in the same way that the articles of the Vienna and Linz treaties were referred to by so many during the debate. Personalis József Ürményi, the country’s first attorney by dint of his position, cautiously questioned the possibility of this in his speech, if not from a theoretical perspective: he did not see how the Protestants could ask for more in the future if they, too, respected the Treaties of Vienna and Linz.116 From the Protestant side, septemvir Péter Ócsai Balogh rejected the attempt much more forcefully, using a modern type of argument: the hand of future lawmaking cannot be tied, “as a county deputy, he cannot oblige himself on the matter of the future status of religion at all.” Ócsai Balogh also backed the (thus far overwhelmingly historical) Protestant case with an argument from natural law—but only once the final vote had been held: the Protestants had thus far only wanted to affirm their rights, and “this cannot be held against them, as the law of nature obliges them to fight for a right cause.”117 Although, in this instance, it was the Catholic side that sought to constrain the freedom of future diets and the Protestant side wished to defend it, this would usually be the other way around, which is understandable, as both in political life and at the diet it was the Catholics who were in the great majority. We might think to consider Ócsai Balogh, judge on the court of appeals, as a representative of the “third voice,” separate from the Protestants and Catholics, just as we had done for Teleki. If we do so—rather arbitrarily, it must be admitted—then the overall picture becomes rather clearer and more manageable. In terms of mentality, Count Alajos Batthyány, who filled no government role, can also be listed in this group. For Batthyány gave a grand speech on 8 February 1791 in favor of enacting the second rescript on religious affairs, citing the common good and equality between the confessions. He equated this law and the cause of the Enlightenment, saying, “With the acceptance of this royal rescript, Europe will be convinced that we, too, observe the rising sun after clearing the fog of old ignorance. …”118 While on the one hand he spoke of the “promotion of the common good” and of how the members of the different confessions—“as

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members of the regnum, and those of the same civic community [Polgári Társaság]”—were entitled to equal rights, he added, alongside these modern ideas, oldstyle historical ones, too: “Through the royal rescript of your majesty, the force of the old laws is being renewed.”119 Alajos Batthyány, influenced by Rousseau (among other figures of the Enlightenment), was known for being at the edge of the political palette with his radical views.120 In the legitimization of the ruler, he considered the “will of the citizens” to be on a par with divine right: “The reason for coronations is to remind princes that they have not only the accident of birth but also the will of citizens to thank for their governance of the country.” Furthermore, he argued, at the diet the country (or “the republic,” as he called it) was an equal partner of the king in passing legislation, and “the republic makes laws together with the prince, … the rights of both sides have equal weight on the balance of truth.”121 So what is notable in the case of Alajos Batthyány is not that he contributed to the religious debate by appealing to the common good and confessional equality but that even he would add an “old-style” historical argument at the end of the case he made. There were a number of opportunities for political actors to express their opinions; they could make use of the tools of a number of different political languages. Most of the examples of the Protestant position were characterized by a historical argument oriented on the past: if not exclusively, they would still turn to the past, appealing to the immutability of the Treaties of Vienna and Linz. Such an argument also appeared in Catholic explanations alongside that of the sovereignty of the legislative power. The representatives of the government and the enlightened figures who stood close to them on this question also use a mixed form of argumentation: on the one hand, they mentioned the common good and abstract universal rights while also adding arguments about the obligatory force of the historical past, a settlement once reached and now immutable. It is as if Sándor Pászthory and Alajos Batthyány had attempted to use these two opposing forms of argument to address two audiences with different mindsets. That both forms of argument, one focusing on the past and the other looking to the future, were equally used in political debates in Hungary at the end of the eighteenth century, shows that this was a period of transition in political thinking. Living side by side were those whose worldview was dominated by the idealization of old times, old things, and old institutions, and those who turned to the future, expecting improvement from change, not decline. These mixed arguments in political debates most clearly display that this period, including that of the diet of 1790–91, was, as regards political ideas, one of Sattelzeit. The choice of argument type does not seem to correlate with the political profile of the opposing camps in this debate. It is simply that “old-style” historical arguments that focused on the past were generally accepted in the debates at the end of the eighteenth century in the same way that ones based on a con-

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cept of time facing the future did, emphasizing the promotion of the common good, or defending the sovereignty of the legislative power from being fettered by the decisions of the past or the future. Such arguments could be picked up by any political camp when they might seem useful. Speakers evidently worked on the principle that the representatives of the estates who were present at the diet formed a group that could equally be influenced by both forms of argument, the “new style” and the “old style.”

Ceremonial Speeches and Political Languages When royal propositions were presented, or on other ceremonial occasions, speeches were given at the Hungarian diets of the eighteenth century. Taken over a long period, their comparison provides an opportunity to determine the changes that took place in the use of political languages. Of course, we do not learn from such speeches what the speakers in question were thinking, as their intentions in the text of the speech have been doubly refracted through a prism: we learn what it behooved them to say—that is, what the norms were—or rather, more precisely, what the speakers thought their audiences considered those norms to be. This audience refers not only to the estates convened for the diet but also to the court and government in Vienna. It is worth discussing ceremonial speeches not only over a protracted period of time but also simultaneously122: comparing the speeches of the chancellor and the diverse voices of the estates (personalis, palatine, primate). While light will be shed on the concept of time investigated above, the use of political languages of the eighteenth century can also be placed under the microscope, based on certain insights of the Cambridge school of the history of ideas.123 We are offered a picture of the political views of the five leading figures of politics from eight different moments of the eighteenth century (although there are significant gaps in the sources), studying the speeches customary at the opening phase of the diet, characterized by ceremonial occasions. These are the following: first, the chancellor’s speech given in Hungarian, in the name of the ruler, when the royal propositions were handed over; second, the primate responding in Latin with a speech in the name of the estates; third, the welcome speech given by the personalis in the lower house when the diet was opened; fourth, the speech of the palatine to welcome the upper house; and fifth, the short oration delivered by the ruler himself as his proposals were handed over.124 Put more precisely, we will see what they considered to be the view accepted or at least considered acceptable by the whole (or the majority) of the political community. In the first half of the eighteenth century they did not yet consider it important to retain these speeches in their integrity, and so even for mid-century the sources are patchy. Yet it is not just the unfortunately incomplete sources that

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should be noted; the apathy that was behind this is also significant. It seems that the tractatus diaetalis between king and country, and the discursive details of this, did not yet have the importance they would later attain. While for most of the seventeenth century or in the early eighteenth century the conflicts between the estates and the ruler were usually decided with weapons, it was only from the mid-eighteenth century that politics in Hungary would gradually become a linguistic and discursive phenomenon.125 This is also reflected in the texts of speeches at the diet being archived or not. As late as the diets of 1751 and 1764–65, the many handwritten journals compiled by those present only preserved a short summary of one or two texts from the speeches of the chancellor, the ruler, or the primate (and perhaps of the welcome speeches by the palatine and the personalis). From these we often cannot even learn whether the other speeches were given at all. The fact that from 1790 the official minutes and documents of the diet were published (and sold)126 in Hungarian and in Latin clearly displays the change that had taken place in politics and in political thinking.127 While this means that we do not have a complete list of the ceremonial speeches of the eighteenth century, we can nevertheless expose them to scrutiny, as the norms and ideals displayed by the speakers can also be seen in the largely surviving Latin excerpts.

Expectations and Ideals at the Diets of the Eighteenth Century On 20 May 1712, in his speech given on the occasion of the royal propositions being handed over, chancellor Count Miklós Illésházy paid the estates a blatant compliment as he demanded that they promote “common matters” as opposed to “private matters”: “Even though your Majesty has the many dealings of numerous countries and the Holy Roman Empire to face, not to mention his presence in far-away lands, your Majesty, to comfort his beloved country, has hurried in person not just to his imperial palace in Vienna, but also here, to his beloved country. …” In addition to his coronation, Illésházy judged the key role of the diet to be “wish[ing] to take such measures as might assist the flow of common justice and the homeland remaining in peace.” It was in this that he requested the estates’ assistance, asking that they “assist in the promotion of his Majesty’s efforts, and, putting all private matters, aspects and delays to one side, actively work on common matters.”128 It is evident why keeping the peace was such a key aspect of policy for the government of Charles VI in 1712. That he desired for the estates to favor the promotion of the common good over the representation of private interests refers merely to a cross-section of the fundamental values of numerous political ideologies: it was not only the ideology of classical republicanism, centered on freedom, that held this notion up as its banner; the common good was also an inescapable fundamental value for absolutism, just in a different way: as the key concept of

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an attitude that focused on the future. As for what the government promised for its own part, this was precisely the latter: to represent “common justice,” i.e. the common good. The chancellor’s speech, that is, was centered on a value that was similarly valued by the noble opposition presumably thinking in the framework of republicanism as it was by bureaucrats in Vienna. The use of the notion of the common good allowed furthermore the continued use of the attitudes looking both to the past and to the future. In his response speech, the primate Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz emphasized in loyal fashion that Charles VI was “successor to the late first king and apostle of Hungary, Saint Stephen of benign memory,” and turned to Charles VI in the name of the estates with initial good faith, alluding to the diploma inaugurale to be signed: “The country has a faith in that, confirming with his holy diploma the laws, privileges and customs given to the country and confirmed by him [Saint Stephen] and by the subsequent kings, and swearing his royal oath on this, his Majesty will keep these and will have them kept, also extending the borders of the country. …” Hungary’s laws, privileges and customs were, that is, in first place on the list of wishes submitted to the king waiting to be crowned by the highest representative of the estates—who himself was foreign-born but identified fully with the cause of the Hungarian estates. The primate’s thinking, looking to the past, is clearly at odds with the chancellor’s future-oriented attitude: the former wishes to protect the state of affairs established long ago, while the latter points to active work as making the future better than the present. Returning to the loyal tone, the primate anticipates the gratitude for the declared trust of the estates by stating that Charles VI “continues keenly to strive to keep this land in peace.” In return, the archbishop of Esztergom offers that “the whole country strives to remain peaceful and always to remain under the wings and under the blessed governance of your Majesty as its hereditary monarch. …”129 The primate’s speech is characterized by an honest depiction of the negotiating situation of the dualism of king and estates and by an attitude focused on the past. It was possible to understand the exemptions, privileges, and freedoms on the one hand to mean noble tax exemption and other privileges, while on the other hand these also marked the rights guaranteeing the autonomy of the regnum, the whole political community: the system of self-governing counties and the participation of the estates in the judiciary and in the legislative process at the diet. Whoever alluded to the ancient privileges of the country could place the emphasis wherever they chose—their audience could do the same. It was in this way that flexible concepts became the glue for broad political consensus. On 30 June 1722 deputy palatine István Felsőbüki Nagy gave the welcome speech at the start of the diet in place of the ailing personalis. While the key concepts in the speech were still peace and calm, Felsőbüki Nagy was also arguing, in the spirit of this, in favor of the Pragmatica Sanctio, which would guarantee protection for the country against troubles. This was followed by the famous speech

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of protonotarius Ferenc Szluha, in which he recommended that the diet accept the succession of the House of Habsburg on the throne of Hungary on the female line, and which, as expected, was received by enthusiastic shouts of “vivat!.” The lower house first informed the magnates of the resolution, then a deputation was sent to Vienna to report to Charles VI on the decision of the diet.130 The royal propositions were handed over on 8 July 1722. Chancellor Count Miklós Illésházy urged the country’s estates to “[put] their private and other differences and disagreements to one side, to start working on the common causes, and promote and hasten” their discussions. In his response speech, the archbishop of Esztergom emphasized his devotion to Charles VI, only at once to connect this to the demands of the estates: the king “should trust us, Hungarians, whose privileges and freedoms he will protect in his most gracious way.” The king’s speech in 1722 was a response to the primate. According to a summary of it, Charles VI “resigned himself, as far as other matters were concerned, to the kind offers made by the Saxon prince and cardinal in the name of the estates,” but highlighted that “his intentions were for nothing other than for the country to survive, in which the good of the country can be preserved, and will not fail to see that the rights and privileges of the estates be preserved, and as the work of reform committees makes a great contribution to this preservation, the promotion of this work is close to his heart.”131 The ruler, that is, unlike the chancellor, was already mentioning the (common) good,132 but, with a certain old-fashioned style, he spoke of “preserving” the “good of the country” while immediately juxtaposing this with the survival of the country. That is, the first, hesitant appearance of the common good took place within a frame of mind clearly focused on the past. This is well illustrated by the words “preserve/preservation” appearing no less than three times in this fragment of text (alongside the word “survival”). Another preserved version of the chancellor’s speech highlighted the stress put on public matters (here: status publica); this manuscript placed emphasis on the archbishop of Esztergom claiming that the estates had, after God, placed their trust in his majesty and continued to “beg for their freedoms and privileges to be acknowledged.” His majesty reassured them that he wanted “nothing more than to protect these, except the good of the country,” and as the work of the reform committees contributed greatly to this, their progress was close to his heart.133 It is an interesting contrast that it was only Charles VI on the government side who went beyond the undefined propagation of the promotion of public affairs (with his recommendation of the reforms of the systematica commissio), while on the other half of the political arena the estates recorded their demands very clearly (which went no further than their insistence on their privileges). In certain cases, they explicitly made these a condition of the loyalty otherwise expected of them. On 26 May 1728, in contrast with custom, it was not the chancellor who handed over the royal propositions at the ceremonial opening of the diet but one of the royal commissioners, Count Kinsky. In his speech, he touched on almost

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no topics except that of succession on the female line;134 at most all that can be brought out of a summary of his speech is that he urged the estates to “actively … work for the benefit, prosperity and profit of king and country.”135 It was clearly the forward-looking concept of the common good that was present here, without the term actually being used. On 18 May 1741, at the first session of the diet, personalis Antal Grassalkovich exhorted the lower house to action “to serve his holy royal highness and the cause of the homeland.” Replying to him, Mihály Frivajsz, prebendary of Esztergom, promised that the members would make efforts “to serve the king” and “to protect the country.”136 For the majority, the two formulas might have meant the same thing, yet it is typical that the prebendary, on the part of the lower house, made use of the older of the two concepts—the one looking more to the past— while the term “bonum patriae,” similar to “common good,” was present in the speech of the official nominated by the king. On 21 June, on the occasion of the ceremonial handover of the royal propositions, chancellor Count Lajos Batthyány again asked Hungary’s estates to “expedite common matters” before giving them Maria Theresa’s royal propositions. Just as peace was the main subject at the diet held after the Treaty of Szatmár, so in 1741, when succession on the female line led to war, it was no accident that the chancellor emphasized that Maria Theresa had arrived in Pressburg for her coronation “to take graciously over her inherited kingdom of Hungary.” According to the key motif, that seemed a permanent element (at least it was similar to that of 1712); the ruler maintained the hope that “the country’s estates will undertake their obligations in the diligent and active promotion of common matters.” Thus when he mentioned “the good of the country,” the chancellor was essentially offering the Hungarian estates the queen’s cooperation on the matter of the common good as regards the questions that “aim at the good and survival of this country. …”137 The promotion of the common good was a project that seems clearly focused on the future, and so it is interesting that it was immediately juxtaposed by a synonym that looked back on the past—Hungary’s “survival”—even if Batthyány was fundamentally concentrating on the question of succession.138 After the chancellor, the queen herself greeted Hungary’s gathered estates, expressing her hope that they “will discuss public affairs with loyalty, readiness and honour.”139 According to one journal, she declared that “from the first days of our rule in our inherited kingdom of Hungary, nothing is more in our intentions than, after our successful inauguration and coronation, only to care for the public benefit and common survival of our beloved Hungary.” Thus the queen also expected the estates to do everything they could for the “survival of the country.” It can hardly be an accident that the concept of the common good140 only appears when judging her own objectives.141

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In his response speech, summarized in our sources in Latin, the primate announced that “the remedy … for the ills of this honourable land … lie only in the mercy of his holy majesty,” and—painting a rather realistic image of the international situation facing the Habsburg Monarchy—he added that “the good fortune of the country is the good fortune of the queen, and vice versa: the decline of the country means the decline of the queen.” So, subserviently but also with emphasis, given the above, he “requested her majesty to employ her innate mercy to bring remedy to the wretched inhabitants of the country.”142 Thus it was no use for Maria Theresa to appeal to the good of the country and the common good, as, knowing the queen was in difficult circumstances, the estates were more interested, albeit in their usual flowery language, in erecting a defense around their own privileges—and the privileges of the country as a whole (which were inseparable from these). On 10 May 1751 the queen took a seat on her throne, situated on a dais of two steps in the throne room of Pressburg Castle under a canopy; the chief equerry stood on the lower step, his sword outstretched.143 Chancellor Count Lipót Nádasdy first made a speech in Hungarian,144 in which he warned the estates to “support with all their might the methods recommended by her majesty to achieve the wished peace, and actively to share her motherly concerns and worries in order to enhance the country’s prosperity.” (From another journal we learn that Maria Theresa requested that the annual contribution be increased by 1.2 million forints.145) He then went on bended knee before Maria Theresa and handed the queen a copy of the royal propositions in a sealed envelope. Afterward the queen addressed the estates from her throne.146 She complimented “the virtus of the Hungarians, to which, more than anything, she attributed the integrity of her lands and her rule.” “She promised that she would protect the Hungarians in all their rights, prerogatives, privileges and freedoms, while making it their obligations to hasten and to conclude the deliberations at the diet.”147 Another journal emphasized the following from her speech: “She called on the estates to undertake the grand task of maintaining peace.”148 We learn from a third journal that she “urged the estates to strive at this diet to promote the common good, and directly and cleverly to maintain calm.”149 Such excerpts can perhaps be more useful sources than the full texts of the original speeches, as contemporary summaries retain for us the moment of reception, even if this is sometimes a partial misinterpretation of the original speaker’s intentions. (To put it another way, what we actually have is a version of the meaning of the speech in question, attributed to it by the author of the summary. Of course, the others on the receiving end of the same speech could attribute differing meanings to it.) Some listeners to Maria Theresa’s words understood them and immediately considered it worth recording that the queen had expected the estates to strive for the common good, while others might not have pricked up

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their ears at this speech so much, instead registering other, more traditional elements in their summaries of the queen’s declaration.150 This despite the fact that Maria Theresa was already placing the emphasis on the common good (bonum regni commune) when she was invited by a deputation to the diet in Pressburg, and responded to them in a short speech.151 Count Miklós Csáky, archbishop of Kalocsa, took the propositions from the queen’s hand. In his speech, “he offered all the diligence possible on the part of the estates, offering them to her royal grace.” The estates convened at the diet could then approach the queen to kiss her hand; a mixed session followed, in which the lord chief justice (with not just the archbishopric of Esztergom being vacant but also the palatine’s office) expressed the devotion of the estates to her majesty.152 On 22 June 1764 the palatine, in a speech at the start of the diet that was personal in tone, welcomed the gathered members of the upper house of the diet. As former chancellor and currently as palatine, Count Lajos Batthyány was well aware of the government’s endeavors, and yet, in line with his position as representative of the estates, he spoke of Maria Theresa’s “maternal care,” which was not intended to subvert or fundamentally reform Hungary or her other countries but merely to ensure the “quiet and permanent survival of her provinces,” a gesture that suited the dominant attitude of the estates that focused on the past. Yet it was not only in the palatine’s self-description that we encounter in his speech the term “public worker”—the figure of the official striving to further the cause of the common good, who sets out as his goal “the common good of our country, and the safe survival of ourselves”153—but also in the form in which he addressed the members of the upper house (as if we were hearing a chancellor still in office): “We must take to heart not only the satisfaction of present needs but also the permanent promotion of the common good in the longer term.” Yet even in Batthyány’s speech there was one reservation: the estates should perform their “serf ” obligation to the ruler, i.e. be dutiful, and “we can operate with equal strength, counsel, and assistance”—but “without abrogating our common freedom.” If we add to this that Batthyány spoke without clear definition of “pernicious occasions” and “inexplicably fundamental changes,” with which he was presumably referring to attacks on noble privileges—from Ádám Kollár’s book through the reform of the noble levy to the planned urbarial regulation—then we will see him, after all, as a representative of the estates who was only partially ready for compromise.154 In any event, the common good appeared here, alongside efforts to ensure the protection of privileges and the maintenance of the old situation, as an explicit and central value in the estates’ part of the political space, indeed as the goal of an emphatically long-term project—that is, as something that had not only to be “protected” but also “promoted.” In the “common good of our country” and the “safe survival” of the estates, the palatine had unambiguously presented two dis-

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tinct entities. Not all those present would have agreed, for sure, as for many these two meant the same thing. But the theoretical possibility of separating common good and the privileges of the estates had already appeared. Personalis Baron Ferenc Koller also welcomed the members of the lower house gathered for the diet with a speech. He emphasized not the obligatory dutifulness to the queen but rather—tactically—that serving her and the promotion of the common good had become inseparably linked: the issues submitted to the diet “are aimed, inseparably, at the promotion of the service of her Majesty, our gracious queen, and no less that of the common good of our homeland.” The common good was one of the key concepts of this speech: Koller mentioned it twice in the next sentence, even regarding the effort to achieve it as an obligation. In his speech, the personalis asked the members of the lower house for their goodwill, again offering his cooperation, saying that consensus and harmony were necessary for the success of the diet. This emphasis suggests that conflict was more or less taken for granted between the personalis, representing government policy in the lower house, and its members tending toward oppositionality. What with the scandal around Ádám Kollár’s book, this did not take great fortune-telling skills. As with the speech of the palatine, the personalis also mentioned “our sweet homeland,” and, again—now for the fourth time in the speech—referred to the promotion of the common good of Hungary: “for the good of our prince, and of our country. …”155 It is striking that on each occasion when palatine Count Lajos Batthyány or personalis Baron Ferenc Koller mention loyalty to Maria Theresa, loyalty to Hungary immediately appears in tandem with it. While we are nowhere near the point at which loyalty to the ruler and loyalty to the homeland might come into conflict with one another, it is nevertheless clear that if one does not automatically imply the other, then the two concepts begin to lead partially independent, if not entirely separate lives. It is as if it was to this that Emperor Francis of Lorraine reacted when—after the delegation from the diet invited Maria Theresa and her family, including him, as co-regent, to the diet—he emphasized that the “greater benefit” of the ruler and the “increase of the common good” were “inseparably and mutually connected.”156 On 5 July, after the speech of chancellor Count Ferenc Esterházy, Maria Theresa handed the royal propositions over to the primate. Only his response speech survives.157 “The characteristic of all just and strong régimes is that they strive only for the happiness of their subjects,” Archbishop Barkóczy established. (As the term “subject” will later appear in the phrase “wretched and despicable subject,” it is evident that it does not refer only to the members of the political nation: that is, by this time, in the worldview of the speech given in the name of the estates, the non-nobles were also given a place.) “This really reinforces and strengthens the opinion that her reign is merciful and just,” the primate continues about Maria Theresa—in this instance by convening the diet and with her propositions. The task of the estates was the active participation in political de-

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cisions; this is reinforced by the repeated appearance of the notion of “counsel.” The objective, meanwhile, is “common and permanent benefit and happiness.” This ungainly circumscription includes the notion of the common good, while also showing that the use of this term was not yet self-evident at this time. Ferenc Barkóczy emphasized the interdependence of Maria Theresa and the estates, stating that “nature ties together the prosperity of princes and their subjects in the tightest of bonds.” The question is, which side of this interdependence is the one to emphasize? The primate, it seems, wanted to stress the devotion of the estates, but he did not miss the chance to list the great services that the estates had previously (viz. in 1741) provided the queen. These could be hoped to bring a reward, all the more so because Maria Theresa displayed signs of her maternal affection for Hungary. And so, he said, as he turned to the Hungarian estates, we should be at her service “with all our might, counsel and effort.”158 At the beginning of the 1790–91 diet, convened during a time of flux, personalis József Ürményi welcomed those gathered in the lower house. Summarizing his speech of 10 June, the official journal of the diet highlighted the importance of the diet’s legislative powers, which provided an opportunity both to settle past grievances and to prevent them from being repeated in the future. His speech is published verbatim by the journal, however, and all our key concepts appear in it. The first is constitution, both in Hungarian and Latin form. That this notion can have replaced that of “fundamental laws” is clearly evidenced by the group of terms used here, like “the fundamental constitution of our laws,” “our old traditional constitution,” “our old traditional laws,” “the main constitution of our laws” and “the constitution of our old traditional laws.” The idea of the social contract also appears, relating to the blood contract of the Hungarians occupying the Carpathian basin, in a singular Hungarian usage: “Our honoured predecessors and ancestors entered a civic community [Polgári Társaság] and became allied with one another.” Finally, there would also be space for the common good in Ürményi’s speech, namely in recognizing “the effort to promote good morals, piety and the common good” in the search for “the happiness so often wished for our country,” as “the freedom of the estates of the country” became inseparably joined with the “happiness of the whole people, the public.” That this refers not just to the people of Werbőczy—that is, the estates of Hungary—but also to the ordinary people is shown by the objective of “successful benefit extending to each individual of the civic public [Polgári Közönség]” and the notion of “the society of the whole people [Népbeli Társaság].” In Ürményi’s argument, the Hungarians wished to maintain “the constitution of our old traditional laws” because the preservation of the constitution serves the common good.159 In his short speech on 11 November 1790, on the occasion of handing over the royal propositions, chancellor Count Lipót Pálffy expressed Leopold II’s hope

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that the estates would perform their obligations at the diet “to continue public affairs with full effort and activity.” In return, for the king’s part, he would make the promise that “as concerns the public good of the kingdom and its associated countries, he would like to make public the signs of his fatherly sentiment in front of the estates.”160 The ruler, that is, continued to appear in the chancellor’s speeches as the father of the people, and while the task of the estates was still set to deal with public affairs, the ruler himself sought to turn his activities to the common good.161 Primate József Batthyány stated (thereby foreshadowing article 10 of 1791) that the king’s hereditary lands and provinces were all to be governed “according to their own laws, their ancient customs and the rule of their beneficial institutions.” The objective, as before, was “the happiness of king and country,” and the royal propositions of the father of the nation, Leopold II, pointed the tractatus diaetalis “towards common happiness for everyone.” The outcome of the cooperation taking place at the diet could be “the mutual happiness of both parties.”162 Although the chancellor did not use the term on this occasion, the speeches of both the personalis and the primate show that the estates for their own part, too, now considered the common good as the norm for their politics. Two years later, on 3 June 1792, Francis I personally handed the royal propositions to the estates in the “grand room” of Buda Castle. He was wearing black Hungarian national costume and hat, taking his place on the throne raised by two steps and covered in black cloth. On the right side stood the group of high court dignitaries, while on the first step of the dais, to the left, stood the chief equerry, his sword raised, and, to the right, the court chancellor, who stated in the name of the king to the estates (the members of both houses of the diet) standing across from him in a semicircle that, despite his undoubtable right of succession, “according to the tradition of our living law, he has convened once and for all this public diet for his fortunate coronation and to administer other more urgent matters.” As was the custom, Francis I only expected the estates to simply arrange public affairs. Another familiar element is that the diet’s activities could and should be equally favorable for both king and country, just as the king promised that he would do everything in his power to promote the common good in Hungary. This expression only appears in the speech in circumscribed fashion. More important is that the related concept of “the common benefit for the country” already appeared as a task handed out to the estates’ side of the political arena.163 The notion of commodum patriae was used by both Francis I and the chancellor, mentioning “the good of the country” or “the benefit of the country” instead of the term “common good.” If previously the prince and the homeland had been placed in parallel, now we see that the prince had also become a servant of the homeland: Francis I says of Leopold II that “he strove to serve the benefit of the

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homeland as a whole [commodum totius patriae].” In any case, the proposals of the reform committees could not be put before this diet on account of the French war, said Francis I. The sideswipe against those “who do not know the boundary between measured and disorderly freedom” was his response to the events in Paris. This is why he put perhaps even more emphasis than his predecessors on the fact that he had inherited the crown of Hungary and that, irrespective of his coronation about to take place, he was the king ruling by hereditary right.164 The primate, after accepting the envelope containing the royal propositions from the chancellor in the name of the estates, responded with a speech, according to custom: “Taking up the royal throne, the much-remembered king, Leopold II immediately turned his paternal care and our deliberations to the reinforcement of our ancient constitution for perpetuity, to see that the authority of all our institutions is properly reinstated, and that executive powers are bestowed with active and effective strength for the common happiness and security of the king, the country, and its every resident.” In the first sentence we already see (for the first time in the series of speeches we have just looked at) the renowned expression for the ancient constitution (avita constitutio) as well as an allusion to the executive power (executio), which suggests a knowledge of the state theory of Montesquieu. According to the primate, the task of the diet is “to further the wise royal intentions of your Majesty with loyal counsel, active dutifulness and diligence, according to our ability and strength, and to fulfil these intentions in part immediately, and in part over time.” The objective is to strive “for the glory and happiness of king and country.”165 At the next session of the diet, a number of speeches responded to the laudations of the previous day. Lord chief justice Károly Zichy spoke of the “reestablished constitution of the country.” Where the original version mentions gloriae gentis, in the Hungarian translation this becomes “the glory of the nation.” Then personalis József Ürményi rose to address the mixed session. Like his speech on 10 June 1790, he repeatedly mentioned “the country’s constitution” and “the ancient constitution of the country.” While his speech only enjoyed a half-page summary in the journal published of the diet, here the word “constitution” is mentioned no less than four times, and it would also turn up in the short extract of the primate’s speech.166 The notion of common good does not appear, however. It would be hasty on the basis of this to draw the conclusion that it had become discredited, yet the coincidence is striking: it was in the period of the diets of 1790–91 and 1792 that the task was first handed to the Hungarian estates of attending to the “common benefit of the country,” i.e. the common good, but it is as if the representatives of the government were doing this rather belatedly, as in this period there were new concepts appearing on the side of the estates: first and foremost, that of the (ancient) constitution, and, alongside this, that of the nation.

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Common Good and the Constitution As revealed in the chancellor’s speeches, throughout the eighteenth century the government’s expectation of the estates was simply that they administer public affairs. In 1712 the emphasis of the concept of “common matters” was squarely on the public interest, which Illésházy had in the spirit of republicanism contrasted with private interest, and he did much the same in 1722. In 1741 the activities expected of the estates at the diet continued to consist of the administration of public affairs, while in 1751 it was the support of the ruler’s measures taken in the interests of the “calm and prosperity of the country”—which we can think of as the extension of the expression “public affairs”—but now in a clearly forward-looking approach. It is interesting to note that while the notion of the common good had long been a central element for the king or in speeches given by the primate, the palatine, or the personalis, in the perhaps more formal or just more traditional speeches of the chancellor, even in 1790, it is still the administration of public affairs that is marked as the task of the estates, and it is only of the ruler that Count Károly Pálffy states that he wishes to act in the interests of the common good. Two years later we encounter these same elements in his speech, but here he now expects the estates, too, to promote “the common benefit of the country,” which appears identical to the common good that had also long been seen as the goal of politics by politicians on the side of the estates. If we look at what the chancellor of any given period promised in the ruler’s name, then our starting point in 1712 (apart from peace) is “common truth,” which is consistent with the expectation of the estates of the service of the common interest, and is perhaps one step closer to the common good that would become the dominant concept of the ruler’s program in the eighteenth century. In 1741, while in Maria Theresa’s name the chancellor continued to expect the estates to administer public affairs, for his part he considered the attempt to attain “the good of the country” as of central significance. This disappeared by 1751, but only from the short summaries of the chancellor’s speech; it was spoken by Maria Theresa herself with all the more emphasis. And, as we have just seen, in 1790 and 1792 the chancellor named the common good as the main objective of royal politics. We have sources from 1722 onward for the ruler’s short speeches given at the opening of the diet. Charles VI mentions the common good or the good of the country, but still within a textual context oriented toward the past. He might promise the rights of the estates, but he does so to propagandize the reforms that, in his consideration, do not infringe on those rights. In 1741 Maria Theresa expected the Hungarian estates to administer public affairs and to do everything they could for Hungary’s survival. In this instance we see the duality we previously saw in the chancellor’s speeches, as, for her part, she was already promising

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activity in the interests of the common good. Ten years later, Maria Theresa not only promised to respect the privileges of Hungary’s estates but also wished for them to promote the common good in addition to maintaining the peace. That is, it took almost three decades for the forward-looking notion of the common good to go from the position in which the monarch regarded it as an objective for himself or herself to the point where he or she demanded that the estates help promote it. In 1792 Francis I no longer juxtaposed the phrase “the benefit of the whole country” with what was good for the prince but instead spoke of his late father—which, after the Josephine decade, might well have become a cliché—as someone who “strove for the benefit of the whole country” himself. The primate of course promised loyalty on behalf of the estates in 1712 and 1722, in return expressing their desire that Charles VI might retain Hungary’s “laws, freedoms and customs”—just as would happen in 1741. Another ten years later, he promised the ruler that the estates would strive to support her endeavors. Our investigation shows 1764 to be the year in which the notion of the common good made its breakthrough. This—although we do not have at our disposal records of chancellors’ or even (for the most part) rulers’ speeches—also transpires from the response speech of the primates, in which “common and permanent benefit and happiness” appeared as the goal of politics, and was in harmony with the welcome speeches given by the palatine and personalis at the opening session of the two houses of the diet. In 1790 and 1792 the archbishop of Esztergom highlighted the fact that the goal was the “happiness” of the country and of the king. Of the types of speech currently being surveyed, it is the palatine’s speech of welcome at the upper house for which we found the fewest written sources: the first of these is from 1751, when the palatine merely expressed the devotion of the estates to Maria Theresa. In his welcome in Hungarian to the following diet (which was noted verbatim), Lajos Batthyány not only promised that Maria Theresa’s initiatives would target Hungary’s survival but also voiced his expectation that the estates would act in the interests of the promotion of the common good—but only “without infringing our common freedom.” This reservation evokes the confrontational atmosphere of the summer of 1764, preempting the later debates and conflicts between the estates and the ruler, the subject of which would always be the infringement of Hungary’s rights and freedoms in the age of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions. While clarifying this, we must not skip over the fact that it was here in the body of text we are investigating that the promotion of the common good is first mentioned on the estates’ half of the political arena. What had previously been said by the king or the chancellor was now being said by the palatine. And if we consider that palatine Count Lajos Batthyány had previously been chancellor, we discern a broad path of the “new ideas” penetrating the mentality of the estates. The speech of lord chief justice Károly Zichy, given as a response twenty-eight years later to

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the speech of Francis I, no longer places its emphasis on the common good; instead, it mentions the restituted constitution and the glory of the nation. It is as if we have arrived in a new era—at least at the level of the political languages used. The speech of the personalis welcoming the diet can first be found for 1722. As on previous occasions, he emphasized peace and, looking forward, succession on the female line, while in 1741 he considered the service of the king and of the good of the country to be the central aspect of politics. In 1764 the service of the ruler was joined among the objectives by the promotion of the common good. In the speech of Baron Ferenc Koller, previously a councilor at the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery and now personalis, the common good had by then become a key concept. The parallel with the welcome speech in the upper house by Lajos Batthyány is perfect. In both houses it was a former chief official from Vienna who considered the main task of the estates to be the promotion of the common good—by now as a representative of the estates. In 1790 the personalis gave a grand speech in which the concept of the constitution appeared for the first time in place of the expression “the country’s fundamental laws” and also in which the notion of the common good is present and playing an important role. In 1792, however, József Ürményi (like Károly Zichy, but even more strongly) clearly placed the emphasis on the constitution and did not add that this was in the service of the common good. Just as in the religious debate of 1790–91, we can see here, too, that the same people used different systems of argument and vocabularies to direct their words to different audiences, while on different topics the same people were using different arguments in their speeches. There could be significance in whether in a particular text it was public affairs that were mentioned in general or the common good in particular, as it was always the administration of “public affairs” that the chancellor demanded from the estates (as opposed to private affairs), and not once did he use the expression “common good.” And this could not be an accident; neither could the fact that it was in the king’s speech in 1722 that the common good was first mentioned. In principle, the notion of the common good could present a bridge between the languages used by the opposition and the government (namely the political languages of republicanism and enlightened governance), as it was accepted as a key value in both worldviews. Yet just as the disparity between the backward-facing, conservative notion of the common good and the forward-looking, enterprising notion of the common good can have been clear to contemporaries, this approximation did not take place for a long time. When it did happen, at the diet convened in 1764, it was presumably the result of the political language of the enlightened governance “seeping into” the community of the estates together with the “cadres” of that government. Yet instead of the improvement in theoretical and linguistic conditions leading to an increased chance of compromise, the processes at the end of the century, as we have seen from a number of perspectives, would head in the opposite direc-

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tion. The year 1790 is the time when the estates could accept the notion of the common good, but it already has the notion of constitution alongside it that very quickly forces the common good into the background. In this way, at the level of political ideas, the quarter century of Hungary’s enlightened absolutism was the period in which all actors in politics generally accepted the central significance of the notion of the common good. From 1790 we can observe the common good speedily retreating into the background. Its place in the political discourse was taken not only by the subject of constitutionality—as with the realignment of the Hungarian estates in the mid-eighteenth century, the constitutional problem would come to center stage—but also by the idea of the nation, preempting the key questions of Hungarian politics in the first half of the nineteenth century. There are even signs that this is when, in the political language of the ancient constitution, the pole opposite the king will start to be captured by the natio (nation) in place of the regnum (country).

Political Languages in Eighteenth-Century Hungary In the religious debate of 1790–91 as much as in the ceremonial speeches at the diet throughout the eighteenth century, the same political figures happily used diverging concepts (ones belonging to thinking oriented toward the past or toward the future), as if using differing languages when addressing different segments of their audience. In the discourse of the diet, the political language of republicanism, the political language of reference to the ancient constitution, and the political language of enlightened governance can be identified.167 József Takáts associates the political language of republicanism, which every member of the Hungarian nobility as political community (res publica) would learn, with a classical education, as the republican traditions were learned through classic Roman texts. This was built around the primacy of public affairs relative to private ones, and a respect for ancient traditions and old customs. In the republican worldview, any diversion from these, on the one hand, and a preference for private interests, on the other, leads to decline. The central tenet in the political language of republicanism, freedom,168 here refers not to the autonomy of the individual but rather to participation in the administration of public affairs, and to the independence of the homeland from foreign invaders and the absence of tyrannical rule.169 According to the ancient authors so favored by early modern republicans, the essence of civic existence is freedom. Hobbes similarly argues “that the Subjects in a popular Common-wealth enjoy Liberty; but that in a Monarchy they are all Slaves.”170 In the much-quoted pasquils from the diet, the central value of “old glory” mentioned by the opposition is always freedom,171 and this is generally the main value of Hungarian noble republicanism, alongside which there is always much emphasis on the idea that public interest enjoys pri-

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ority over private interest.172 By freedom, meanwhile, we have to understand the right and obligation to participate in government.173 The notion of freedom in contemporary Polish thought offers itself as a parallel: it does not consider adequate for someone to dispose freely of oneself and one’s wealth without coercion, but thinks that the freedom of the individual can only be meaningful in a free country, one in which citizens participate in government.174 It is clear that in his speeches quoted above the chancellor always spoke this political language (to the broadest audience, giving the broadest base) when he wished the estates to restrain private interests and to administer public affairs. But, in fact, appeals to the good of the country, the homeland, and finally the nation, that is appeals to the common good, can equally be seen as manifestations of the language of republicanism—but not only manifestations of that political language. The common good could be seen as the outcome of constructive effort, too, in statements coming from the government side of politics, displaying a thinking geared toward the future—while others used the term precisely meaning the preservation of institutions that had proved themselves in the past. This duality gave contemporaries an opportunity to express political content, even if new, in such a way that it could also be understood in the old and pretty much universally accepted language of republicanism. Neither should we exaggerate the ancient nature of the political language of republicanism. Its appearance in the early modern period can perhaps be explained by the ideas of antiquity coming to the fore as a legacy of the Renaissance, in particular the virtues of Roman republicanism, and most of all through schools teaching Latin. So this, too, is an early modern phenomenon, just as references to the ancient constitution are not as old as we might first think. This political language is historical and legal in character.175 In its view, the ancient constitution has to be protected, but it is constantly being infringed by the government. This is why the estates would always call for grievances to be addressed at the diets, and this is how the Hungarian nobility before 1840 was essentially typified by its stance on the politics of grievances.176 The word “constitution” would not appear in ceremonial speeches at the diet until 1790, when it would suddenly achieve central significance. By the time of the debates at the diet in the summer of 1790, the term occurred frequently.177 The elements of the political language of the ancient constitution can be traced back to the medieval period, and were then collected together by Werbőczy in 1514.178 The expressions we have seen in the speeches discussed above, constantly repeated by the estates but also by the government (using the language of the estates, whether because of free choice,179 obligation, or subservience), that mention “Hungary’s rights and privileges” display the use of this political language. If we take the concept of time as our starting point, it is clear that both the political language of republicanism and that of the ancient constitution had turned to face the past, claiming to find the ideal state of affairs in the past. It is true of

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both that the pincers of experience and opportunity had not yet opened, which Koselleck sees as the precondition for modernity.180 By contrast, the political language of enlightened governance or “polishing,” born in the spirit of improvement of the Enlightenment, turned toward the future. They both reflected the belief that the future will be better than the present, and even better than the past. The enlightened government and its political language were based on natural law. In this mindset, laws have to serve the common good. Joseph II, for example, was of the opinion that the ruler was given the right to govern by the people in a social contract, and, although this was irreversible, the king was nevertheless obliged to strive to promote the common good.181 The state acquired its legitimacy from being the main agency of activity aimed at the common good.182 The political language of “polishing,” which in this period was the fourth option, and which observes the long process of civilization and cultivation over history as a process of development that Hungary must also undergo (following the example of the countries ahead of it183), did not appear either in the speeches made for ceremonial reasons in the eighteenth century or in the religious debate of 1790–91. Throughout the eighteenth century, the government set the promotion of the common good as its political objective for Hungary—or at least this is what it announced. (This is no reason, of course, for us to consider the regimes of Charles VI or Francis I to be enlightened, as were those of Maria Theresa, Joseph II, or Leopold II.) This thinking based on natural law also appeared on the estates’ side of the political arena. Natural law, that is, as the new incarnation of the “divine order” of the Middle Ages, marked out the boundaries of a ruler’s sovereignty in early modern Hungarian political thought. In the discourse of early modern Hungarian politics, the notion that the ruler’s authority is derived from the people was almost taken as read, even if Werbőczy really understood this as referring exclusively to the nobility. But there were other reasons why the acceptance of the natural law approach was far from alien to the eighteenth-century Hungarian estates. The theory of the social contract taken from this appeared at the turn of the eighteenth century among the references of the estates: they understood the relationship between ruler and estates as a contractual one. But it wasn’t just the opposition that thought this: personalis Ürményi would also include it in his 10 June 1790 speech. At the same time, the program of Péter Ócsai Balogh, in fact a constitutional proposal, demanded a guarantee of the ancient constitution, citing a person’s innate rights, and interpreted the constitution as the contract between ruler and populus,184 i.e., it considered the social contract and the constitution as equivalent. In this era, the interpretation of the ruler-country relationship as a social contract (based not on Rousseau but on Martini and Sonnenfels) was accepted by Joseph II himself, then by Leopold II;185 an evaluation of the kingnation relationship as based on a social contract was also widespread in the debate literature of the 1790s.186

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From the ceremonial speeches of the eighteenth-century Hungarian diet we see that references to the common good were present among the representatives of the Hungarian estates from 1764 onward. The search for the good of the country, for the common good, was a cardinal element in the political language of republicanism. Some of the politicians who set the common good as a political objective were able to place this in the past, so as to establish their role as the conservation of this treasure, while for others it can have been obvious that the common good would flourish in the future as a result of gradual progress. The government figures spoke the political language of enlightened governance, which manifested itself in the consistent use of the notion of common good, as based on natural law, to refer to reforms—the improvement, transformation, and modernization of old structures. The estates, for whom the thinking of natural law was not alien either, were more likely to use the phrases “common truth,” “the good of the country,” and other synonyms to express content emerging from the backward-looking thinking that suited their own approach. Later the primate, palatine, or personalis would only specifically speak of the common good when they wanted to express the forward-looking meaning ascribed to it by the political language of enlightened governance. The three political languages that can be identified in the discussions at the diet cannot simply be applied to different political actors. The chancellor, turning to the Hungarian estates and adjusting to their thinking, expressed in the political language of republicanism what the government was expecting of the estates while explaining the king’s own actions using the concept of the common good, a notion that by 1764 would also become the central element of the political self-definition of the estates. When the estates claimed that they wished to protect Hungary’s laws, customs, and freedoms, or when the ruler occasionally made similar promises, they were undoubtedly speaking the political language of the ancient constitution, even if, on the one hand, the term “constitution” only became a key part of the political vocabulary from 1790 onward, and, on the other hand, the participants in the diet understood quite different things by the words “laws, customs, and freedoms.”187 On the question of whether or not the direct land tax might have infringed these freedoms—to use an anachronistic term, the ancient constitution—Charles VI was clearly of a different opinion than the estates were in 1722. The extremely flexible nature of the concept of “ancient constitution” (and of the other complex phrases used in much of the eighteenth century to describe this) made it possible for politicians of differing political positions to make use of this same political language. In the era of the dualism of king and estates dominated by confessional questions and that dominated by constitutional ones, this political language could be used with entirely differing interpretations—similarly to the notion of the common good. Although, in principle, the natural law approach and the promotion of the notion of the common good could in the eighteenth century be reconciled with

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the backward-looking worldview of the estates, we nevertheless see that it is only from 1764 that the estates adopted the central value of the common good from the monarchic political pole of political life—and this is not unrelated to the personal connections in place between the two poles. This change opened a path within the natural law approach for a switch from a worldview facing the past to a concept of time focusing on the future, as determined by the Enlightenment idea of progress. When the estates began to use this key notion of the language of natural law, as spoken equally by the government and the estates, it was clear that they were using it as a forward-looking concept. Neither, in the debates of 1790–91, did the idea of the common good, for the estates, mean a restoration of an ancient state of affairs; rather, it was associated with the better circumstances to be achieved in the future through the efforts of today and tomorrow. As government figures consistently spoke in the eighteenth century of changing the old structures when mentioning the common good, the estates for a protracted period avoided using the term when at all possible. When it appeared in the descriptions of their political objectives, then it was associated with politicians from or with strong connections to the other side of the political arena, and it looked toward the future, accepting the notion of progress. In the history of Hungarian political thought, that is, it is the idea of the common good that best expresses the transition from a backward-looking to a forward-looking concept of time, the Sattelzeit of Koselleck. Despite its potential, the notion of the common good did not create a linguistic political consensus between the estates and the king. As long as the estates understood something by it other than their ruler, they preferred not to use the term. Furthermore, the idea of republicanism grasped the common good in opposition to particular private interests, and the Hungarian political elite considered precisely this system of privileges, the (soon to be so-called) “ancient constitution,” to be the repository of the common good, which, following the Haugwitz reforms (and particularly in line with the ideas of the Enlightenment), was increasingly understood by those in the governmental half of the political arena as the selfish, private interests of the Hungarian nobles, infringing the common good. Hardly had some of the estates accepted in 1764 that the old state of affairs had to be altered, acknowledging the common good interpreted within the framework of forward-looking thinking as their own goal, when, by the next diet—clearly not unaffected by the lessons of the Josephine decade and the events taking place in Paris—the central tenet of their thinking became that of the constitution (and the notion of the nation would also make itself present). It was not to the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions but rather to enlightened absolutism that we can connect the breakthrough of the forward-looking attitude. Not much later, however, with the rise to power in Hungarian politics of the dualism of king and estates dominated by consti-

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tutional questions and the fundamental changes seen in European politics, and, in fact, in line with the traditions of the Hungarian estates, public law aspects came to be emphasized. In the last period of their existence, the estates pledged themselves to the values of the constitution and of freedom, leaving the representation of the common good (and then of social progress) to absolutism. It thereby helped a dichotomy into being that (even if the Hungarian estates in the Hungarian Vormärz, the so-called age of reform, tried to represent the interests of both “homeland and progress”) became one of the defining factors of Hungarian politics in the second half of the nineteenth century. This antithesis is the result of the processes that took root in the eighteenth century coming to fruition. In the second half of the eighteenth century the Hungarian political elite turned its back on an interpretation of the common good focused on the past—taken from the traditions of republicanism—and chose freedom, leaving the advocacy of the common good to its political enemy of enlightened absolutism (which by this time interpreted it as oriented to the future). As the essence of freedom was the active participation in the administration of public affairs, it is clear why the reference to the “ancient constitution” gained such prominence in the politics of late eighteenth-century Hungary—at the same time giving voice to the majority of the Hungarian estates’ turning to the past.

The Politics of Grievance and the Ancient Constitution The previously observed tendency of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions did not come into being by confessional conflicts being replaced by constitutional issues in the center ground of politics but rather through central questions of debate—such as taxation (the increase to the amount of the contribution, and the noble tax exemption) and the closely related issue of the noble levy188—starting to be considered as constitutional issues. This process was evidently strengthened and brought to a head by Joseph II’s deep-rooted reform program that affected the entire social and political order and that sought to turn the whole of the Hungarian constitution on its head, but its origins can be traced back significantly earlier. The effect of the Enlightenment clearly played a central role in this process of reinterpretation, just as the influence of Montesquieu in particular also seems crucial. It was thanks to Montesquieu’s 1748 work De l’esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws)—a text that proved exceptionally popular in Hungary given the author’s positive opinion of the Hungarian estates—that the interpretation of the system of rights and privileges as a constitution began to take hold at all. As László Péter puts it, “They discovered, not unlike Molière’s burgher who learnt that he was speaking ‘prose,’ that what they possessed was a ‘constitution’ rather than just a collection of customary rights.”189 Because of Montesquieu, the interpretation

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of constitutionality in Europe underwent an important change. While in the seventeenth century and for most of the eighteenth the constitution was taken to mean the effect of the old laws, customs, and institutions in serving the common good, from the mid-eighteenth century it became increasingly synonymous with the division of the branches of power, as can clearly be seen in the constitution of the United States and the French constitution of 1791.190 The authors of the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Heinz Mohnhaupt and Dieter Grimm, argue that at the end of the eighteenth century the term “constitution” changed its meaning from “status” or “organization” to its modern use of “fundamental law.”191 In the history of Hungary, as a result of a slow development, the constitution started to play this central role only from the end of the eighteenth century, one it maintained throughout the nineteenth century. In agreement with the aforementioned data is the conclusion of Henrik Marczali that the political language that cites the ancient constitution only came into use from the end of the eighteenth century: previously Hungarians had only spoken of rights, privileges, and laws, and the constitutio as a whole was only present from the age of Joseph II, who attacked it as a whole.192 It was in this critical situation that the Hungarian estates turned to Montesquieu’s notion,193 rather like the Riksdag in Sweden created a written constitution in 1719 in response to the absolutism of Charles XII,194 when popular support for the Swedish military state was finally eroded by the long wars pursued from 1560 onward.195 The expression “fundamental laws” was only replaced by “constitution” in the Hungarian book of laws in article 10 of 1791.196 Of the instructions for deputies at the diet from Somogy County in the eighteenth century, the one in 1790 was the first to mention the constitution.197 A review of the ceremonial speeches relating to the opening of the diet also reveals, as we have just seen, that the first use of the term constitutio can be traced back to the 1790. The expression “ancient constitution” thus does not actually refer to a real constitution; neither is it ancient. This also means that the “politics of grievance” that was closely tied to it was not ancient either: it was born precisely in the period of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions. Previously the right to submit grievances and wishes gave the Hungarian estates the opportunity to add items to the agenda of the diet, in addition to the subjects submitted by the rulers in their propositions—a procedure that induced no kind of negative moral response. It was only when the forward-looking concept of time began to be popular even among the Hungarian estates, and they interpreted the notion of the common good as a state of affairs to be established in the future, that the actions of politicians of the old mindset—who continued to employ the institution of the submission of grievances to serve the preservation and restoration of an ideal state in the past—became, to use the prevalent corresponding term, the “barren politics of grievance.” It is only then that Lajos Kossuth made a distinction between the previously entirely blurred gravamina and postulata, claiming that grievances demand that existing laws be respected

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while wishes urge legislative regulation to be changed.198 That is, the “politics of grievance” only really became a label in the age of reform, used by the new liberal opposition to criticize their political opponents and their actions. In this sense, the term was only born after the appearance of the liberal reform opposition. Meanwhile the foundation for all this was laid from the end of the eighteenth century onward in the tendency toward the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions, which brought with it the intensification of the antagonism between the two sides of political life. It was only then and for this reason that the old-style opposition’s constant reference to the grievances of Hungary concerning questions of public law became unprofitable. Earlier, the politics of grievance were not condemned to failure. The growing antagonism is well demonstrated by two further instances from the 1790s.

The “Patriotic Oath” The first instance is the case of the so-called “patriotic oath” from the diet of 1790–91. The final form of the oath taken at the diet was little different from the formula previously used in Szabolcs County. Prior to the diet, the deputies from Szabolcs County, together with the supremus comes, also present at the diet, took the following oath: I, supremus comes [or chosen deputy for the coming diet] N.N. for N.N. county, swear to almighty God, creator of this earth, and with this oath I solemnly swear that, just as in my whole life, so especially during the whole period of the following diet, I will be loyal to the free Hungarian nation, to its original form of lawful government, and to the perpetual preservation of the full legislative powers that belong to this noble nation according to nature and with all rights, to making the old traditional and fundamental laws and privileges of the country perfectly stable and uninfringed, and finally to the country, and its king to be crowned, who is to pledge himself to its laws and privileges; I shall endeavour to keep the agreement among the patriots sidelining all kinds of other interests; I shall neither accept nor ask for any reward, grant, office, dignity, order of distinction or whatever royal employment from highly-placed powerful persons, for myself or my descendants, either during the diet or as a promise for the period following its closure, with the exception of the case when I am jointly recommended and accepted both by the country and those whom I am representing; but I shall not miss publicly declaring all promises from highly-placed powerful persons to the diet. So help me God!199

The text of this oath is noteworthy for a number of reasons. First of all, the county deputies sent to the diet and the supremus comes taking his place there ex officio both swear loyalty first to the “free Hungarian nation” and only secondly to the king. We can then see that, according to the text of the oath, the nation is first entitled to the completeness of legislative power, a claim that is based on natural

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law. There is no suggestion that this everlasting power might be shared with the ruler and exercised at the diet, and neither that the depository of this right be the regnum or country—the author of the oath, and the person taking it, casually rename this as the “Hungarian nation.” So here one of the key figures in politics, the most important holder of political rights, becomes renamed (and, it seems, with this being taken for granted), thus clearing the way for further amendment to the meaning—but now within the slow reinterpretation of the concept of the nation. While the “Hungarian nation” in the sense of regnum would by its nature have members who were not ethnic Hungarians who would share in the rights it bestowed, with the spread of linguistic nationalism the restrictive sense of the term would also become more widespread, meaning that those with privileges who were not of Hungarian ethnicity would feel ever more squeezed out not only from the community but also from the ability to wield power.200 The next part of the oath is the insistence—in the light of the discussion above, based on an unambiguously backward-looking concept of time—on the integrity of the “fundamental laws and privileges” that the “Hungarian nation” is entitled to. That the text of the oath does not use the term “constitution” in this regard is strong evidence that it had not yet entirely displaced older terminology. The word “country” appears in the context of loyalty to the king, namely—and this clearly become a crucial issue after the rule of Joseph II—that the swearer of the oath only owes loyalty to the ruler only inasmuch as the ruler (in his oath and diploma inaugurale) commits himself to “the laws and privileges” of Hungary and has already been crowned. This is followed by the part of the oath rubric that genuinely served the purpose of tying the hands of the deputies representing the county at the diet. The first part—true to the traditions of the political language of republicanism yet also with an emphasis on the common good—wishes to place public interest above private interest. The oath, in line with the political practice undeniably characteristic of the larger part of the eighteenth century, sees public interest as something to be realized in compromise. In complete contrast with this, however, and in the spirit of the new times, it establishes the “rules of the party” in the confrontation with the unnamed but clearly inimical “government”: the county deputies and the supremus comes of Szabolcs should not accept any form of post, honor, gift, or medal. Given that one of the key objectives of those attending the diet in the mid-eighteenth century had been the attainment of royal positions that brought a stable income and the exercise of public power, the contrast with the new situation demanded by this oath could hardly be more pronounced. So much so that the author of the text of the oath feels immediately obliged to relax this radical requirement (we can almost hear the voices at the committee composing the text demanding restraint): appointments are acceptable if supported, perhaps recommended, by the estates themselves. The text of the oath is a good example of the two-facedness and Sattelzeit nature of the period: both efforts at compromise and confrontation appear in the same breath. Developments will

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again unfold through a reinterpretation: the agreement will be seen as fundamental, not so much (later: possibly not at all) between king and country (to attain the common good) but rather only among patriots. The author of the text of the oath may merely have been putting his desires into words when he gave exclusive right to pass legislation to the “Hungarian nation,” but he undoubtedly had a presentiment of the future when he forgot the king from among the subjects of the consensus to be forged in the interest of the common good. The king is evidently not a part of the Hungarian nation in this concept either; his exclusion from the notion of the Hungarian nation a good half century later would become the cornerstone of politics. “The fate of the great European dynasties after 1750 and indeed in the nineteenth century was to depend very much on their ability to find an accommodation with this new patriotism”—so writes Ronald G. Asch,201 and indeed developments in late eighteenth-century Hungarian political thought did not presage a bright future for the Habsburgs as kings of Hungary. Thus did the formula of the oath taken by deputies from Szabolcs County become the supreme example of the transformation undergone by Hungarian political thought, the textual witness to the birth of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions, and the clearest portent of the tendencies that would develop within in it in the decades to come. Most of the deputies appearing at the diet would take the oath according to the following formula: I N.N. swear on the living God, etc., that according to the fundamental laws of the country and according to justice, I shall strive with all my force in all discussions and public activity to whatever I deem just and useful for preserving the estates’ lawful rights and also for the durable happiness of all the people and for the survival of the tax-paying people; and in no way shall I contribute with my vote or my silence to reducing or threatening the rights or privileges of the country and its associated parts (also those to be attached to it); I shall instead, according to the fundamental laws of the country and according to justice, in accordance with the other members of the estates and my fellow deputies, produce such instruments and make such deliberations with the intention of also restoring these, and also to preserve these for future generations so that both the rights of this country be preserved and enlarged, which is free according to nature, and also his Majesty be preserved and augmented; the full consensus among the estates and the inhabitants of this country be untouched, as is just and dignified. Moreover, I swear that, according to article 44 of 1649, without the knowledge and consent of the estates, I shall not accept any office, honour, gift, or any sign of these, given either during the diet or promised for the period after the diet (and that this promise is, then, actually fulfilled). With one word: I shall not act against the rights of the country and the estates’ freedoms either publicly or secretly, either with my counsel, vote or in any other way. In pronouncing the words of this oath, I shall not resort to any tacit or ambiguous meanings. So help me God, etc.202

The form of the oath as finally accepted by the diet would in certain respects be a weaker variant than that of Szabolcs County. A lone county could more eas-

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ily take brave steps forward than could the diet as a whole. But fundamentally the second oath serves the same goal: striving to avoid bribery by the government— with the reservations specified above. At the same time, it displays the signs of legal meticulousness and an effort to be certain at all costs, which leads the text to be longer and thus have concomitantly less direct impact. The text of the oath taken at the diet, like the oath of Szabolcs County, declares the freedom of Hungary on a natural law basis, and here, too, they forget about the ruler. Not just that the ruler has a part to play in legislation—something even the deputies from Szabolcs County can have known for sure on 15 June—but completely: the diet’s “patriotic” oath makes no mention of him at all. For what was left out is that the deputy swears loyalty to him—thus allowing the omission of the awkward point that loyalty was only owed to a crowned ruler sworn to the Hungarian constitution. It is also striking that—compared to the text of the Szabolcs County oath— the notion of the nation has vanished, to be replaced by that of the country. The term “constitution” does not appear—at least not in the Hungarian text. The backward-looking program of protecting rights was accompanied, however, by the goal of “durable happiness of all the people.” As, immediately after this, the person taking the oath makes a promise to strive for “the survival of the tax-paying people,” this at first glance suggests that the notion of “all the people” included the serfs. This would not only be an explicit example of the attitude focused on the future but would also, in addition to reviving eighteenthcentury paternalist slogans protecting the serfs, make possible its interpretation as an unsure promise of social reforms—as it would have been hard to understand “durable happiness” as merely meaning the estates not agreeing to accept a higher tax burden. If we look at the Latin text, however,203 which is in fact an official contemporary interpretation of the original text (formulated in still unclear Hungarian terminology), we soon solve the mystery of the “people”: the translation reads “durabili item, & universi Populi Felicitate” then “Plebis contribuentisque conservatione.” The clear distinction between populus and plebs allows no liberal interpretation of the text: the diet’s patriotic oath draws again the old boundary between “the people of Werbőczy” and the serfs.

Pál Czindery’s Speech A further item of evidence for the growing division between the opposition and the court and its supporters is provided by the affair that exploded a few years later. This came after the conspiracy of the Hungarian Jacobins and the reprisals it brought in its wake. It was no longer the first phase of the French Revolution that was in the background of the events of Hungarian politics but the experiences of Jacobin dictatorship, and the war with revolutionary France. Yet we still see clear continuity from the processes analyzed above. Instead of the candidate of

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the supremus comes, Pál Czindery was elected one of the deputies to the diet from Somogy County on 20 October 1796. In his speech that preceded his election, he proposed that his county instruct its deputies to ensure that the diet submit grievances to the king even if the latter’s letter of invitation had stated that the diet should focus solely on the war subsidies to be paid by Hungary. In his rescript of 1 November, the ruler rebuked Somogy County, ordering it to elect another deputy in Czindery’s place. In vain did Czindery attempt to clear his name. His fellow deputy did speak out on his behalf at the diet, but the estates did not throw their weight behind him. In the end, Somogy County would only be represented at this short diet by one deputy only, the assessor Antal Kovács.204 As it happened, it was not only Czindery who objected to the levying of the subsidium being the diet’s sole objective; Trencsén County also submitted a request on this issue before the diet was convened.205 Substitutus vicecomes Pál Czindery, third in rank in the noble self-government of Somogy County, also happened to be a friend of the famous economic writer Gergely Berzeviczy, who in late 1793 and early 1794 attempted to convince Czindery to work alongside the collector of old manuscripts, György Márton Kovachich. Czindery did not accept this undertaking, however, claiming that he was not aware of Kovachich’s objectives.206 Their exchange of letters is also cited by Henrik Marczali, who wrongly identifies Berzeviczy’s correspondent as Pál Tallián, who is less radical than Berzeviczy: he does not want to liberate the serfs in order to increase the quality of commerce and industry, but rather the other way around. It is the development of commercium based on investments made using public funds that can lead to a situation in which “we can gradually liberate the poor, a liberation that will be a reward for its diligence.” Pál Czindery’s ideas are also ahead of their time in other respects: the nobles should cooperate and establish public hospitals at their own expense; they should provide their serfs with grain in difficult times; the counties should reward serfs who work the land more effectively than others; finally, the serfs should be given “seats and votes.” All counties should have a third noble deputy chosen by the serfs who is obliged to report to the serfs, and the nobility should pay the contribution. On the basis of his two letters, Henrik Marczali considers Pál Czindery to have been “the most serious, best trained, and most conscientious predecessor to [István] Széchenyi.”207 Czindery’s friends, to whom he passed on his regards in a letter to Gergely Berzeviczy in 1791, were all on a list that Leopold II compiled for his son about the important personalities of Hungarian politics, and all among the “suspicious Hungarians”: Podmaniczky, Aczél, Tihanyi, Orczy, Szentiványi, Rókus Adamovics, and Antal Festetics.208 In his letter to famous Hungarian writer Ferenc Kazinczy of 24 June 1806, the poet Ádám Horváth Pálóczi complains that, even though it had passed the censors, one of his works failed to find a sponsor on account of “Czindery’s fearful name.” Elsewhere he refers to him as his (late) “loved friend.”209 Kazinczy must

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have considered Czindery to be famous, as he would request István Sárközy to provide “just a line, just a subscription from Spisich, Somsich, and Czinderi [sic]” for his collection of manuscripts. The letter mentions Pál Czindery’s name alongside that of Spissich, vicecomes of Zala County, who was put under investigation following the conspiracy of the Hungarian Jacobins. The reply reveals why: in political terms they were considered equally subversive. Sárközy attaches the picture of my dear relative, the unforgettable Lázár Somsics, which has been expertly done and looks as if it speaks out and beats many Latin epigrams. I am sending this to you, even though I am robbing my own dear collection of it, because, without causing a crisis, I cannot send any of his writings for your autographical collection. The same is true of the others, namely Spissits and Czinderi. I have enough, but they are all the kind that I do not dare to send, and it is not with pleasure that I release them from my collections, which already numbered, but which are worthy of having such items among them, as they would be suspicious on their own. I could send, for example, a fragment of Czinderi’s oration, for which he was expelled from the diet.210

The speech given in 1796, which helped place Czindery’s case on the list of grievances compiled by the districts of the Tibiscan counties at the diet, would become infamous,211 and the political public would become aware of the text of it.212 Not because of its spirit of innovation, as its backward-looking attitude, speaking of “the foolishness of liking innovations and change,” was evident, and this is immediately made clear why, as it evokes the demon of an “internal war”: “If the anger of our external enemy were to collide with the rage of our peasants, who are uneducated and thereby insatiable, desirous of bloody revenge for no reason, then that would be the end of you, my dear homeland!” It is the spirit of the Enlightenment that we see: the misera plebs is raging because it is uneducated. News arriving of the 1792 bloodshed of the sans-culotte of Paris or of Jacobin dictatorship can only have served to reaffirm the experience of the Revolt of Horea, Closca, and Crisan in Transylvania. In 1796 an attack by an external enemy, combined with a peasant revolt, appeared to be a realistic scenario. But even if the deputy vicecomes of Somogy County was not a man of revolutionary zeal, he nevertheless held a particularly robust position within the ranks of the opposition. His speech focused on the defense of constitutionality, objecting as he did to the diet’s sole purpose of levying the subsidium: “We should give it, we should have a say, we ought to assist our king, but we should not forget about our nation; we have struggled hard to see our law present the Hungarian empire as a country standing on its own feet rather than as a province, and nowadays they want to make us look like something worth even less than a province.” That is, the political system in Hungary was different from that of other countries and provinces, as famously stated by article 10 in 1791. The king does not give orders to the Hungarians; rather, he gathers them together and has to deliberate with them. He can expect their help, but the nation could expect him to further

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its interests. (In the tractatus diaetalis portrayed here, the king’s partner is already the nation, not the country, or regnum, as before.) Helping the king in his battle with the French is also in Hungary’s interests: as Czindery puts it, “Perhaps the interest of the kings has never been so closely linked to the happiness of the nation.” The interests of king and nation (again, not “country”), not automatically identical but only temporarily aligned, were to put out the neighboring fires. In addition, the Hungarians were obliged to protect “the authority of the nation,” which in this case meant preserving the authority of the diet. Its scope could not be limited to levying the war subsidies. “Is the Hungarian diet no more than a village gathering, that is only allowed to concern the mode by which the already agreed tax is to be collected and then distributed?” “Do they no longer even ask us whether we want to give?” He considers it the nation’s eternal shame that a substantial decision is no longer expected of the diet, merely the formality of its approval. Czindery’s indignation clearly concerns the grievance of the constitutional status of the diet. His speech lists the grievances, which are as follows: obstructions to trade; monopolies; the lack of Hungarians among top officers in the army; the leader of the Hungarian army in the war being German; the failure to elect a successor within a year of the palatine’s death; Hungarian landholdings coming under the administration of the chamber rather than being granted to others by the king; naturalized status for foreigners being granted outside the diet; illegal court sentences; reform committee reports being forgotten. The deputy vicecomes then argues that when the Ottomans held Hungary in their grip, it lost many of its rights, as the Habsburgs were able to exploit its vulnerable position. Now that the Habsburgs were in turn at the clutches of the French, Hungary should take the opportunity to “seek redress for our old and deep wounds in a similarly quiet and legitimate way.” Czindery’s specific proposal is as follows: Hungary should assist the king, but it should lay down its conditions. The “time for our complaints to be settled” should be set. The first question is that of the election of the palatine. The time of the diet should be set down in law as the first quarter of the year following the peace treaty to end the war with France (once the estates could convene without letters of invitation from the king), so that the oft-repeated grievances could finally be settled. Finally, Hungarian envoys should be present at the signing of the peace treaty with France. The deputy vicecomes thus recommends that the county propose all this at the diet, that these should all form part of the obligatory instructions given to its deputies, and that Somogy County should inform the other counties of its decision. With impressive rhetoric that cannot have been lost on the audience, Czindery, while emphasizing the paternal goodness of the king, only mentions a treasonous assumption in a negative sense: it is impossible “that a faithful nation be even for a moment seen as a slave or servant rather than as a child” (i.e. by the

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king). This way, he was turning to the old theme of trying to blame bad advisors for the damaged relationship between Vienna and Hungary. Even if, following the “honeymoon period” in 1792, relations between the Hungarian estates and Francis I had unquestionably declined, it is evident that Pál Czindery, and those who had selected him as deputy, as well, no doubt, of other sizeable groups in the Hungarian political elite, felt no pangs of conscience on account of the conspiracy of the Hungarian Jacobins. There was no guilt that might have driven them, as representatives of the Hungarian estates, to retreat from the positions they considered justified. Another feature of the speech that clearly points toward the future is the common use of the words “Hungarian” (magyar) and “Hungarians” (magyarok): it was no longer the country or the estates standing in opposition to the king, but the Hungarians. A serious violation of the constitution (though this is not his term) is a great burden to Czindery’s “Hungarian heart”: Hungary is a country that issues “have to be discussed with,” one not to be treated as a landowner might treat his day-laborer, but as a father might treat his “emancipated” sons, who have to convene to “agree on the common good.” Loyalty forms an ellipse that has the ruler and the nation at its two focal points. “We should assist our king, but not forget about the nation,” says Czindery. “Thus, let us help our king, but not abandon our nation!” Of course, the speech suggests, these two loyalties are not presently in conflict, as the battle against the French is in the interests of both sides, and the good king would become a defender of the rights of the nation; but conflict is integral to this state of affairs, and the opportunity for expressing dissatisfaction in the king does appear: “I love my king, I love my homeland, but I cannot love one at the expense of the other.” And this is not merely a theoretical possibility, either, as the rights of the diet were directly under threat: “No one has the right to force us ad absolute & inconditionale dandum,” i.e. to give without any hesitation and without any condition. Numerous elements of the speech explain why it provoked such a vehement response in Vienna. It cannot have pleased the king and his advisors that Czindery saw the difficult position of the House of Habsburg brought by the war with France as a “God-given” opportunity for the Hungarians, nor can they have liked his metaphor of the sons being obliged to help their father’s “declining strength.” (If the Hungarian estates did not ultimately opt to take the former opportunity given to them by the war, Pál Czindery must surely have been right in the long term about the latter: the declining strength of the Habsburgs ultimately could not do without the support of the Hungarians.) For all this, it is my belief that the deciding factor was unquestionably the confrontational attitude that the speech took. Czindery was one of the exponents of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions, unequivocally expressing the interests of the nation as at odds with the Habsburgs. The Hungarians had to make use of their

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political opponents’ uncomfortable position. While they had much for which to thank the House of Habsburg, they had by now paid this all back with interest: “It is now surely our turn to enjoy the advantage.” This situation depicted was one of confrontation rather than cooperation between the estates and the ruler. For Czindery (as it had previously been for Kaunitz), it was, furthermore, a “zerosum game”: the Hungarians could only achieve advantage if this were taken from the king. We see not only that the government took strong steps against Czindery in person, successfully keeping him at a distance from the diet (which, in fact, was in line with its previous plans), but also that Czindery’s speech was warmly received by the general assembly of Somogy County convened to elect deputies to the diet. He was immediately elected as a deputy, in place of one of the officially agreed candidates. There was, that is, already fertile ground within Hungarian political life in the late eighteenth century for the politics of confrontation; later, the division between the ruler and the leading opposition voices in the Hungarian political elite would become even more marked. Contemporaries could thus consider the political battles of the eighteenth century as a fight against the joint interpretation clause and a defense of the ancient constitution through the fortification of the country’s rights in the form of its articles; alternatively, and through the increasing interpretation of rights and privileges in terms of a constitution, they could interpret them as a defense of the ancient constitution, less and less shoulder to shoulder with the ruler and more and more at odds with him. Thus we can find an additional possible interpretation of the eighteenth-century politics regarding the central tendency of politics to be the sharpening of divisions, something that can be observed not only in the institutional history of the eighteenth-century diet of Hungary, and in the political decisions of the deputies at the diet, but also at the level of their discourse.

Notes 1. U. Daniel, Kompendium Kulturgeschichte: Theorien, Praxis, Schlüsselwörter, 4th ed. (Frankfurt am Main, 2004), 17. 2. K. M. Baker, “Introduction,” in The Political Culture of the Old Regime, ed. K. M. Baker, vol. 1, The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture (Oxford and New York etc., 1987), xii–xiii. 3. Cf. Hajnóczy, “Közjogi értekezés,” 104. 4. Ákos Timon is cited in Eckhart, Alkotmány- és jogtörténet, 545. 5. Cf. Hajnóczy, “Közjogi értekezés,” 102–3. 6. L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung,” 250. 7. H. G. Koenigsberger, “Epilogue: Central and Western Europe,” in Crown, Church and Estates: Central European Politics in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. R. J. W. Evans and T. V. Thomas (New York, 1991), 306. 8. Ring, Lengyelország, 135.

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9. Csizmadia, “Introduction and Notes,” 53; Csizmadia, Kovács, and Asztalos, Magyar állam- és jogtörténet. 2nd ed., 212 (the author of the cited passage is Andor Csizmadia). 10. Timon, Alkotmány- és jogtörténet, 548–49; B. Bottló, and M. Veres, Regnicolaris levéltár: Repertórium (Budapest, 1968), 225–26; A. Kubinyi, “Die Wahlkapitulationen Wladislaws II in Ungarn (1490),” in Herrschaftsverträge, Wahlkapitulationen, Fundamentalgesetze, ed. R. Vierhaus (Göttingen, 1977), 140–41. 11. Timon, Alkotmány- és jogtörténet, 549; Csekey, Trónöröklési jog, 381. 12. Deák, Adalék, 167. 13. See A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N44 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diplomata inauguralia regum Hungariae], box 1, Nos. 3–11. 14. Ring, Lengyelország, 135. 15. Schindling, Die Anfänge, 230. 16. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 12–14, 89–90. 17. H. Marczali, A magyar történet kútfőinek kézikönyve (Budapest, 1901), 685–87. 18. Eckhart, Alkotmány és jogtörténet, 232–33. 19. Cited in Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 33. Cf. 700.447, 251. 20. Eckhart and Degré, Állam- és jogtörténet, 232–33 (the author of the cited passage is Ferenc Eckhart); cf. Csizmadia and Kovács and Asztalos, Magyar állam- és jogtörténet, 2nd ed., 212 (the author of the cited passage is Andor Csizmadia); Á. R. Várkonyi, “A Habsburg-abszolutizmus berendezkedése Magyarországon (1686–1703),” in Magyarország története 1686–1790, ed. Gy. Ember and G. Heckenast, vol. 4, Magyarország története, ed. P.Zs. Pach (Budapest, 1989), 83–86. 21. Fraknói, A Habsburg-ház, 6–7, 39, 45–54. 22. Ibid., 57. 23. 700.500, 31–33, 46. 24. Marczali, A magyar történet kútfőinek, 685–87. 25. Fraknói, A Habsburg-ház, 58. 26. Csekey, Trónöröklési jog, 382. 27. Barta, Mária Terézia, 66. 28. Summed up here following Salamon, “Az 1741iki,” 133–43, 159–65. 29. 700.478, 98–100. 30. 700.476, 91; 700.475, 77; 700.478, 170. 31. See e.g. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 59. 32. Á. Barcsay, Herrschaftsantritt im Ungarn des 18. Jahrhunderts: Studien zum Verhältnis zwischen Krongewald und Ständetum im Zeitalter des Absolutismus (St. Katharinen, 2002), 140. 33. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:211. 34. Barcsay, Herrschaftsantritt, 145–50. 35. Marczali, Az 1790/1diki országgyűlés, 2:33, 40, 46, 70–73, 299–309, 311, 315. 36. Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 2:12–122. 37. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 32–36. 38. Barcsay, Herrschaftsantritt, 169–70. 39. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 32–33. 40. J. Szinnyei Jr. (ed.), Dugonics András följegyzései (Budapest, 1883), 129–30. 41. Naponként-való 1792, 101. 42. Barcsay, Herrschaftsantritt, 175.

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Timon, Alkotmány- és jogtörténet, 548. L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung,” 244. Article 2 of 1715. Salamon, “Az 1741iki,” 136–37, 139. Article 2 of 1791 and article 2 of 1792. Barcsay, Herrschaftstantritt, 196–204. G. Pálffy, “Nádasdy Tamás nádor a magyar királyok koronázási szertartásáról (1561),” in Szolgálatomat ajánlom a 60 éves Jankovics Józsefnek, ed. T. Császtvay and J. Nyerges (Budapest, 2009), 306, cited in B. M. Varga, “A kontinuitás szimbolikus konstrukciói Mária Terézia koronázási ünnepségén,” Metszetek 3(1) (2014): 123. M. Varga, “A kontinuitás,” 120. Cf. Barcsay, Herrschaftsantritt, 206–11. Salamon, “Az 1741-ki,” 179. M. G. Kovachich, Solennia inaguralia serenissimorum ac potestissimorum principum utriusque sexus, qui ex augusta stripe Habspurgo-Austriaca sacra corona apostolica in reges Hungarorum, reginasque periodo tertia redimiti sunt (Pest, 1790), 205, cited in M. Varga, “A kontinuitás,” 120. M. Varga, “A kontinuitás,” 118–27. Barcsay, Herrschaftsantritt, 212–17, 267–69. Ibid., 272–74. Ibid., 268. Daniel, Kompendium, 350. R. Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (New York, 2004), 267. E. Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2007), 84–85. E. Sashalmi, “Az abszolutizmus: Az abszolút monarchia elmélete,” in Az abszolút monarchia, ed. Gy. Képes (Budapest, 2011), 13–67, 19–20. Bodin, Six Bookes, 159. Brunner, Land und Herrschaft, 393, 440. Brunner, Neue Wege, 187. Ibid., 187. Brunner, Land und Herrschaft, 393. Sashalmi, “Abszolutizmus,” 22. B. Mezey, “Az abszolutizmus esélyei a 18. század eleji Magyarországon,” in Az abszolút monarchia, ed. Gy. Képes (Budapest, 2011), 169–70. Ring, Lengyelország, 135; Wagner, “3 May, 1791,” 48. K. Benda, “Az országgyűlések,” 7. Fraknói, A Habsburg-ház, 6–7, 39, 45–54. Gy. Miru, Az alkotmányozás politikai nyelve 1848–49-ben (Budapest, 2015), 25. Ibid., 29–31. Naponként-való 1790, 137. Ibid., 299. The official journal of the diet is cited in J. Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény keletkezésének történelme: Közjogi észrevételekkel a bécsi és linczi békekötések alapján (Pest, 1857), 103. The response text of 30 June 1790 to the legislative proposal of the Catholics is cited in ibid., 44. Naponként-való 1790, 299.

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78. See the petition approved by the Catholic party on 30 November (G. Ballagi, A politikai irodalom Magyarországon 1825-ig [Budapest, 1888], 731); on 27 June (Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, 37–38). 79. Naponként-való 1790, 289–90, 361. 80. Article 26 of 1791. 81. See Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:295, and S. Hoffer, Krónika, 267. 82. Cited in É. Kujbusné Mecsei, “Az 1790-91-es diétai történések a szabolcsi követjelentések tükrében,” Szabolcs-Szatmár-Beregi Levéltári Évkönyv 12 (1997): 118. 83. 700.447, 134. 84. Ibid., 143. 85. Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, 24–25. 86. Ibid., 26. 87. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:233. 88. Cited in Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény 29. 89. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:235, 364–66. 90. Cited in Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:255. Cf. Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, 67. 91. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:280–2. 92. Ibid., 2:263–64. 93. Ibid., 2:227. 94. Ibid., 2:271. 95. Ibid., 2:271. 96. Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, 90. 97. Naponként-való 1790, 300. 98. Ballagi, Politikai irodalom, 715–17, 724; Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, 62. 99. Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, 105. 100. Cf. Ballagi, Politikai irodalom, 733; Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:293. 101. Cited in Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, 112, 115. 102. Ibid., 100–101. 103. Cited in Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:269. 104. Cf. Á. A. Kovács, “Diétai beszédek és politikai nyelvek, 1790–1791,” in Rendiség és parlamentarizmus Magyarországon: A kezdetektől 1918-ig, ed. Dobszay et al. (Budapest, 2014), 244–60. 105. Naponként-való 1790, 360–61, 364, Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:293. 106. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:288. 107. Ibid., 2:291. 108. Naponként-való 1790, 361–62. 109. Ballagi, Politikai irodalom, 744. 110. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 2:223. 111. Ibid., 2:293. 112. Cited in Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, 154. 113. Ballagi, Politikai irodalom, 749. 114. Beszédje ő eminentziájának Battyáni Jósef kárdinális, és ország primássának 1791-dik Esztendőben, Böjt más havának 5-dik Napján tartatott, Ország gyülésében. A‘ midőn az Új Törvénynek a‘ Vallás dolgában közben tett Ennen-mondása ujjolag kérdésben vétetödnék. (Pozsony, 1791), 5, 10.

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Naponként-való 1790, 362. Ibid., 366. Ibid., 370. Summed up in Ballagi, Politikai irodalom, 748. Naponként-való 1790, 363. J. Csaba, Gróf Batthyány Alajos “Ad amicam aurem” című munkája (Budapest, 1917), 20–43. Cited in Gy. Concha, A kilenczvenes évek reformeszméi és előzményeik: Irodalomtörténeti vázlat (1895; Máriabesnyő–Gödöllő, 2005), 85. Cf. P. Ihalainen and K. Palonen, “Parliamentary Sources in the Comparative study of Conceptual History: Methodological Aspects and Illustrations of a Research Proposal,” Parliaments, Estates and Representation 29 (2009): 27; J. Feuchter and J. Helmrath (eds.), Politische Redekultur in der Vormoderne: Die Oratorik europäischer Parlamente in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Frankfurt am Main, 2008). Daniel, Kompendium, 355; B. Trencsényi, A politka nyelvei: Eszmetörténeti tanulmányok (Budapest, 2007), 18; Á. A. Kovács, “Egy 18. század végi életút eszmetörténeti értelmezésének lehetőségei: Debreczeni Bárány Péter (1763–1829)” (PhD diss, Eötvös University, Faculty of Humanities, Institute of History, Budapest, 2012), 20; L. Kontler, “Fordítás és összehasonlítás a kora újkori magyar eszmetörténetben,” Helikon 55 (2009): 162; Á. A. Kovács and Z. G. Szűcs, “Hogyan olvassuk a 18. század magyar politikai irodalmát? Egy kutatási program keretei,” Korall 10(35) (2009): 154. Cf. J. G. A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1957); J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ, 1975); Q. Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” History and Theory 8(1) (1969): 3–53. Sources surveyed: Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.451: Acta diaetae MDCCLXIV; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.452: Acta comitiorum anni 1764, 700.453; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.454: Acta comitiorum anni 1764; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovitsgyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.456: Inclyti regni Hungariae partiumque eidem annexarum anno 1764/5 Posonii celebratorum comitiorum acta publica cum diario pro spectabili ac magnifico domino Iosepho Kvassay de eadem sacrae cesarae regiae et apostolicae maiestatis ad excelsum consilium regium locumtenentiale Hungaricum consiliario, nec non per inclytam regnum Hungariae tavernicorum regalium magistri vices-gerente. Per Joannem Durászyi conscripta; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.457: Diarium et acta diaetae anni 1764/5; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovitsgyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.458: Diarium diaetae anni 1764; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.462: Acta diaetae per sacram caesareo-regiam majestatem Mariam Theresiam Hungariae, Bohemiae, Dalmatiae etc. reginam anno millesimo septingentesimo quinquagesimo primo pro die decima octava mensis aprilis in liberam regiamque civitatem Posoniensem inclytis statibus et ordinibus regni Hungariae indictae ibidemque celebratae. Pro parte inclytae universitatis Comitatus Unghvarien-

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sis, sub decursu ejusdem diaetae conscripta, et post reditum abinde eidem universitati fideliter relata per ablegatos ejusdem nuncios; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.463: Acta diaetae Posoniensis in diem 18vum mensis aprilis anni 1751 indictae, ac continuative celebratae; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.464: Acta diaetalia anni 1751; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.465: Acta diaetae anni MDCCLI in libera re[gi]aq[ue] civitate Posoniensi celebratae, 700.466, 700.467, 700.468, 700.469; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.473: Tractatus diaetae anni millesimi septingentesimi quadragesimi primi per sacram regiam majestatem Mariam Theresiam … Posonium indictae et promulgatae … Pro parte inclytae universitatis Comitatus Unghvariensis Ladislaus Keresztes vice comes ordinarius et Ladislaus de Szemere uterqus ejusdem comitatus ad eamdem diaetam ablegati nuncii; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.474: Acta generalis congregationis diei 13i novembris 1741. in oppido Várad-Olaszi celebrata occasione cujus primum et ante omnia perillustres domini Stephanus Buday et Josephus Szénás qua ad generalem regni concursum delegati nuncii feliciter terminata diaeta reduces super ibid actis ac factis et tractatibus genuinam facere relationem universaque acta diaetalia scripto una cum arcticulis moderno concursu conditis praesentarunt. Acta diaetae anni 1741 per sacram regiam majestatem Posonium indicate …; 700.475; 700.476; 700.477; 700.478; 700.479; 700.480; 700.482; 700.483; 700.484; 700.485; 700.486/1; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.486/2: Acta diaetalia pro die vigesima mensii junii anni millesimi septingentesimi vigesimi secundi per sacratissimam romanorum imperatoriam ac Germaniae, Hispaniarum, Hungariae ac Bohemiaeque regiam maiestatem Carolum VI in liberam ac regiam civitatem Posoniensem indictae diaetae per nobilem Paulum Prileczky in subinsertis regalibus titulatae dominae principissae ad hanc diaetam ablegatum, inter status et ordines in tabula absentium locum et sessionem habentem, conscripta (second volume); Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.486/3: Acta diaetalia pro die vigesima mensii junii anni millesimi septingentesimi vigesimi secundi per sacratissimam romanorum imperatoriam ac Germaniae, Hispaniarum, Hungariae ac Bohemiaeque regiam maiestatem Carolum VI in liberam ac regiam civitatem Posoniensem indictae diaetae per nobilem Paulum Prileczky in subinsertis regalibus titulatae dominae principissae ad hanc diaetam ablegatum, inter status et ordines in tabula absentium locum et sessionem habentem, conscripta (third volume); 700.487; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.488: Az 1722–23. évi pozsonyi országgyűlés diáriuma és aktái. Prileczky Pál, Esterházy József özvegye követének diáriuma; 700.489; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.490: Acta diaetalia anni 1722/23; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.491: Országgyűlés 1722. június 20 – 1723. június 19-ig Pozsonyban; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.493: Acta diaetae 1708–1710, 1712, 1714; 700.503; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.504: Acta publica comitiorum a die octava septembris 1714 usque diem 15

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junii 1715 celebratorum, vigilintissima industria et sumptibus Georgii Gyurikovits collecta; Országgyűlési Könyvtár, Gyurikovits-gyűjtemény [Library of the Hungarian Parliament, Gyurikovits Collection] 700.663: Anonim napló és aktatöredék; Naponként-való 1790; Naponként-való 1792; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 11: Diarium; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 12: Acta diaetarum annorum 1715 et 1723; MOL A95, vol. 13; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 14: Diarium; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553– 1751], vol. 15: Acta I; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 16: Acta II; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 17: Diarium diaetale anni 1741; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 18: Acta I; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 19: Acta II; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 20: Diarium I; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 21: Diarium II; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553– 1751], vol. 22: Diarium diaetae pro dominica in albis in diaem 18 aprilis incidente anno 1751 Posonium publicatae; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 23: Diarium diaetale; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 24: Diarium momentarium illorum, quae sub decursu comitiorum apostolici Regni Hungariae …; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 25: Acta diaetae per sacram regiam majestatem Hungariae, Bohemiae etc reginam dominam dominam Mariam Theresiam pro die 14. mensis may anni 1741 in liberam regiamque civitatem Posoniense indicate; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 26: Diarium diaetae anni 1751; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 27: Acta generalis diaetae inclyti Regni Hungariae; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] A95 [Magyar kancelláriai levéltár, Acta Diaetalia, 1553–1751], vol. 28: Diarium cum actis diaetalibus anni 1764; MOL N50, vol. 6; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N51 [Regnicolaris

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levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1722–1723], vol. 6: Acta diaetae; MOL N52, vol. 6; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N53 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1741], vol. 3: Diarium actorum; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N53 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1741], vol. 4: Diarium; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N53 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1741], vol. 5: Acta diaetae Poson[iensis] 1741; MOL N54, vol. 3; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N54 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1751], vol. 4: Diarium comitiorum; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N54 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1751], vol. 5: Diarium diaetae regni Hungariae 1751; MOL N55, vol. 6; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N55 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1764–1765], vol. 7: Diarium diaetae 1764; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N55 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1764–1765], vol. 8: Pars II. Actorum diaetalium anni 1765; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N55 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1764–1765], vol. 9: Acta diaetae anni 1764 et 1765ti; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N55 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1764–1765], vol. 10: Diarium et acta diaetae anni 1764/5; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N55 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Diaeta anni 1764–1765], vol. 11: Diarium anno 1764 et 65; MOL N114, vols. 6–7; MOL N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 8: Diaria diaetalia; MOL N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 9: Diaria diaetalia; MOL N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 10: Diaria diaetalia; MOL N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 11: Diaria diaetalia; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 12: Diaria diaetalia; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 13: Diaria diaetalia; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N114 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Kovachich Márton György gyűjteménye], vol. 14: Tomus diarie diaetae Posoniensis anni MDCCLI, volumen I; MOL N114, vol. 15; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 13: Acta diaetalia ab anno 1708 usque 1714 cum suo indice. Volumen I; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 17: Diarium et acta I; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 18: Diarium et acta II; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hun-

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126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151.

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gary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 19: Acta diaetae; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 20: Acta diaetalia; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 21: Diaria diaetalia; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 22: Acta diaetae anni 1741; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 23: Acta diaetalia; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 24: Diarium comitiorum anno 1764/65; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, National Archive] N120 [Regnicolaris levéltár, Archivum Regni, Acta diaetalia], vol. 25: Acta comitiorum anni 1764–1765. Carl Schmitt is cited in M. Szabó, A diszkurzív politikatudomány alapjai: Elméletek és elemzések (Budapest, 2003), 69, 75, 80. Cf. B. Stollberg-Rilinger (ed.), Was heisst Kulturgeschichte des Politischen? (Berlin, 2005); T. Ball, J. Farr, and R. L. Hanson, “Preface,” in Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, ed. T. Ball and J. Farr and R.L. Hanson (Cambridge, 1989), ix. S. Hoffer, Krónika, 318. G. Chaussinand-Nogaret (ed.), Les grands discours parlementaires de la Révolution: De Mirabeau a Robespierre, 1789–1795 (Paris, 2005), 2–3. 700.503, 51–52. Ibid., 54. See the Latin abstract of the speech in MOL N114, 7:3ff. Ibid., 7:18. Ibid., 6:324. Ibid., 7:533. Ibid., 8:7. Ibid., 10:311–12. 700.478, 2–3. MOL N114, 12:474. Ibid., 11:490. MOL N53, 5:26. MOL N114, 11:490. Cf. Ibid., 12:35. MOL N120, 22:100. Ibid., 100. MOL A95, vol. 24, with no page numbering. Ibid., 22:6. Ibid., vol. 23, with no page numbering. Ibid. MOL N114, vol. 13, with no page numbering. MOL A95, vol. 23, with no page numbering. MOL N54, 5:11. Cf. MOL N114, 14:352 and 594. Alongside those mentioned above: MOL N114, 14:739. MOL A95, vol. 27, with no page numbering.

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152. Ibid., 22:6–7. 153. MOL N55, 9:2. 154. 700.453, 10; 700.454, 1; 700.456, 2–3; 700.457, 2; 700.458, 2–3; MOL N55, 9:2–3; MOL N120, 24:2. 155. 700.453, 11–12; 700.454, 1–2; 700.456, 3–5; 700.457, 3–5; MOL A95, 28:4–5; MOL N55, 9:3–4; MOL N120, 24:3–4. 156. MOL N55, 8:25–29, quotation 25. 157. Ibid., 10 (with no page numbering). 158. MOL N120, 24:62; MOL N120, 25:37. 159. Naponként-való 1790, 2–11. For an analysis of this speech see P. Barker, “Resurrecting the Past, Reshaping the Future: The Rise of the ‘Ancient Constitution’ at the Diet of 1790/1,” in A History of the Hungarian Constitution: Law, Government and Political Culture in Central Europe, ed. T. Lorman and F. Hörcher (New York, 2019), 75–77. 160. Naponként-való 1790, 203. 161. Cf. Diarium comitiorum Regni Hungariae ab augustissimo romanorum imperatore, et Hungariae rege Leopoldo secundo in liberam regiamque ac metropolitanam civitatem Budensem in diem 6tam junii anni 1790. indictorum, ac die 3tia novembris in liberam regiamque civitatem Posoniensem translatorum, ibidemque die 13tia martii anni 1791 conclusorum (Buda, 1791), 183. 162. Naponként-való 1790, 204. 163. Naponként-való 1792, 43–44, quotation: 44. The Latin expressions in parentheses: Diarium comitiorum regni Hungariae, a serenissimo, ac potentissimo Hungariae, et Bohemiae rege Francisco in liberam regiamque, ac metropolitanam civitatem Budensem in diem 20mam mensis maii anni 1792. indictorum, ibidemque die 26ta junii anni ejusdem conclusorum (Buda, 1792), passim. 164. Naponként-való 1792, 44–46. 165. Ibid., 46–47. 166. Ibid., 52–54. 167. Cf. J. Takáts, Modern magyar politikai eszmetörténet (Budapest, 2007), 14. 168. Ibid., 225. 169. Ibid., 14–15. 170. M. Van Gelderen and Q. Skinner, “Introduction,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, ed. M. van Gelderen and Q. Skinner, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2002), 1:2. 171. J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—thesis,” 98. 172. Miru, Az alkotmányozás, 23–24. 173. A. Debreczeni, Tudós hazafiak és érzékeny emberek. Integráció és elkülönülés a XVIII. század végének magyar irodalmában (Budapest, 2009), 222. 174. R. Butterwick-Pawlikowski, “A Dialogue of Republicanism and Liberalism: Regarding Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz’s Book on the Idea of Liberty” Kwartalnik Historyczny 121(special issue) (2014): 170–72, 188. 175. J. Takáts, “Magyar politikai beszédmódok a XIX. század elején: A keret,” in Mesterek, tanítványok: Ünnepi tanulmánykötet Csetri Lajos tiszteletére, ed. M. Szajbély (Budapest, 1999), 227. Cf. Barker, “Resurrecting,” 67–71. 176. J. Takáts, Modern magyar, 16–17. 177. See Irinyi, Az 1790/1-ki 26-ik vallásügyi törvény, passim. 178. J. Takáts, “Magyar politikai beszédmódok,” 232.

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179. William D. Godsey notes that, at the turn of the century, not only the estates but also the government were increasingly using the language of constitution. Godsey, Sinews, 348. 180. J. Takáts, “Magyar politikai beszédmódok,” 230, 234. 181. J. Takáts, Modern magyar, 18–19. Cf. Debreczeni, Tudós hazafiak, 222. 182. J. Takáts, “Magyar politikai beszédmódok,” 233. 183. J. Takáts, Modern magyar, 19–20. 184. Miru, Az alkotmányozás, 27. 185. Benda Kálmán is cited in J. Takáts, “Magyar politikai beszédmódok,” 247. Similarly, Barker, “Ressurrecting,” 75. 186. J. Takáts, “Magyar politikai beszédmódok,” 231. 187. Otto Brunner quotes Kurt Wolzendorff on how freedom and law are two sides of the same coin. What, facing outward, is the freedom of a house, village community, or domain, is, inward, the right of the head of the house, community leader, or ruler of the domain. Brunner, Neue Wege, 193. 188. See J. Poór, Adók, katonák, országgyűlések, 1796–1811/12 (Budapest, 2003). 189. L. Péter, Hungary’s Long Nineteenth Century: Constitutional and Democratic Traditions in a European Perspective, ed. M. Lojkó (Boston, 2012), 156. 190. Sashalmi, “Abszolutizmus,” 31. 191. Quoted by Godsey, Sinews, 328–29. 192. Cited in J. Takáts, “Magyar politikai beszédmódok,” 231–32. 193. I have János Nagy to thank for this idea. 194. M. M. Metcalf, “Structuring Parliamentary Politics: Party Organization in EighteenthCentury Sweden,” Parliaments, Estates and Representation 1 (1981): 35. 195. J. Scherp, “Alternatives to the Military State? The Swedish Estates’ Reactions to Absolutist Policies during the Great Northern War,” retrieved 31 July 2019 from https://www .academia.edu/31353572/Alternatives_to_the_military_state_The_Swedish_Estates_ reactions_to_absolutist_policies_during_the_Great_Northern_War, 16. 196. B. Mezey, “Jogalkotás a 16–19. századi Magyarországon,” Rubicon 7(1–2) (1996): 17. 197. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 60; Szijártó, A diéta, 388–91. 198. Cited in Kecskeméti, La Hongrie, 115. 199. Cited in Kujbusné Mecsei, “Az 1790-91-es diétai történések,” 124. 200. Cf. Miru, Az alkotmányozás, 45–46. 201. R.G. Asch, “Monarchy in Western and Central Europe,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern History, 1350–1750, ed. H. Scott (Oxford, 2015), 2:380. 202. Naponként-való 1790, 63–64. 203. Ibid., 62–63. 204. E. Reiszig, “Somogy vármegye története,” in Somogy vármegye, ed. D. Csánki (Budapest, s.a.), 501–2. 205. S. Domanovszky, József nádor élete, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1944), 1:218. 206. É. V. Windisch, Kovachich Márton György, a forráskutató (Budapest, 1998), 77. 207. Marczali, Az 1790/1-diki országgyűlés, 1:309–17 (quotation: 312, 313, 317). Cf. É. H. Balázs, Berzeviczy Gergely, a reformpolitikus (1763–1795) (Budapest, 1967), 160. 208. H. Balázs, Berzeviczy, 160. 209. J. Váczy (ed.), Kazinczy Ferencz levelezése, 21+2 vols. (Budapest, 1890–1960), 4:204, 333. I would hereby like to thank Tibor Bodnár-Király for bringing this piece of information to my attention.

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210. Ibid., 8:127. I have Tibor Bodnár-Király to thank for this citation. 211. Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Kézirattár [National Széchényi Library, Manuscript Archive], Fol. Lat. 667: Miscellanea diaetalia annorum 1790/6 (Comes Stephanus Illésházy). 212. Dictio domini vicecomitis Pauli Czindery. I express my gratitude to János Nagy for the facsimile of this contemporary copy.

Chapter 9

COUNTY AND GENTRY

d T

he leading figures at the diet were well aware that the opposition was reliant on the historical system of the counties. As early as 1712, the county deputies had resisted the reform agenda of the lords, citing those who had sent them. At this time the tables (tabulae) of these two Protestant-dominated Tibiscan districts that formed the core of the opposition wanted these proposals to be discussed again and accepted only by the following diet, if the counties agreed with them and accordingly instructed their deputies to be sent to that diet.1 And when, in 1790 (following the fundamental change to the balance of political power), the bene possessionati found its chance to express its proposals for a future Hungary that might actually be implemented, it was no accident that the political system outlined by Péter Ócsai Balogh, then elaborated by the diet, was based on precisely the historical system of the counties. This would have established the hegemony of the lesser nobility.2 In his deputy’s report of 1791, József Boronkay considered it necessary for Somogy County to use its right to intervene regarding the workings of the reform (so-called “regular”) committees for two reasons: the defense of both noble privileges and of the “power” of the counties.3 Ferenc Deák was later of the opinion that the institution of the county was behind every right that the nation had,4 including the diet’s right to pass legislation; in 1848, the parliament, based no longer on the estates but on popular representation, bowed to the county as the “defensive bastion of the Hungarian constitution.”5 In the dualism of the estates, the ruler had free reign over central executive power, but the monopoly over the local exercise of power formed the political fundament of the nobility. In László Péter’s axiomatic description, “The rights of the country (jura regni) had their roots in land ownership and the county.”6 Behind the diet stood the counties; it had the system of counties to thank for its political authority.

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Map 9.1. The counties of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1750. Map by Béla Nagy. Published with permission.

The Independence of the Counties While the strength of the Hungarian counties was unusual, these circumstances were not unique in Europe: in the eighteenth century the nobility was usually in control of local power. According to Jonathan Dewald, the nobles, despite obviously losing the game of the dualism of the estates with the introduction of absolutism, did become the winners on a different playing field: first, because even the strongest absolute ruler of the early modern period was dependent on the cooperation of local elites, what with the exercise of power at the local level having remained in the hands of the nobility; second, because the nobility could participate in the workings of the absolutist state that had a monopoly on legitimate coercion, and, as part of its compromise made with the ruler, it could obtain officers’ posts and administrative positions and be granted pensions. In this way the nobility would also ultimately profit from a strengthening of the state, as these processes increased its power, its prestige, and its wealth.7 Other authors agree that, for this reason, the relationship between the nobility and the state in early modern Europe was characterized not by competition and conflict but rather by mutual interdependency and the inevitability of cooperation.8 In the peripheries of Europe, we generally encounter strong local governments dominated by the nobility.9 In the age of absolutism, we see the local power of the nobility in German areas, like Brandenburg-Prussia: following the breaking

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down of their resistance, the estates were only successfully excluded from central decision-making processes; their power at the local and in part at the regional level remained almost intact.10 In Polish, Czech, and Hungarian development, the regional assemblies of the nobility—particularly the Polish sejmiki and the Hungarian county assemblies—were of decisive significance. Klaus Zernack considers these so important that he described the two countries as “noble republics.”11 The regional noble council, the sejmik, like the Hungarian county, exercised administrative and judicial functions,12 while in its golden years (from the middle of the sixteenth century to 1717) it took care of tasks not attended to by the central state authority: it recruited soldiers, levied taxes, and nominated a body to exercise executive power.13 In the Czech lands, the Verneuerte Landesordnung, introduced after the Battle of the White Mountain, did not affect local administration, which remained in the hands of the nobility throughout.14 In the western territories of the Habsburg Monarchy, local power was also in the hands of the estates, because the ruler had no apparatus of his own at this level.15 The reforms of the mid-eighteenth century also left the estates’ control of this local power essentially intact, even if many matters were transferred to the crown, and joint bodies might also be established, for example to administer educational affairs. It was only really the reforms of Joseph II that brought fundamental change. The positions of the estates were most affected by provisions regarding the local judiciary and the authority of landowners over the peasants.16 The Hungarian counties operated a stronger system of local self-government than that in operation in the western Habsburg provinces, thus retaining local administrative authority (which was intertwined with the judiciary). This would also serve as the basis for the resistance of the estates.17 In Peter Dickson’s slightly exaggerated description of the Habsburg Monarchy of the second half of the eighteenth century, we are told that the difference between Hungary and the other territories was that Hungary was ruled by nobles while the others were ruled by bureaucrats.18 What served as the basis for the independence of Hungarian noble politics was that the nobility, and particularly its political leaders, did not depend on the government for its livelihood and was responsive to its electors. In his memorandum of 16 April 1795, Archduke Alexander Leopold stated that it was not possible to depend on the vicecomites, as they did not want to lose the trust of the local nobility.19 The resistance of the counties was a powerful weapon, as the central authorities had no apparatus at the regional and local levels of public administration. In 1761 Kaunitz set out the objective of the government, namely to intervene in the counties that “it was hardly possible to push in the right direction.” The state is powerless, as it is not aware of the real situation of the counties, and thus is unable to defend the people, argued Palatine Alexander Leopold, in his memorandum, seen above.20 The objective of the administrative centralization of Hungary was for the state’s monopoly on coercion to hold at the local level too; the reform

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proposals of Maria Theresa’s second set of instructions to the supremi comites in 1768 can clearly be seen as an echo of the French intendant system.21 In the absence of any real success of these efforts, the execution of the orders issued by the central authorities continued to depend on the counties. Sometimes conflict would ensue, and it was only by sending royal commissioners and ordering military force that the government was able to implement the disputed rules—this could not, for obvious reasons, be the ordinary way to proceed. Both sides tried to avoid circumstances reaching such extreme lengths, a state of affairs we can interpret as a mutual dependency between king and nobility.22 Although the system of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—in which it had been commonplace for the county nobility to be commissioned to undertake not only the levying of taxes but also the administration of the utilization of taxes—no longer held sway in the eighteenth century, the government, lacking suitable bodies to levy and collect taxes, was nevertheless dependent on the counties for this.23 Although tax strikes occurred only rarely—as happened from autumn 1822 to the end of 1823, when county resistance emerged to the unconstitutional government, claiming that only legislation by the diet could warrant taxes and conscriptions24—the government nevertheless had to calculate for this risk in the event of all more pronounced conflicts. The refusal to collect taxes was but the most extreme and of course most rare form of the resistance of the counties. Led by the prosperous landowning gentry, the counties were able to inspect the royal rescripts sent to them by the central authorities and to object to and block the implementation of those that were at odds with the spirit of laws or the constitution (especially those they claimed threatened noble privileges). In the age of Maria Theresa and Joseph II, however, they were only able to express the opinion of the nobility and usually unable to stop the implementation of these decisions. But the use of passiva resistentia or vis inertiae was more effective than a county petition made regarding the measure being objected to: the county apparatus was simply able to sabotage the implementation of such decrees.25 After 1687 there were no longer any laws that might have guaranteed the counties the right to armed resistance. The counties tended to justify their resistance by citing the Tripartitum and common law.26 But during the reign of Joseph II, the effect of the French Enlightenment’s theory of the state appeared: the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and most of all Montesquieu. If indirectly, in the unique interpretation of the Hungarian estates, their ideas would become the intellectual ammunition of the opposition to the measures of Joseph II.27 Montesquieu genuinely considered the existence of a hereditary nobility to be a prerequisite, which as “intermediate, subordinate, and dependent powers” exerted a moderating effect on the ruler, without which monarchy would become despotism;28 in the Hungarian interpretation, it was only a single step from here to noble tax exemption. Around 1790 the estates’ movement mostly drew its

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notions of the state, and thus also that of the social contract, from the works of Martini.29 Joseph II sensed very clearly that the greatest obstacle to the implementation of his policies in Hungary was the system of the counties. He considered the constitution’s greatest flaw that the execution of almost all decisions depended on county administrators rather than royal ones.30 In his decree of 12 December 1785, then his further measures in 1786–87, he abolished the judicial forums pertaining to the estates and replaced them with a royal judicial institution entirely separate from public administration. In doing so he also abolished the county courts, and the role of the noble sedria was taken over by royal judicia subalterna.31 He abolished county self-government.32 Conscription and supplies to the army, however, induced a kind of county resistance to his rule (especially in north and northeast Hungary, and in the central Pest district), although there was not a single county that openly rejected the implementation of the decree prescribing recruitment. Although it was pointed out in the counties’ petitions that the subsidium belonged to the competency of the diet and that counties perhaps asked for the constitution to be restored, they expressed their opposition only verbally or in writing, not daring to employ more powerful methods. More seriously, on the occasion of the first recruitment, in August 1788 the counties only presented 1,184 of the 12,260 men requested as Hungary’s quota, and it would only be in March 1789 that the complete contingent was supplied.33 Similarly, they were behind with the provision of necessary supplies. In 1788 the county assemblies, inactive since 1785, were convened because of conscription and military supplies. The counties offered everything requested of them, but demanded a diet. In 1789, however, the situation continuously declined, military debt collectors appeared, and payments were made only in treasury bonds payable after the war ended. The only reason that the troops stationed in Hungary for the winter did not make an armed strike on the counties—which had entered full opposition during the autumn, had become openly rebellious, and were unwilling to provide either recruits or supplies—was that the uprising in the Austrian Netherlands had made the ruler more tolerant. He altered his policy on Hungary, and on 7 December allowed the discussion of the convention of the diet; then, on 28 January 1790, not long before his death, he restored the “legitimate” state of affairs, withdrawing all measures that were at odds with this—that is, almost every single one.34

The Progress of the Bene Possessionati toward Independence The offices with the greatest prestige in the county were those that were the most independent,35 i.e. those that wielded the most power. In addition to the vicecomes and the deputy vicecomes, who were the de facto leaders of county self-

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government and chairmen of the county court, the chief notary,36 directly in charge of the administrative apparatus, should also be mentioned here, as should the ordinarii judices nobilium: they represented the authority of the county in the districts (járás), and also exercised juridical powers. Finally, we might also mention the generalis perceptor, who directed the levying of taxes.37 On retirement, the holders of these offices usually joined the county court judges. This leadership of the county was in the main recruited from the prosperous landowning gentry, whose members also shared familial bonds. It was mostly this well-to-do landowning nobility (the bene possessionati) that, alongside the representatives of the big landed estates, provided the participants in the partial and the general county assemblies, and even the assemblies that elected the county officers. Neither were there very many of them. At the turn of the eighteenth century, any one county assembly in Tolna County would have eleven or twenty-one members—the highest attendance being due to the election of officers. The partial assemblies presumably had even fewer members.38 In any case, when a new county hall was planned in Simontornya, the stables were designed to house twenty horses. At the election of officers on 15 September 1725, twenty-two votes were cast.39 During the elections for vicecomes of Somogy County on 17 July 1724, current vicecomes László Madarász and his fellow candidates withdrew from “the table of the session”40—those present even for the election of county officers, that is, could fit around a single table. At this time, assemblies with around twenty participants were also characteristic of Baranya County. In 1723 a total of nineteen votes were cast at the election for vicecomes.41 In Bihar County, throughout the eighteenth century, there were allegedly never as many as thirty landowning nobles present at the assembly.42 There was considerable variation in the size of the nobility in these counties, so the almost identical attendance at these different county assemblies is striking.43 It is as if the gentry were always present at the assembly in about the numbers required to run the affairs of the county in question. We do not know the exact numbers of the participants at the assemblies of Somogy County during the eighteenth century, as the list of names in the record is almost always accompanied by the formula “and in the presence of other nobles.” In the period of a year and a half from 2 September 1765 to 6 April 1767, eleven assemblies and five partial assemblies were held in Somogy County. If we count only those who are listed by name in the record, we can say that, on average, there were forty present at the general assemblies and twenty-three at the partial county assemblies.44 Looking over a longer period, and only at the elections of officers, we see a steady increase in numbers. These county assemblies had eighteen nobles present in 1715, twenty-five in 1727, thirty-two in 1736, thirty-three in 1746, fifty-three in 1760, and by 1790 they had one hundred members listed by name.45 Thus the prosperous landowning gentry displayed a tangibly increasing interest in the local political life of the county. The same can later be seen for

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neighboring Zala County: compared to the eighteenth century, the first half of the nineteenth century saw a four- or fivefold growth in the numbers of those present at the county assemblies (more precisely, the numbers of those listed by name in the record). That is, the leading voices at the county assemblies were no longer only large landowners but also medium-sized landowner assessores (judges of the sedria), legal representatives of the big, usually aristocratic, domains and private lawyers, as well as members of the growing body of county office holders. By appearing en masse, medium-sized landowners could take matters in hand and be able to see their influence grow relative to that of the large landowners. The earliest example of this “assessor majority” confronting even the supremus comes is from Zala County in 1790.46 Here we see the culmination of an eighteenth-century process that opened great horizons and during which landowning gentry society become emancipated from what had previously been the unquestioned dominance of the large landowning aristocracy. We can trace the beginning of this back to the end of the war that had raged in Hungary for a century and a half. In the seventeenth century noble society lived under the dominance of the aristocracy. In addition to the lands and private armies that formed the basis of their wide-reaching power, the lords usually also performed other roles of public authority: they held the office of supremus comes; often, they would be in command of the royal army for the region; they defended borders and collected taxes, a part of which they were allowed to spend locally. The landowning gentry mostly lived in dependence to the lords, as their servitors (leading servants), but even those who did not belong to the “family” of some lord as his familiaris could not avoid the influence of the large landed estates.47 The turn of the eighteenth century, however, saw the disappearance of the military significance of the lords’ castles and private armies, and the local and regional political functions of the aristocracy disappeared with it. Previously, the centers of their domains “organically connected the person of the great landowner with Hungarian society,” as Elemér Mályusz writes. “For the younger members of lesser noble families from neighbouring areas lived and grew up in their surroundings. Education for these youths was provided by the lords’ courts, where they could become accustomed to military life, and also be introduced to lower-level public administration.”48 By the first half of the eighteenth century, however, the aristocratic courts had vanished, the sphere of social influence of the lords had contracted, and the chain of personal dependence had been broken. A successful aristocrat no longer lifted up large groups of the lesser nobility with himself. The diets of the start of the next century were full of complaints that ever since “the patriarchal warmth of the aristocratic courts is cooling off,” as Imre Wellmann puts it, members of the lesser nobility could no longer feel good in the vicinity of the lord. The only jobs were given by the management of the great landed estate itself, and all that remained of the system of familiaritas between a member of the landed gentry seeking state office and his aristocratic patron

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was the relationship between petitioner and patron, one that by now lacked the element of cooperation,49 although it did not fully lose its significance as a force for social organization.50 Thus, the relationship between the large landowning aristocracy and the landowning gentry underwent fundamental transformation in the eighteenth century relative to what it had been in the seventeenth century. There are those who link this to the 1740s and the disappearance of the old generation of leading politicians, and so to the deaths of palatine János Pálffy, primate Imre Esterházy, lord chief justice József Esterházy, and Count Sándor Károlyi, and to the rise of the new ones (palatine Lajos Batthyány, Count Antal Grassalkovich). These new dignitaries “no longer enjoyed the trust of the Hungarian nobility.”51 The conflict between these new leaders and the Hungarian nobility in general is visible from the 1730s onward, intensifying by the middle of the century. According to others, it was at the diet of 1764–65 that the paths of the aristocracy and the gentry diverged for good, which would be repeated with even greater intensity in 1790.52 Yet there is no doubt that regional differences were decisive in the relationship between the aristocracy and the bene possessionati, the well-to-do landowning gentry. Writing of the last third of the century, Éva H. Balázs gives voice to the opinion that the nobility of the western and northwestern counties was dependent on an aristocracy that “in its activity, erudition, and often with its heart, was more attached to Vienna,” while to the east of the Danube the relationships of familiaritas would live on even at the medium level: the landowning gentry could achieve real social prestige only by holding public offices available only with their patron’s support.53 Patron-client relations were not of course unique to Hungarian social development. In Western Europe, too, poorer nobles formed a part of the social spectrum, connected as they were to its more powerful members by vassal relationships and later by informal ties of patronage. These connections typically broke down in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The disappearance of grand aristocratic households and the collapse of the patron-client relationships increasingly left poorer nobles to fend for themselves. The landowners could sell surplus produce for money and use this to buy the services they had previously received from their entourage at a much higher level of quality. The emboldening of the private sphere also meant that few wished for the permanent presence of the members of an entourage. Finally, the cultural differences between poor and rich nobles—who were in part living at the court—became increasingly profound.54 During the eighteenth century, the institution of the county in Hungary gradually came under the oversight of the increasingly independent bene possessionati.55 In a memorandum written in 1795—considered his political will and testament—Archduke Alexander Leopold expressed the opinion that much more dangerous than the highest echelon of the Hungarian nobility, which was idle and rich, was the second group, which had been completely corrupted by

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the ideas of the French Enlightenment. Within this, he considered those who had been ruined financially and had nothing to lose the most dangerous. Into the third group he placed those who managed their landed estates but showed no interest in public affairs, and in the fourth group he included those loyally serving the ruler; this classification was clearly not based on wealth and income. It is telling that he did not consider the aristocracy (or at least not its richest group) to be the driving force of the Hungarian estates.56 The landowning gentry played a key role in the political and social movements of the first half of the nineteenth century; the elite of this stratum was made up of the few hundred prosperous landowning gentry, that is, the bene possessionati.57 The growing independence of the well-to-do landowning gentry had roots in its education. Domokos Kosáry traces the origins of the movement of the enlightened Hungarian estates back to the early 1770s, the birth of the tendency moving past the late Baroque and also independent of enlightened absolutism. This meant that, within the direction of the late Baroque, the emphasis came to be placed on the “second level,” as he calls, the gentry that “found a voice of its own” as it “became a separate movement.”58 In the literary and artistic realm, the change could be felt from the 1740s onward59: at some point in the mideighteenth century, drastic changes took place. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the use of the educational system by the lesser nobility became more marked.60 Whether those researching this question place the greater caesura in the earlier or later years of this period, the changes in the cultural and educational sector are connected to alterations previously sensed in the political sphere. An economic development that played a significant role in this change took place in this same period. The second half of the eighteenth century—unlike the first—brought improvement to the wealthier lesser nobility: the economic climate changed around 1740, with a long period of stagnation being replaced by an upturn, and economic growth only slowing again in the 1770s. As a result of the weather turning cooler, or of population growth, there was a crisis of food supply in Europe generally and the Habsburg Monarchy in particular; then, in the 1780s, another period of crisis ensued.61 This was reflected, with a delay, by the construction of mansions and country houses: after 1740 their numbers suddenly increased compared to the first decades of the century, reaching their zenith in the period from 1770 to 1785.62 In the mid-eighteenth century the generational change in mindset was also more marked than usual.63 The accumulated effect of the various (social, economic, cultural) factors induced change in the political sphere, which here, in institutional form, would gain considerable inertia. In this way the conditions were established for the lesser nobility to become “if not the leading, then at least the decisive stratum”64 of Hungarian society by the second half of the century, and, released from the direct tutelage of the aristocracy, first to be its own boss at the level of the county before then making its voice heard on the national political stage.

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The County and National Politics As had been the case in earlier centuries,65 in the first decades of the eighteenth century the lesser nobility was not an independent political force at the diet. While the counties did send deputies to the diet, these often did not want to toe the line. One of the deputies was almost always the vicecomes,66 while the other was an assessor who was willing to go to Pressburg for a prolonged period. If there was electioneering of any kind, this was undertaken by candidates in order to avoid being elected as deputies.67 Although on national matters the counties could only express their opinion when deputies were elected, they did so in a tellingly brief way. In Pest County in 1741, the vicecomes and the two deputies, together with one of the two county notaries, would prepare the instructions for the deputies—that is, the deputies effectively wrote the instructions for themselves.68 In Tolna County in 1741 a committee was not even sent to prepare the instructions for the deputies as it had been in 1722 and 1728; rather, these were probably composed by the deputies themselves, together with the county notary and the county prosecutor, and then accepted unanimously by the assembly with no remarks made. In 1751 one of the notaries elected as a deputy himself put the deputies’ instructions together, which were unanimously accepted by the assembly.69 In Somogy County, preparing for the concursus of 1737, the assembly commissioned the first vicecomes to prepare both certificates and instructions for the deputies. Then the same general assembly sent first vicecomes Antal Somssich as sole deputy, and these two documents were dated as being from the same congregatio.70 In Tolna County in 1722 the deputies’ instructions were also issued on the day the deputies were elected—this was a fast process here too.71 In the middle of the century, however, the county assemblies and the narrow group of those appearing at these assemblies started to show an interest in national politics. While at the diet of 1751 the deputies from Tolna County were only able to enact at most one or two items of the instructions and the grievances they had been given, the county was nevertheless satisfied with their activities, while—for the first time in the eighteenth century—a debate had already broken out at the county assembly regarding the deputies to send to the following diet.72 In the document of instructions for deputies of Somogy County in 1751, only one point in the amendments suggests there had been a genuine debate.73 At the diet of 1764–65, however, the county was in regular correspondence with its deputies: they no longer merely produced a final report, as before, but kept the Somogy assembly informed of important developments at the diet as they happened. Indeed, this was not just a one-way flow of information: the county would also respond to them.74 On 19 April 1790 a nine-member committee was sent, led by royal councilor Lajos Festetics, to elaborate the instructions for the deputies from Somogy County at the diet; it had to begin its work on 29 April. Although it should have

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completed its duties by 4–5 May, when, under the leadership of supremus comes Károly Sigray, they wanted to accept the instructions, this was not achieved.75 It probably did convene but took its duties rather seriously, and so overshot the deadline. Later, the deputies sent to the diet not only informed Somogy County of the events of the diet in their regular and detailed letters but also attached the printed journal of the sessions of the diet to their reports on a continuous basis.76 In eighteenth-century Hungary the instructions for deputies were not initially specific at all. The deputies were given an unlimited mandate. In general they were called upon to act in coordination with the high dignitaries, the supremus comes of the county in question, and the magnates in general, and not to allow the privileges of the estates to be curtailed.77 Examples of this laid-back attitude to the instructions for deputies from the early decades of the century are those of Baranya and Tolna Counties for the diet of 1722 and those of Somogy County for the concursus of 1737. As late as at the diet of 1764–65, one opinion held that the instructions were only guiding, not binding.78 The instructions to deputies of Somogy County for the diet of 1790, on the other hand, obliged deputies to follow them, on pain of being recalled.79 In his opinion of 20 September 1806, state councilor János Somogyi states that since exactly 1790 it has become more common for the counties to bar their deputies from discussing certain issues at the diet or to oblige them to wait for supplemental instructions.80 This latter element can indeed already be found in the instructions from Somogy County in 1790: the deputies were requested, “if a genuinely important case were to occur, one affecting the interests of the state, to be aware of their obligation to seek out the opinion of the estates of this county before approving this with their votes; if the matter cannot be delayed, they should join the wiser part,”81 the pars sanior. This was not merely a formality. As regards the attendance and voting rights of the Jazyg (Jász) and Cuman (Kun) districts at the diet, on 13 July 1790 the deputies of Somogy County requested (and were given) a change to their instructions. The same happened concerning the potential acceptance of the text of the diploma inaugurale of Charles VI or of Maria Theresa, and also with regard to the election of the palatine. Somogy County also repeatedly sent additional instructions to its deputies of its own volition in 1790 and 1791.82 The increasing detail and obligatory nature of instructions through the course of the eighteenth century clearly displays how the counties increasingly wished to make their voices heard in national politics. An instruction sent by Baranya County in 1722 mentioned that the question of Habsburg succession on the female line might appear at the diet, but it did not take a position on this, merely calling upon deputies to turn to the supremus comes and other lords for guidance.83 Neither did Pest County instruct its deputies on this issue.84 The instructions given by Ugocsa County in 1722 stated that for reform committee work and all other matters—over and above its grievances, listed in four points—its deputies

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“should, with an eye to the common good, decide in agreement with the estates, display allegiance, and strive to find consensus.”85 Tolna County’s instructions on the question of succession on the female line requested deputies to behave according to the palatine’s wishes.86 Somogy County’s instruction to its deputy to the concursus in 1737 “first and foremost” implored him to act to “foster mutual understanding with the lords and the deputies sent to the lower house.” It was only after this that the request came—still in the clearest terms—that he be aware of his loyalty to the king and of the law and the county’s freedoms. In the substance of the instructions, there were endless complaints about the circumstances facing the county—because of which Somogy County could bear no more of the tax burden—as well as a lengthy passage devoted to the defense of noble privileges.87 The concursus was convened to set an additional tax, and nobles in Somogy wanted on the one hand for the taxpayers of the county to have as light a burden as possible, and on the other hand to be sure of their noble tax exemption. They did not even stop to think that they might ask for something in return for a tax—and not just for themselves but for the country as a whole. In 1741, however, such wishes would suddenly be legion. Tolna County not only specified to its deputies that they should vote for János Pálffy at the election of the palatine88—and that they should renew privileges old and new in the interests of defending noble rights—but also demanded that the landed estates accruing to the ruler because of the deficiency of a noble line and ecclesiastical goods should not be allowed to be given to foreigners, and that a law should be passed that the ruler should hold court within Hungary.89 The instruction given at this same time to the deputies of Pest County demands, inter alia, that it not be possible to declare war without the agreement of the “country”—that is, the estates—and that the remaining profit from the higher price of salt, increased in 1723 to pay for the officials of the royal offices, be put, as fundus publicus, toward the public expenditure of the country, and which the council of lieutenancy could only dispose of if mandated to do so by law. Other (expected) income would also arrive here, and this public fund would be overseen by the perceptor.90 Among the grievances collected in 1741 by the two districts of the Tibiscan counties was the demand for the council of lieutenancy to be disbanded and for Hungarian affairs to be administered by a ministry made up purely of Hungarians, which they imagined would be overseen by a palatinal council. The district of the Transdanubian counties also recommended a Hungarian ministry, which would always be on the side of the king, through which the affairs of the country could be administered, and which would have a say in matters of the Habsburg Monarchy also affecting Hungary.91 The grievances of the counties formulated endeavors at a national level; these now formed a program for the estates, one that was evidently reflected in their diploma inaugurale proposal in 1741. The key points of this were the protection of noble privileges, the restoration of the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Hungary, a guarantee of an independent

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government for the country, a provision that the government positions would be filled by Hungarians, and a demand for the formation of an independent Hungarian military council and army. The old wish for the ruler to live in Hungary also arose.92 Article 42 of 1741 reveals that the Hungarian estates made an attempt to take over the administration of the war tax. The program of the estates would not of course be achieved; indeed, even those laws that embodied concessions made to the government, and that promised government by Hungarians in line with the country’s own laws and customs, as well as the return of certain territories, would remain on paper.93 Just as changing international circumstances, unfavorable to the Habsburg ruler and so promising for the Hungarian estates, had allowed more daring demands to be made in 1741, so in 1789–90 would the period from the insurrection in the Austrian Netherlands to the Treaty of Reichenbach in late July 1790 provide an opportunity for the estates’ movement, called “noble-national” by Hungarian historians, to gain ground. During his negotiations through the summer of 1790, the king of Prussia tended toward an attack on the Habsburg Monarchy: he demanded Belgrade be returned to the sultan in the hope that Leopold II would reject this demand, thereby emboldening the Hungarian opposition. (Actually, Leopold II gave up Belgrade.) On 2 June Frederick William II sent word to the Hungarians he was in contact with: they could count on him being at the border on 12 June, leading his troops. In Silesia the Prussian troops performed military exercises, but on 29 July they ultimately signed the preliminary agreement with the envoys of Leopold II at Reichenbach without demanding that the Prussian king (following the example of the 1606 Peace of Vienna) guarantee an agreement between the king and estates of Hungary, i.e. a new Hungarian constitution.94 In the tense but promising summer of 1790 the Hungarian opposition armed itself (each county organized voluntary military units to guard the Holy Crown of Hungary that was returned to Buda from Vienna)95 and tried to redesign the country’s constitution to suit its own wishes. The county deputies appeared at the diet with instructions that included an ambitious program as a result of harmonizing their positions in advance.96 These were in agreement on three basic principles: first, that they recognized the principle of filum successionis interruptum est to be valid—that is, that because of the absence of a coronation, the rule of Joseph II was illegitimate, and the “line of succession” of the Habsburgs as kings of Hungary had been “broken”; second, that Hungary was a sovereign country; third, that, in line with the stipulations of the treaties of Vienna and of Linz, the religious question was to be settled within the diploma inaugurale.97 The correspondence between the counties can clearly be traced in the records of the assemblies of Somogy County. At the assembly of 24 August 1790 alone, the transcripts from eleven counties (Arad, Vas, Borsod, Szepes, Tolna, Szerém, Turóc, Ung, Zala, Zemplén, and Temes) were read out. Indeed, in his decree of 14 March 1791, Leopold II admonished the county for this intense correspondence.98

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In theory, the starting point of the estates’ political program was the reversal of the principle of legal forfeiture, used by Leopold I to justify the introduction of an absolutistic government after the Wesselényi Conspiracy. In 1790, the Hungarian estates were of the opinion—as the instruction for the deputies of Somogy county put it—that “the succession of the House of Austria had been broken, on account of the bilateral contracts not being adhered to by the rulers, and this meant that the country’s right to a new contract and conditions of succession was revived. …”99 These conditions—that is, the program of the well-to-do landowning gentry opposition—were elaborated in a pamphlet by Péter Ócsai Balogh that was distributed through free masonic lodges and that determined the county instructions supplied to deputies. Later, at the diet, the district of the Cistibiscan and Transtibiscan counties developed this program the most fully. Its key points were as follows: 1. The independence of the Hungarian state (separate government, senate, army, military council, treasury, foreign policy, a separate court, and use of the Hungarian language). 2. The restriction of royal power (in the passage of legislation: an annual diet; the ruler only being able to reject approval of laws once; a national senate, essentially independent of the ruler, for the direction of public administration; a renewed right of resistance [given up in 1687]—initially, the proposal for the diploma inaugurale even included the right to reject taxation). 3. The shift of real power to the gentry (by forcing prelates and magnates into the background).100 According to the plan of the district of Cisdanubian and Transdanubian counties, the senate would have replaced the council of lieutenancy, as this had diverged from its original function and failed to play the role of guardian of the laws in the Josephian decade. Its chairman would have been the palatine, or, in the absence of the palatine, the lord chief justice; its members the primate, four bishops governing their dioceses, the viceroy of Croatia, the voivode of Transylvania, the tavernicum regalium magister and the royal treasurer, one of the two guardians of the crown, and forty senators and twenty secretaries as delegates of the counties. According to the proposal of the Tibiscan counties, the operation of the senate would have followed a triple objective: to guard the country’s constitution, to run the country under the direction of the palatine, and to provide the king with advice on foreign affairs. In addition to the palatine, the Tibiscans wished to see among its members the primate, the lord chief justice, the viceroy of Croatia, the tavernicum regalium magister, the royal treasurer and his deputy, the chairmen of the chamber and the military council, and one of the diocesan

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bishops. The senate would also include four senators (one for each of the country’s four districts) nominated by the counties, the two senators from Croatia, and six secretaries chosen at the diet. The Tibiscans stated that royal decrees were invalid without being endorsed by the senate and that illegal ones would not be ratified by the senate. It could convene the diet even against the wishes of the king and was accountable to it. The Danubian plan also demanded that it only be possible to publish royal decrees through the senate and that it was only through the senate that the ruler could take measures on Hungarian issues.101 Leopold II did not, however, pay heed to Prince Kaunitz, who would have countered Prussia with force, and make concessions to the Hungarians;102 instead, he came to agreement with the Prussians and took a strong stand against the Hungarian estates. Count György Festetics and his dissatisfied fellow officers103 were arrested, and it was announced that the Prussians had provided them with a list of the Hungarians who had previously been in contact with them; thirty thousand soldiers were also transferred to Hungary. They planned to construct a military camp near Pest.104 As József Keresztesi writes, “Buda and Pest were full of Croatian soldiers; Hungarian gentlemen were like those with a nosebleed.”105 If we observe the process of the broadening of the political horizon through the instructions for deputies of a single county, Somogy,106 then we should begin in 1722, when grievances were not as yet listed and merely referred to in general terms that “the country’s grievances should be addressed,” though the protection of noble privileges was mentioned specifically. Otherwise the deputies were only instructed “not to avoid the counsel of their experienced and knowledgeable fellow deputies, while always heeding the happiness and prosperity of the homeland, and to work in cooperation with supremus comes Count Tamás Nádasdy.” In 1728, too, the emphasis would still be on noble privileges: the first three points cover only this. The encouragement of the construction of a national assembly building and archive went beyond the strict interests of the estates. The number of points in the instructions is also telling. In 1722 there were a total of six points, then in 1728 there were seventeen, while in 1741 the number was thirty-four. (In 1751 and 1764 the number of instructions to deputies was thirty-one, while in 1790 the five points of instructions were accompanied by sixty-one points of grievances and requests.) In 1741 we encounter a more significant “noblenational” program in the deputies’ instructions. They wish for the subsidium to serve the interests only of Hungary and not those of “foreign countries”—that is, the Habsburgs’ other provinces—and demand that the Hungarian Chamber be on an equal footing with the Court Chamber. The military treasury should be overseen not by military commissioners but by provincial commissioners, i.e. the estates. They urge the establishment of a national treasury, into which should be deposited income such as taxes paid for the incorporation of foreign-born aristocrats into the Hungarian estates and other goals. All offices should be occupied only by Hungarians, foreigners should

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be dismissed, and there should always be two legal expert lord councilors alongside the queen. Maria Theresa should spend a large part of the year in Hungary. They demanded that commerce be free. The county only had a very limited view of international politics: in its instruction, it wishes for Hungarians (Hungarian institutions and individuals) to negotiate with the Ottomans on issues of war and peace, but on the question of the Prussian War it instructs its deputies to go along with the majority. We also find the usual grievances within the instructions, mostly of a local nature: they object to military excesses, also demanding that the Siófok chamber custom duty be reduced and that the Répás district next to the Drava River be re-annexed from the military frontier zone. Some of the demands, especially the ambitious national ones, would never be realized, thus becoming part of later instructions for deputies. In 1751 Somogy County demanded, in the interests of the nobility, that there be no census taken of persons and properties, and also that the ruler make use of the subsidium and the noble levy only in the nation’s best interests, “excluding foreign territories,” while the nobility should only be obliged to provide the noble levy within Hungary’s borders. Not only did they not give up on their demands as formulated in 1741, they went even further on many issues. Somogy wanted the contributionalis cassa, i.e. the war tax, to be administered by the counties. On questions of war and peace and other crucial matters, they wanted decisions to be made with the involvement of Hungarians and Hungarian institutions and a national army under Hungarian influence to provide the country’s defense. The codicil of the instructions no longer prescribed that the deputies cooperate with the supremus comes or the lords but rather that he come to agreement “with the other honourable members of the lower house” and act together with them for a common purpose.107 In 1764 they objected to the Austrian customs duties, but this was in fact a long-existing problem, as neither of their other claims was genuinely new. After thirteen years, Somogy County continued to raise the same old unsatisfied demands.108 In 1790 we are again witness to real change. A separate list of grievances is attached to the laconic instructions for deputies. The tirade of the first point lists Hungary’s grievances since 1765, especially the sins of Joseph II. Within the instructions, we encounter the “national-noble” program. The diet should be held every three years, and the council of lieutenancy should be replaced by a national committee led by the palatine to which each county should appoint a wealthy noble. This should also oversee the army, and in such a way that “all foreign troops should be removed from the country, while national troops should be brought into the country.” (So, while in 1741 they wished only for the national army to grow in size, by 1751 they had gone further, and these demands made in 1790 already foreshadowed those of the revolution in 1848.) The fifth point of the grievances wishes that the estates be able to put forward candidates for

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palatine, and so (as the election of the palatine was their right) they were trying to gain complete control of the choice of palatine. A Hungarian treasury should be established, one that is independent of that of the court, and this should administer the income not only of the country but also that of the king (of course, for the objectives of the country and the king, under their joint oversight, they claim). What could show more clearly the fervent oppositional spirit of Somogy County than the fact that it would not merely judge the subsequently continuous collection of the tax set by the last diet in 1764–65 for a mere three years to be illegitimate but would also demand it be repaid? (Not even József Hajnóczy, later executed as a leader of the Hungarian Jacobin conspiracy, who stated that taxes should only apply for a determined period of time, went this far.)109 As far as commerce was concerned (for “it is without doubt that the special foundation of the common happiness of the country lies in commerce”), Somogy County realized that the revival of old laws would not be enough: it wished for a national committee to promote commerce with neighboring provinces. Export should be free; as things stood, “every industry” was “repressed.” The distance between this program and that of 1722 is enormous. It is clear that in the meantime a prosperous landowning gentry class had grown up that was not satisfied with being sovereign in its own county but wanted to step out onto the national political stage, one that, given the favorable circumstances, it could in 1790 briefly control. The instructions issued by Pest County for its deputies for the eighteenthcentury diet reflect the same developments. From 1722 we have only a list of grievances that primarily contain complaints about military transgressions and taxation. The instructions for deputies for the next diet, made up of sixteen points, were based on those for the deputies sent to the previous diet. Alongside commentaries previously made on an edited and annotated version of the Tripartitum, the most important instructions concerned the level of tax and the census, aiming to preserve noble tax exemption and the ability of serfs to bear the tax burden. The diet of 1741 would be a turning point for this county too. Demands generally became national in scope: a new diploma inaugurale should be written, Maria Theresa should live in Hungary, the military frontier territories should be returned to Hungarian civil administration, the queen should heed Hungarian councilors on Hungarian matters, the council of lieutenancy should not overstep its remit, Hungarian honors should be awarded to Hungarians, and the national treasury should be established. As this was also the basis for the instructions in 1764, we can assume that things can have been no different in the year 1751 for which records are lost. In 1790 the deputies’ instructions of Pest County include a sophisticated opposition agenda: 21 precise introductions first record the more important grievances (like those concerning the Hungarian language, for example), and these are followed by a further 107 points. The demands relate to the Protestants’ status, the whole constitutional framework, and the abnegation of noble rights. They are intended to represent the interests of the taxpaying

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population and relate to the army, the courts, and commerce; two of them even touch upon cultural life. The key aspects are the principle of filum successionis interruptum est, the affirmation of Hungary’s sovereignty, and, on the question of religion, the inclusion of the peace treaties of Vienna and Linz into the diploma inaugurale.110

Rival Elites The survival in Hungary of the dualism of king and estates, which seemed increasingly anachronistic in eighteenth-century circumstances, did thus rely on the system of counties and on the institutions of the noble authorities representing the state at the local and the regional level. As Peter Dickson pointed out, the diet could be avoided (it was only convened eight times between 1687 and 1792, not sitting once between 1765 and 1790), while the counties could not. He stated simply that while the other provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy were run by bureaucrats, Hungary was run by nobles.111 In the period from 1790 to 1848, Robert Evans is of the opinion that the nobility bearing county office, together with the county deputies who gave political expression to their endeavors at a national level in the lower house of the diet, became the rival of the royal public administration that was appointed by the ruler and that implemented imperial policies. According to Evans, the Hungarian political conflict can be interpreted as a battle between these two public administrations,112 a fight between two rival elite groups. As soon as confessional differences were taken off the diet’s agenda, to be replaced by issues of tax increases and the protection of noble privileges, the estates established a unified front against the ruler, and the tendency unfolded in which the dualism of king and estates was dominated by constitutional questions. Furthermore, the Hungarian estates (under the direct influence of Montesquieu, who made such positive comments about the estates as to become highly popular with them) began to interpret these main issues of debate as being constitutional ones. This process of reinterpretation would then be completed under the rule of Joseph II, who attempted to turn this constitution on its head. The tendency of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions was already making itself present in the highly controversial pamphlet Vexatio dat intellectum at the diet of 1764–65, when, following the Polish example, the author demanded a balanced division of power between the estates and the ruler. This came to fruition in the demands of the movement of the estates in 1790, which also took the structure of the Polish noble republic as their starting point and which, had they succeeded, would have resulted in the estates taking the balance of power in Hungary. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the notion of the

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“constitution” had begun to take the central role in political debates, one it would continue to play throughout the nineteenth century. The “question of public law,” as it was called, referring to debates on the relationship between Hungary and its king, would dominate Hungarian political life until 1918. A clear sign of the heightening opposition between the estates and the ruler at the end of the century was the fact that, while service to the king and to the nation were not previously incompatible, by the second half of the eighteenth century these presented two increasingly divergent paths. As Dickson and Evans both notice, two parallel administrative and political elites came into being. As was shown by a quantitative investigation into “professional” functionaries, i.e. those holding an office with real power in the central institutions for at least twice as long as the average, in the second half of the century the majority of such positions were no longer filled by aristocrats or by those arriving from the counties but rather by “bureaucrats” starting their careers in these institutions, who were unreservedly loyal to the ruler. For a while their careers even gave them an opportunity to lift their families into the country’s elite, although this path seemed to become closed to the generations born after 1720.113 While dual status had previously been both common and accepted in the lower house of the diet, by the end of the century it was no longer acceptable for someone to be both a judge, nominated by the king and appearing at the diet by virtue of his position, and a potentially oppositional deputy of a county. A decree published in December 1791 required preliminary royal approval for bureaucrats serving at the central bodies of government to appear as deputies at the diet; in the first instance, this attempted to remove as deputies at the diet Imre Beöthy, vicecomes and member of the council of lieutenancy, as well as Lajos Domokos, chief justice of Debrecen, and József Vay, member of the council of lieutenancy. The king did not in the end allow József Vay, one of the opposition leaders at the previous diet, to represent Borsod County in 1792. So, at the repeated election, the county sent his younger brother Miklós to the diet. In his rescript to the county of 12 May 1792, Palatine Alexander Leopold, supremus comes of Pest County, annulled the election of Ferenc Darvas, member of the council of lieutenancy, as deputy. Although the county assembly objected, it nevertheless obediently elected in his place its third deputy from the previous diet, Boldizsár Pongrácz, at the time less active and seen as less oppositional.114 But these actions of the government were merely reactions to the estates having previously attempted to set the boundaries of their camp. As we have seen, in the oath taken by deputies of Szabolcs County preparing for the diet of 1790–91, we find the following words: “I shall neither accept nor ask for any reward, grant, office, dignity, order of distinction or whatever royal employment from highlyplaced powerful persons, for myself or my descendants, either during the diet or as a promise for the period following its closure. …”115 In the similar oath taken

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by the majority of those appearing at the diet in Buda, following the model of the Tennis Court Oath in Paris in 1789, they swore that “without the knowledge and consent of the estates, I shall not accept any office, honour, gift …”116 By the end of the century, then, the government and the opposition saw and understood both themselves and their rivals as two opposing camps. In the first half of the eighteenth century there was not only a two-way path connecting the elite active in county organizations or in the opposition at the diet, on the one hand, and the officials appointed by the ruler, on the other; political life itself was typified by the willingness to compromise, as clearly displayed by Ákos Barcsay on the subject of coronations.117 Yet as the dualism of king and estates was more and more dominated by constitutional questions, and as the demands of the estates were increasingly of a constitutional character, we are confronted by a gradual decline in the power of the Hungarian political elite to build compromise. Meanwhile, by the second half of the eighteenth century, the central value of the political discourse of the estates would no longer be the previously much-heralded “common good” but rather that of “liberty,” taken from the republican tradition—here in the sense of freedom to participate in public affairs.118 In the era of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions, the central questions of politics were considered constitutional, and so these became issues of principle, ones on which it was not possible simply to cut a bargain, as in the political controversies of the preceding period. The strengthening of this “loyalty to principles” foretold not only the political debates of the age of reform (1830–48) but also the shadow of the armed conflicts of 1848–49. The opportunity arises, then, to trace the development of eighteenth-century Hungarian politics back to a social process, and to emphasize the emancipation of the well-to-do landowning gentry from the dominance of the large-landowning aristocracy: the bene possessionati became an independent, then dominant political force, first at the county level, then at the national one. From midcentury it began to demand influence over the country’s fate, while from 1790 it went as far as attempting to assume overall power. The county nobility exerted its influence through the county deputies at the diet. It was the increase in this that lay behind the institutional processes that would in the second half of the century make the county deputies pars sanior et potior in the ranks of the Hungarian estates: it also lies behind the changes to the order in which decisions could be made, behind the changing relationship between the two houses, and behind the district sessions of the diet playing a crucial role—behind, ultimately, the creation of the dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions, which heightened tensions between the Hungarian opposition and the party of the ruler. And if we examine how the estates of eighteenth-century Hungary appear in historiography, further interpretational possibilities appear before us—particularly those that apply a comparative perspective to the Europe of the period.

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Notes 1. Thury, “Lányi,” pt. 2, 23. 2. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 3–14. Cf. Pajkossy, “Abszolutizmus és rendiség,” 131; G. Pajkossy (ed.), “Ócsai Balogh Péter programja,” trans. P. Balogh, in Magyarország története a 19. században. Szöveggyűjtemény, ed. G. Pajkossy (Budapest, 2003), 38–50. 3. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 137. 4. Cited in L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung” (manuscript version), chap. 1, n. 32. 5. Cited in Bónis, “Powers of Deputies,” 180. 6. L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung,” 251. 7. Dewald, European Nobility, 140–48. 8. H. M. Scott and C. Storrs, “Introduction: The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe, c. 1600–1800,” in The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. H. M. Scott, 2 vols. (New York, 1995), 1:35–46. 9. O. Hintze, “Typologie der ständischen Verfassungen des Abendlandes,” Historische Zeitschrift 141 (1930): 233–34. 10. P. Baumgart, “Ständetum und Staatsbildung in Brandenburg-Preussen: Zur Einführung und Problemstellung,” in Ständetum und Staatsbildung in Brandenburg-Preussen: Ergebnissen einer internationalen Fachtagung, ed. P. Baumgart, vol. 66, Études présentées à la Commission internationale pour l’histoire des assemblées d’état et du parlamentarisme (New York, 1983), 10–11. Cf. Baumgart, “Der Adel,” 144–45, 153; Oestreich, “Ständetum,” 288–89, and E. Melton, “Prussian Junkers,” 92. 11. K. Zernack, “Staatsmacht und Ständefreiheit: Politik und Gesellschaft in der Geschichte des östlichen Mitteleuropa,” in Stände und Landesherrschaft in Ostmitteleuropa in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. H. Weczerka (Marburg, 1995), 1–10.3. 12. Müller, “Polen,” 105. 13. Ring, Lengyelország, 138. 14. Evans, “Habsburg Monarchy and Bohemia,” 143. 15. Cf. Van Horn Melton, “Nobility,” 125. 16. Klingenstein, “Skizze” 375–79. 17. Evans, “The Hungarian Problem” 51; Blanning, Joseph II, 115; L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung,” 253. 18. Dickson, “Monarchy,” 350. 19. Poór, Kényszerpályák, 22, 146–147. 20. Cited in ibid., 22, 26. 21. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 316, 318. 22. L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung,” 252. Cf. Z. Kérészy, A vármegyék szereplése a magyar politikai élet terén 1526–1848-ig. Jogtörténeti tanulmány (Debrecen, 1896), 35; Blanning, Joseph II, 115. 23. A. Gárdonyi, “A vármegye és a város társadalma,” in Barokk és felvilágosodás, ed. I. Wellmann, vol. 4, Magyar művelődéstörténet, ed. S. Domanovszky (Budapest, 1941), 318. 24. K. Benda, Magyarország történeti kronológiája, 635–36. Cf. I. Soós, “A Habsburgkormányzat és a magyar rendek 1812 és 1825 között,” Történelmi Szemle 49 (2007): 91–118. 25. Kérészy, A vármegyék szereplése, 27–33. Cf. Málnási, Csáky Imre, 198; L. Péter, “Verfassungsentwicklung,” 252; Szijártó, Nemesi társadalom, 91–99.

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26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

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Haselsteiner, Joseph II und die Komitate, 218. Ibid., 220; L. Péter, Hungary’s Long, 157; Poór, Kényszerpályák, 191. Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, bk. 2, chap 4, p. 17. Sándor Eckhart is cited in Kosáry, Művelődés, 2nd ed., 279–80. P. Schimert, “The Hungarian Nobility in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. H. M. Scott, 2 vols. (New York, 1995), 157. Gy. Bónis and A. Degré and E. Varga, A magyar bírósági szervezet és perjog története (Budapest, 1961), 54. (The author of the cited passages is Endre Varga.) On this, see L. Hajdu, II. József igazgatási reformjai Magyarországon (Budapest, 1982), and Dickson, “Monarchy,” 329–30. Haselsteiner, Joseph II und die Komitate, 149–52, 155, 219. Marczali, “A hadsereg élelmezése,” 9, 21–33. L. Mocsáry, A régi magyar nemes. Észrevételek Grünwald Béla “A régi Magyarország” czímű munkájára (Budapest, 1889), 165. K. Vörös, “A feudális megye bürokráciája,” História 10(1) (1988): 15. I. M. Szijártó, “Hivatali karrierek a 18. századi vármegyékben,” Századok 148 (2014): 1273–96. J. Holub, “Az újjáépítés megindulása Tolna megyében a török kiűzése után 1686–1730ig,” Tanulmányok Tolna megye történetéből 5 (1974): 70–71. Á. Horváth, “Megyei önkormányzati szervezet Tolna megyében a XVIII. század első évtizedeiben (1703–1740),” Tanulmányok Tolna megye történetéből 5 (1974): 138, 142. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1724–1731 4: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1724–1731-ből, 3 (old page numbering). I. Ódor, “Nemesi társadalom és inszurrekció a török hódoltság utáni Baranyában” (Cand. Sc. diss., Pécs, 1992), 74–76. Grünwald, A régi Magyarország, 415. I have Gyula Benda to thank for this idea. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [=Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1765 18: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1765-ből, passim, and A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1766–1767 20: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1766–1767-ből, passim. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1658–1726 2: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1658–1726-ból, 330/333–34/37 (old/new page numbering); P 1724–1731 4, 1 and 554; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1732–1736 5: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1732–1736-ból, 1–2; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hun-

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48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54.

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gary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1736–1741 6: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1736–1741-ből, 1–2; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1744–1746 8: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1744–1746-ból, 1103–9; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1748–1752 10: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1748–1752-ből, 13; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1752–1755 11: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1752–1755-ből, 752–53; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1759–1761 14: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1759–1761-ből, 620–21; P 1766–1767 20, 941–42; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1774 30: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1770-ből, 403–4; A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.b. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Protocolla congregationum, 1659–1848], P 1790 77: Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyv 1790-ből, 1–3. A. Degré, “Szavazási rend a megyegyűléseken 1848 előtt,” Fejér megyei Történeti Évkönyv 7 (1973), 123. I. Gy. Tóth, Három ország—egy haza, vol. 7, Magyarország krónikája (Budapest, 1992), 75–76; K. Vörös, “A társadalmi fejlődés fő vonalai,” in Magyarország története 1686– 1790, ed. Gy. Ember and G. Heckenast, vol. 4, Magyarország története, ed. Zs. P. Pach (Budapest, 1989), 680–81. Cf. I. Wellmann, “Az udvari ember,” in Barokk és felvilágosodás, ed. I. Wellmann, vol. 4 Magyar művelődéstörténet, ed. S. Domanovszky (Budapest, 1941), 298; J. J. Varga, Szervitorok katonai szolgálata a XVI–XVII. századi dunántúli nagybirtokon (Budapest, 1981), 11–16, 60–65, 146, 162, 182, 187; Iványi, Esterházy Pál, 318; P. Dominkovits, “Egy kora újkori ügyvéd pályaképe—Szepsy (Zepsy) János,” Aetas 17(2–3) (2002): 6, 15, 32. Mályusz, Magyarország története, 26–27. K. Vörös, “A társadalmi fejlődés,” 680–81, 685–87. Also see Ember, “A barokk,” 152–53. On this, see Vári, Pál, and Brakensiek, Herrschaft, or T. Szemethy, “A patrónus-kliens viszony jelentősége Luzsénszky István felemelkedésében,” in Szóra bírni az újkort: A III. KoraújkorÁSZ doktorandusz konferencia tanulmányai, ed. T. Bodnár-Király, F. Hende, and K. Pataki (Budapest, 2016), 57–78. Barta, A meg nem értett, 80. Cf. J. Barta Jr., A tizennyolcadik század története. (s.l. [Budapest], 2000), 183. K. Vörös, “A társadalmi fejlődés,” 717. É. H. Balázs, Bécs és Pest-Buda a régi századvégen, 1765–1800 (Budapest, 1987), 129–30. Cf. Vári, Pál, and Brakensiek, Herrschaft. Dewald, European Nobility, 40–47, 106–7.

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55. P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (New York, 2013 [1979]), 314; Blanning, Joseph II, 115; M. Bernath, “Ständewesen und Absolutismus im Ungarn des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Südostforschungen 22 (1963), 351; Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 28, and Horst Haselsteiner is cited in W. Neugebauer, Standschaft als Verfassungsproblem: Die historische Grundlagen ständischer Partizipation in ostmitteleuropäischen Regionen (Goldbach, s.a. [1994.]), 38. 56. Quoted by Poór, Kényszerpályák, 19. 57. Dobszay and Fónagy, “A rendi társadalom,” 90–91. 58. Kosáry, Művelődés 2nd ed., 301, 321–22, 342–43. 59. Ibid. 60. K. Benda, “A magyar köznemesség művelődési törekvései a XVIII. században,” A Nógrád megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 7 (1981): 91. 61. Gy. Benda, “Egy Zala megyei köznemesi gazdaság és család a XVIII. század közepén (Parraghy László hagyatéka),” Agrártörténeti Szemle 26 (1984): 88–89; Gy. Benda, Zsellérből polgár—társadalmi változás egy dunántúli kisvárosban: Keszthely társadalma 1740–1849 (Budapest, 2008), 17. 62. E. Badál, Kastélyok és kúriák Pest, Heves és Nógrád megyében (Budapest, 1987), 52. 63. Gy. Benda, “Egy Zala megyei köznemesi gazdaság,” 25–26. 64. H.Balázs, Bécs és Pest-Buda, 134. 65. K. Benda, “Az országgyűlések,” 29; K. Péter, A magyar nyelvű politikai publicisztika kezdetei: A Siralmas Panasz keletkezéstörténete (Budapest, 1973), 58. 66. G. Béli, “A vármegyei önkormányzat újjáéledése Baranyában a török kiűzése után (1693–1703),” Baranya Megyei Helytörténetírás 20–21 (1987–1988), 30; L. Nagy, “Levéltári,” 722–23, 725, 730, 735, 750; Reiszig, “Somogy vármegye története,” 419, 481; Á. Horváth, “Tolnavármegye és a rendi országgyűlések (1712–1805),” Tanulmányok Tolna megye Történetéből 8 (1978), 101–3. 67. Salamon, “Rendi országgyűléseink,” 61. 68. Ibid., 63. 69. Á. Horváth, “Tolnavármegye,” 101–3. 70. P 1736–1741 6, 150 and 153, 157–58. 71. Á. Horváth, “Tolnavármegye,” 101. 72. Ibid., 104. 73. A Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Somogy Megyei Levéltára [The National Archives of Hungary, Somogy County Archive] IV.1.x. [Somogy vármegye nemesi közgyűlése és albizottsága iratai, 1454–1855. Miscellanea, 1703–1895], Vegyes iratok XVIII–XIX. század, bundle 1. 74. P 1764–1765 17, 360–63, 507–9, 509–10, 510–11, 511–14. 75. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 56–57. 76. Cited in ibid., 130. 77. Grünwald, A régi Magyarország, 418–19. 78. M. Horváth, “Az 1764ki,” 1:408. 79. L. Nagy, “Levéltári,” 751. 80. Wertheimer, Ausztria és Magyarország, 2:242. 81. Cited in Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 59. 82. Ibid., 86–93, 99–101. 83. Marczali, Magyarország története, 210–11. 84. A. Kiss (ed.), Pest-Pilis-Solt követutasításai, 22.

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85. A. Komáromy (ed.), “Magyar országgyűlési emlékek,” Történelmi Tár 9 [new series] (1908): 541. 86. Á. Horváth, “Tolnavármegye,” 101. 87. P 1736–1741 6. 153–58. 88. Cf. with Somogy Co: L. Nagy, “Levéltári,” 726. 89. Á. Horváth, “Tolnavármegye,” 103. 90. Salamon, “Az 1741–iki,” 41, 43. 91. Ibid., 102–10. 92. Ember, “Az országgyűlések,” 416–17. 93. Marczali, Magyarország története, 272–74. 94. R. Gragger, Preussen, Weimar und die ungarische Königskrone (Berlin and Leipzig, 1923), 68–74. 95. Márki, “A koronaőrző,” 342. 96. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 8–13. 97. Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 2:8. Similarly, Sweden’s Age of Liberty was born at the historical moment when Swedish political society perceived that the regime had broken a contract with the people, that the fundamental principles of government had been violated. Scherp, “Alternatives,” 12. 98. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 83–86, 150–53. 99. Cited ibid., 59. 100. Marczali, Az 1790/1–diki országgyűlés, 2:32–33, 211, 304; Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 3–14; Gy. Bónis, Hajnóczy, 1750–1795 (Budapest, 1954), 5. 101. 700.447, 51–61. 102. Mályusz, “Bevezetés,” 24. 103. On the submission of the officers of the Graeven cavalry regiment, see Budán 1790dik Esztendőben, 76–81. 104. Gragger, Preussen, Weimar, 75. 105. S. Hoffer, Krónika, 315. 106. L. Nagy, “Levéltári,” 722–61, Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 58–83, Cf. Misc. Vegyes iratok XVIII–XIX. század, bundle 1. 107. Misc. Vegyes iratok XVIII–XIX. század, bundle 1. 108. Melhárd, Somogyvármegye, 32. 109.J. Hajnóczy, “A magyar országgyűlésen javaslandó törvények,” 64. 110. A. Kiss (ed.), Pest-Pilis-Solt követutasításai, 16, 21–22, 29–31, 43, 61, 86. 111. Dickson, “Monarchy,” 350. 112. Evans, Austria, Hungary, 183. 113. I. M. Szijártó, “A ‘professzionális’ hivatalnokok ‘tereziánus’ nemzedéke és a ‘bürokraták’ hatalomátvétele,” Századok 153(6) (2019): 1191–99. 114. A. Kiss (ed.), Pest-Pilis-Solt követutasításai, 149–50; O. Szakály, Egy vállalkozó főnemes: Vay Miklós báró (1756–1824) (Budapest, 2003), 213–14. 115. Cited in Kujbusné Mecsei, “Az 1790-91-es diétai történések,” 124. 116. Naponként-való 1790, 63–64. 117. Barcsay, Herrschaftsantritt, 267–75. 118. I. M. Szijártó, “A közjó fogalma a kora újkori politikai diskurzusokban,” Történelmi Szemle 58 (2016): 502.

Chapter 10

HISTORIOGRAPHICAL TRADITIONS AND EUROPEAN COMPARISONS

d The Eighteenth-Century Diet in Historiography

T

he institution of the estates convening at the eighteenth-century diet, and, through them, of the diet itself, has been the subject of differing evaluations in the historiography of the last two centuries. One of the traditional possibilities was the pursuance of national considerations, which, on the basis of national romanticism and enforcing the hegemony of political history, primarily meant sympathizing with the Hungarian estates and taking a stance against foreign centralization or absolutism. The other possibility was that of historiographical opinion based on the perspective of social progress, which appeared as an additional element alongside the “national” one in the interpretations born in the first half of the twentieth century, some of which had a distinctly Geistesgeschichte character. We see both in the volumes of Magyar történet (Hungarian History), written by Gyula Szekfű, and in the work of Imre Wellmann, who edited and wrote the introductory study for the third volume of Sándor Domanovszky’s Magyar művelődéstörténet (Hungarian Cultural History), that their relationship to the eighteenth-century Hungarian estates was an ambivalent one. They are supportive of the estates for being Hungarian, yet they also take up positions contrary to the estates on a number of issues. For them, progress as represented by foreign royal authority, by “enlightened absolutism,” is of similar weight to that of the nation. Although Wellmann disapproves of the anachronistic Hungarian estates, as they represent Hungarian national considerations in the political

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battles of the eighteenth century, he accepts them and endorses their position.1 Szekfű prefers to take up a position in support of the central power on account of its enlightened nature, yet he nevertheless proudly observes that in the early eighteenth century only the Hungarian estates were capable of forcing absolutism to compromise.2 In this regard, it is later that the scales tip the other way: the historiography of the second half of the twentieth century from the 1960s onward favored a system of values clearly based on social progress. This can be found in the leading tenvolume historical synthesis of the Soviet era, including, for example, the chapters by Győző Ember on the political history of the eighteenth century. He claims that the key feature of the Hungarian estates was the selfish protection of their privileges. In his narrative, progress was associated with absolutism, especially with the “enlightened absolutism” of Maria Theresa and Joseph II.3 Domokos Kosáry came to an essentially similar judgment in his great monograph on the Hungarian cultural history of the eighteenth century: the forces of the estates generally represented an anti-progress tendency, and national considerations do not justify their absolution. Kosáry could only identify with the small group of nobles leaving late Baroque culture and navigating toward the Enlightenment.4 Naturally, in the twenty-first century, it remains valid to place both social progress and a national system of values at the center of historiographical discourse. But in addition to these, the wide-ranging nature of political participation can, following the German example,5 attain greater importance, and then the institution of the diet can come into the center of research, and we can see in the assemblies of the estates the precursors of modern parliamentarism and ultimately certain elements of democracy. Károly Kecskeméti emphasized the important of the democratic traditions in Hungary,6 while Ambrus Miskolczy also sought the roots of “modern Hungarian democratic culture” in the Enlightenment, primarily in the 1790s.7 Referring to the conclusions of Alexis de Tocqueville and István Hajnal, namely that the traits of democratic culture are determined by the unique characteristics of the earlier political system dominated by the estates, Miskolczy, like Kecskeméti, points to the key role played by Hungarian parliamentary traditions.8 In recent years, research into the Hungarian estates of the eighteenth century and especially the diet has blossomed. The first important product of this was János Poór’s 2003 monograph. The author is critical of the parties bargaining at the diet at the turn of the nineteenth century. The estates, standing up to a royal power that was turning the constitution upside down, failed to protect the national interest; whatever their opinion of themselves, their role—as the contemporary Gergely Berzeviczky pointed out—was “intellectually and politically modest, and morally questionable.” But neither could the other party be proud of its achievements:

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Vienna could take considerable credit for the predominantly noble participants of the Hungarian diets playing this role [as defenders of the poor folk]. The economic and trade discrimination conducted against Hungary at a government level for decades, the revenge following the discovery of the Jacobin movement, would, like it or not, provide a good opportunity for noble society, uniquely able to express political views and perhaps to resist the court. The court did nothing to uncover this dishonest pretence of the nobility. It could have done. The issue of noble privileges should have been addressed. … This was an unspoken bargain, and a miserable one. The court always enthusiastically justified its open discrimination against Hungary with reference to the privileges of the nobility, most of all its tax exemption. If it had acted in serious fashion against the (privileges of the) nobility, it would not have retained any justification for discrimination. … The political élite was not interested in the country’s long-term interests, in the fate of over 90 per cent of society. And, in contrast to his late uncle Joseph II, these did not interest the king, either.

At these diets, the extension of political rights was not even on the agenda: “Notions such as liberty, civic property, equal taxation, equal political representation in parliament and equality before the law did not arise at the Hungarian diets between 1796 and 1812.” 9 In recent years, a number of important books on the Hungarian diet (or more generally on the eighteenth-century Hungarian estates) have been penned by authors outside Hungary. The conclusion of the monograph by Jean Bérenger and Károly Kecskeméti first heaps praise on the parliamentary traditions represented by the Hungarian estates, then depicts the decline of these, in the course of which the Hungarian system of political institutions and political élite became, in the second half of the nineteenth century, incapable of responding to the challenges brought by the new era, and this is why they lost those characteristics that had been worthy of praise.10 Joachim Bahlcke argues that the alliance of crown and Catholic Church, bolted together in the name of confessionalization, was still operational in the first half of the eighteenth century but became inoperable by the second half.11 In his structural analysis, Ákos Barcsay inspects the coronation diets of 1712, 1741, and 1790–91: how could the ruler and the court, on the one hand, and the Hungarian estates, on the other, have come to agreement? The author is interested, that is, in the procedures of the dualist system of ruler and estates for resolving conflict, in the system’s capacity for integration.12 Robert Evans focusses his attention on those enlightened Hungarian nobles who implemented Maria Theresa’s reforms in Hungary and who personified the link between the two halves of the monarchy. As the eminent Welsh author’s works encompass more than two centuries of the Habsburg-Hungarian relationship, the reader can clearly see just how much more ready for compromise the two sides were in the eighteenth century than in the nineteenth.13 The leading aspect of Barcsay’s book is an analysis of the intermediary function of the high dignitaries. From Károly Kecskeméti we can learn a great deal (for ex-

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ample, in the form of little bibliographical footnotes) about the leading figures at the diet. The entirety of Bahlcke’s book and in particular Evans’s approach tells us that, in the course of an analysis of the Hungarian history of the eighteenth (and nineteenth) century, of the history of the estates, or of the diet in particular, it is worth placing emphasis not on a bird’s-eye view of developments but rather on the career paths of individual figures, namely the members of the political elite, so that politics can be unfurled before the reader’s eyes not as a battle between impersonal forces but as an interpersonal system of relationships. The most recent specialist Hungarian literature has taken certain steps in this direction, that of the social historical research into eighteenth-century politics.14 Certain groups of the estates almost present themselves for inclusion in a collective biography. This is what Joachim Bahlcke attempted to do for the episcopal bench of eighteenthcentury Hungary,15 while young historians made the subject of their analysis the distinctly close connections between the prosperous landowning gentry families that provided the county deputies,16 as well as inspecting the protonotarii, the city deputies, and the envoys of absentees.17 András Vámos, for example, debunks the myth that the representation of an absentee at the diet (as in the case of Lajos Kossuth, for example) would serve as the usual training ground for a latter commission as a county deputy. Only 6–7 percent of the county deputies at the diets of the eighteenth century had previously been absentium ablegatus.18 Of the Hungarian historians working on the eighteenth century, it is András Forgó who most consistently confronts the challenge posed by cultural history, in particular the German version of the cultural history of politics.19 Some studies, meanwhile, have attempted to apply the insights of the linguistic-contextual schools of the history of ideas to the investigation of eighteenth-century Hungarian political thought.20 A number of scholars deal with the problem of nationalism; research into political languages, following József Takáts, is another promising line of inquiry.21 Ever since the birth in the early nineteenth century of historical scholarship in the current sense, as institutionalized discourse, the state has stood in the center of the research work of historians; neither is this any different in Hungarian historiography. As we have seen, the values that have led the pens of historians— for example, those of the eighteenth-century Hungarian estates—can clearly be identified. Traditionally, these are first and foremost the considerations of the nation, especially national independence, and of progress, especially social justice. More recently this list has come to include democratic values, with particular reference to parliamentary traditions and the breadth of political participation. This present work attempts to take a further step along the path of this last selection of values, viewing the history of Hungary in the late eighteenth century through the lens of the concept of the “dualism of king and estates dominated by constitutional questions.” The implementation of the constitutional principle, the presence of liberty, however limited, and the broad political participation

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Figure 10.1. New map of the Kingdom of Hungary with its fortresses, engraved by Daniel de la Feuille (1706). Published in Geographisch Toneel of uitgezochte kaarten: Tot gemak der Officieren, Reisigers en Liefhebbers by Johannes Ratelband, Amsterdam, 1747. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

made possible in the Hungarian political system, unique in eighteenth-century Europe, are all exceptional aspects of Hungary’s history. Even some contemporaries characterized Hungary on the basis of these traits. No lesser figure than the eminent Tory politician and political philosopher British foreign secretary Lord Bolingbroke referred to the Hungarians as “a people used to freedom” in his 1711 letter to Francis Palmes, the ambassador to Vienna,22 using the same words about Hungarians as Prussian king Frederick II used in 1786 when criticizing the policies of Joseph II toward them.

The Estates and the Nobility in Europe and in Hungary István Ereky was one of those to point to the universal historical significance of the eighteenth-century history of the Hungarian diet as early as a hundred years ago. According to him, while in other states on the European continent it was princely absolutism that was victorious over the assemblies of the estates, in Hungary the country’s estates remained part of the legislative process, retained their parliament and their county assemblies, and even survived to the first half of

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the nineteenth century.23 This is why Klaus Zernack describes Hungary—just as much as Poland—as a noble republic. He emphasizes that it was not only modernization by absolutism from above that led to modernity; there was also a path to the modern nation from the premodern constitution of the estates of noble countries; in addition to Britain, the nations of East-Central Europe present the best example of this. This latent potential for liberal democracy was their greatest contribution to the political culture of Europe.24 In contrast with the waning star of the kingdoms of Bohemia and Poland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Werner Conze highlights the success of the Hungarian noble nation in defending its separate constitutional law and bicameral assembly, and indeed in managing to restore these following Ottoman occupation, thereby putting it in an unparalleled situation in all of Europe by the start of the nineteenth century.25 In the second half of the eighteenth century, it is in the Eastern European region that we find the strongest estates beyond Sweden and the United Provinces26 (Zernack speaks of nothing less than an East-Central European “culture of freedom”),27 and the Hungarian estates are among the strongest. As mentioned, Gyula Szekfű claims that “it is with surprise that we see that continental absolutism bowed only to these little Hungarian estates, prostrating itself to the extent that, abandoning the implementation of its own principles, it came to a compromise with it.”28 The other side of the coin, as mainstream research and contemporary Western observers agree, is that—as, for example, the Prussian ambassador put it—in the eighteenth century, alongside delayed secularization, the strength of the structures of the estates was the brake on the real modernization of Hungarian society and politics.29 Kálmán Benda gives the following explanation for the strength of the Hungarian diet and of the estates more generally: The institutional structure of the diets as set in law in 1608, behind which stood the support of the counties, contributed to the Habsburg government, striving for absolutism, not being able to outstrip the power of the estates during the 16th and 17th centuries. Contributed, as the main reason was the military situation of the country, the constant Ottoman threat. … It could only acquire tax and soldiers from the nobility under arms through giving concessions, and if conflicts between the court and the nobility could not be resolved through debates at the diet, if the government had resolved to take arbitrary and coercive steps, the nobility did not hesitate to take up arms and turn against the ruler.30

None of this refers to the period after 1711, of course. As Gyula Szekfű has already pointed out, the lesson of the Rákóczi War of Independence limited the government’s aspirations to a peaceful path. In 1671 they were able to see through the abolition of the Hungarian constitution with just the pressure of a few imperial regiments. But they could not again risk a new Rákóczi revolt, decades of devastation, and tying down the imperial forces with this. For this

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reason, Charles VI and Maria Theresa were cautious about returning to the methods of Leopold I.31 The importance of the eighteenth-century Hungarian diet might thus be explained by internal factors, but we can only adequately evaluate it in the context of Europe in general, and of East-Central Europe and of the Habsburg Monarchy in particular. The historical literature of recent years has clearly increased the value it places on the role of the eighteenth-century estates in the Habsburg Monarchy. It is no longer a commonly accepted position that absolutism was triumphant everywhere and that the constitution of the estates was rendered void;32 instead, historians tend to emphasize the participation of the estates in such areas of key importance as the levying of taxes and public administration in the Austrian and Czech-Moravian territories. Albeit at a level that was lower than that of the seventeenth century, the position of the estates did stabilize.33 On the one hand, the literature underlines the new role of the estates, their cooperation with the ruler,34 and their power exerted at the lower territorial level;35 on the other hand, following Jean Bérenger, Winfried Schulze insists that at least until 1740 a dualist system of power had been in existence.36 Wilhelm Brauneder considers the Austrian territories as operating under a “dualism of ruler and estates” until 1740.37 It was only after a time that this dualism in eighteenth-century Hungary became exceptional within the Habsburg Monarchy—and it is clear that it was the Haugwitz reforms introduced after the War of the Austrian Succession that represented the crossroads at which Hungary turned onto a different path of historical development.38 It did not do so alone, however. Wolfgang Neugebauer draws attention to the similarity of the noble structures of the territorial belt stretching from Estland in the north down to Hungary in the south, indeed to their increased significance in the second half of the eighteenth century. He talks directly of a renaissance of the nobility and of the estates in the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth,39 one that came after the period of the “latency of the estates.” With Eastern Prussia as his model, he describes a historical path with the following stages: the latency of the estates followed by the renaissance of their political participation, then the regional division of power, the battle fought for the constitution, and finally the Vormärz opposition movement. Unlike earlier research, Neugebauer’s analysis places the emphasis not on institutions but on political participation.40 Hungary—that is to say, as a country with strong estates—gradually turned away in the mid-eighteenth century from the path of development of Central Europe or at least of the Habsburg Monarchy, but it was not alone in doing so: a similar course of progress—as shown by the renaissance of the estates at the end of the century—is seen in a number of other parts of the East-Central European region, from Eastern Prussia to Poland. The parallels with the Polish case are of course closer, those with the Baltic territories less so. The difference is in

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the degree. Compared to the Czech lands, which also belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy, the differences are more marked than the similarities. Eighteenth-century Hungarian development within the East-Central European region is unique in the sense that, while elsewhere the period between the state of the mid-seventeenth century and the renaissance of the estates at the end of the eighteenth century was characterized by the latency of the estates, the Hungarian estates did ultimately manage successfully to resist the so-called “absolutistic” attack at the end of the seventeenth century. As a result of this, they obtained pretty strong positions for themselves in the early eighteenth century. From the perspective of the history of the institution of the diet, this meant that the period of the latency of the estates can at best have been limited to the quarter century of enlightened absolutism, when between 1765 and 1790 the ruler ruled in the absence of a diet and of laws passed in conjunction with the estates. So it is precisely the period investigated in this present volume that bears the characteristics that are unique to early modern Hungarian political development: its belatedness, which made it turned away from the main course of Western Europe, and its intensity, which made it distinct from the secondary course of East-Central Europe. The eighteenth-century Hungarian estates thus not only laid (as seen from the perspective of Hungarian history) the foundations of the age of reform, when the liberal opposition advocated the modernization of the country, but also created (as seen from the perspective of universal history) one of the examples of political liberty within the framework of the estates, so rare in this period. In eighteenth-century Europe, in the age of absolutism, the Hungarian diet represented a rare—but certainly not unique—example of a representative assembly wielding considerable political power. It has parallels, and it is not only the political powers of Westminster that can be evoked here.41 These were not just more extensive than those of the diet in Pressburg, but they were also different in nature: the Hungarian estates convoked to the diet had no control above executive power, swiftly expanding in the period. Their partial control of taxation and, from the end of the century, their provision of recruits for the army, together with their firm hold on the counties, nevertheless gave them a strong position in politics, similar to those enjoyed only by the Swedish Riksdag in the “Age of Liberty,” by the Polish Sejm until the final division of Poland, and by the Staten-Generaal in the Netherlands.

Politics and Historiography After World War II, German historiography confronted the fact that the development of the nation-state, which previously had clearly been at the center of the dominant historical narratives, had brought a morally and politically inexcusable outcome in the form of national socialist Germany. For this reason,

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many historians felt obliged to also reevaluate early modern political development42: while in historical descriptions the centralizing territorial princes had previously played the role of the positive protagonist, as they took the first steps toward a future that seemed unconditionally desirable, namely a unified German nation-state, now historiography saw in the estates the defenders of the constitution and liberty.43 Accommodating to an earlier school of thought, numerous German researchers examined the German assemblies of the estates as the precursors of modern parliamentarism.44 While the struggles of the estates against the princes had previously been considered as standing in the way of progress, these could now be seen in a positive light. That is, they applied new criteria in their narratives to the historical processes they were describing, thus promoting, entirely unsurprisingly, a value that had gained extraordinary traction with Germany’s final integration into the Western political world: that of democracy. Investigating the history of the diet just three decades after the change of regime in Hungary, it would similarly be reasonable to evaluate the eighteenthcentury history of the Hungarian estates—which can justifiably be criticized as regards social justice and progress and which have a mixed record as regards their influence on the later circumstances of the Hungarian nation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—on the basis of the breadth of political participation. We can conclude that the dualism of king and estates, the significant role played by the Hungarian estates in eighteenth-century politics, and the important positions of power retained in opposition to the ruler all represented political anachronisms within ancien régime Europe. These, together with the institutions of the county assemblies and the diet, provided an exceptional if not unique possibility of regular participation in political life for a relatively narrow but not at all insignificant part of the population. This unusually high level of political participation, almost without precedent in continental Europe, was without doubt the noteworthy achievement of Hungary in the eighteenth century.

Notes 1. Wellmann, “Barokk és felvilágosodás.” 2. Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, vol. 4. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) Cf. A. Miskolczy, “Egy történészvita anatómiája. 1790–1830/1848: folytonosság vagy megszakítottság? (avagy: ‘Mit üzent Kossuth Lajos?’),” Aetas 20(1–2) (2005): 170– 75; A. Miskolczy, A felvilágosodás és a liberalizmus között (Budapest, 2007). 3. Ember, Magyarország, and Kosáry, Művelődés, 2nd ed. 4. Ibid., 342. 5. R. Endres, Adel in der frühen Neuzeit, vol. 18, Enzyklopädie deutscher Geschichte (München, 1993), 113–14; Neuhaus, Das Reich, 58, 65. Cf. F. L. Carsten, Princes and Parliaments in Germany (Oxford, 1959). For more detail on this, see the last subchapter. 6. See, for example, J. Bérenger and Ch. Kecskeméti, Parlement et vie parlementaire en Hongrie, 1608–1918 (Paris, 2005), 379–80.

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7. A. Miskolczy, A modern magyar demokratikus kultúra “eredeti jellegzetességeiről” 1790–1849 (Budapest, 2006), 11, 42, 45, 48, 51–64. 8. Ibid., 65–67. Cf. Miskolczy, “Egy történészvita,” 199. 9. Poór, Adók, katonák, 232, 232–33, 237. 10. Bérenger and Kecskeméti, Parlement. 11. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat. 12. Barcsay, Herrschaftsantritt. 13. Evans, Austria, Hungary. 14. Á. Hajós, “Ellenzék vagy lojális szolga? Köznemes főispánok politikai szerepe a felsőtáblán, 1790–1812,” in Politikai elit és politikai kultúra a 18. századi végi Magyarországon, ed. I. M. Szijártó and Z.G. Szűcs (Budapest, 2012), 76–98; Szemethy, “Rangemelésben részesült”; Gy. Cs. Horváth, “A 18. századi magyar főméltóságok családi kapcsolati hálózata,” Kút 9(1) (2010): 44–62; Gy. Cs. Horváth, “Régi és új elit a 18. századi Magyarországon,” in Dobszay et al. (eds.), Rendiség és parlamentarizmus Magyarországon: A kezdetektől 1918-ig (Budapest, 2014), 283–98; J. Nagy, “Rendi politikai kultúra—article”; J. Nagy, “Rendi ellenzék—nádorválasztás”; J. Nagy, “A rendi ellenzék—vázlat”; J. Nagy, “Vármegyei követküldési gyakorlat”; J. Nagy, “Szegény Magyarország.” Also cf. Kiss and Nagy, “Bevezető.” 15. Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 112–50. 16. M. Gyapay, “A 18. századi politikai elit társadalomtörténete” (MA thesis, Eötvös University, Faculty of Humanities, Institute of History, Budapest, 2006), 53, 95. 17. Sebők, “A professzionalizáció jelei”; Sebők, “Hivatali pályafutások”; Sebők, “Prozopográfiai”; J. Nagy, “Buda város követei az 1708–1709. évi ‘labanc’ országgyűlésen,” in Buda város tanácsülési jegyzőkönyveinek regesztái 1708–1710, E. E. Géra (Budapest, 2016). 18. Vámos, “A távollévők követei az országgyűléseken”; A. Vámos “A távollévők követeinek pályafutása.” 19. A. Forgó, “A politika kultúrtörténete,” Világtörténet 34 [new series 2](3–4) (2012); A. Forgó, “Katolikus felvilágosodás és politikai reformmozgalom: Szerzetesek a megújulás szolgálatában,” in Politikai elit és politikai kultúra a 18. századi végi Magyarországon, ed. I. M. Szijártó and Z. G. Szűcs (Budapest, 2012); Forgó, Egyház; F. Hende, “A magyar király fogadásának ceremónája mint politikai szimbólumrendszer (III. Károly 1712. májusi pozsonyi bevonulásának példáján),” in Társadalom térben és időben: Tanulmányok az új- és modernkori Magyarország eszme-, művelődés- és társadalomtörténetéből, in R. Szuly and P. P. Kránitz (Budapest and Piliscsaba, 2015); F. Hende, “Az uralkodó bevonulásán elhangzott köszöntőbeszédek mint politikai reprezentációk,” in Hatalmi diskurzusok: A hatalom reprezentációi a tudományokban és a művészetekben, ed. Cs. Bíró and B. Visy (Budapest, 2016). Cf. B. Stollberg-Rilinger, Des Kaisers alte Kleider: Verfassungsgeschichte und Symbolsprache des Alten Reiches (München, 2008). 20. Kovács and Szűcs, “Hogyan olvassuk”; Á. A. Kovács, “Diétai beszédek’; Á. A. Kovács, “Egy életút eszmetörténeti értelmezésének lehetőségei—Debreczeni Bárány Péter,” in Politikai elit és politikai kultúra a 18. század végi Magyarországon, ed. I. M. Szijártó and Z. G. Szűcs (Budapest, 2012); Á. A. Kovács, “Volksaufklärung és politikai nyelvek Magyarországon a 18–19. század fordulóján,” in “Politica philosophiai okoskodás”: Politikai nyelvek és történeti kontextusok a középkortól a 20. századig, ed. G. T. Fazakas and Gy. Miru and F. Velkey (Debrecen, 2013); T. Bodnár-Király “Koronaeszme és történelem: Vita a szent koronáról a 18. század végi Magyarországon,” in Politikai elit és politikai kultúra a 18. század végi Magyarországon, ed. I. M. Szijártó and Z. G. Szűcs (Budapest, 2012); T. BodnárKirály, “Szent Korona és nemzeti karakter a 18. század végének magyar eszmetörténeté-

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22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

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ben,” in “Politica philosophiai okoskodás”: Politikai nyelvek és történeti kontextusok a középkortól a 20. századig, ed. G. T. Fazakas and Gy. Miru and F. Velkey (Debrecen, 2013); Á. Nagy, “‘Rómát, Athenát, Spártát álmodtam …’ Spárta toposza a 18–19. század fordulójának magyar politikai irodalmában,” in “Politica philosophiai okoskodás”: Politikai nyelvek és történeti kontextusok a középkortól a 20. századig, ed. G. T. Fazakas and Gy. Miru and F. Velkey (Debrecen, 2013); Á. Nagy, “A 18. század második felében született pasquillus-irodalom értelmezési lehetőségeiről,” in Politikai elit és politikai kultúra a 18. századi végi Magyarországon, ed. I. M. Szijártó and Z. G. Szűcs (Budapest, 2012); Z. G. Szűcs, “Magyar protokonzervatívok,” Kommentár 4(4) (2009); Z. G. Szűcs, “‘Reménységtől s félelemtől szabad lélek’: Diszkurzív politikai esettanulmány Kazinczy Ferencről és a működő rendi alkotmány korának politikai kultúrájáról,” Irodalomtörténet 113 (2009); Z. G. Szűcs, “Kontinuitás és diszkontinuitás a 18-19. század fordulójának magyar politikai kultúrájában,” Századvég 15(new series, 55) (2010); Z. G. Szűcs, “Természet, jog, teológia: Egy fejezet a politikai diskurzus történetéből a 18. századi Magyarországon,” Aetas 26(2) (2011). Trencsényi, A politika nyelvei; H. Hőnich, “Nyelv és nemzeti közösség viszonyrendszerének néhány aspektusa egy 18. századi végi hanyatláskoncepció tükrében,” in Rendiség és parlamentarizmus Magyarországon. A kezdetektől 1918-ig, ed. Dobszay et al. (Budapest, 2014); H. Hőnich, “A nyelv tétje. Fogalmak és beszédmódok 1790–1792-ben,” in “Politica philosophiai okoskodás”: Politikai nyelvek és történeti kontextusok a középkortól a 20. századig, ed. G. T. Fazakas, Gy. Miru, and F. Velkey (Debrecen, 2013); J. Takáts, “Magyar politikai beszédmódok”; J. Takáts, Modern magyar; J. Takáts, “A csinosodás politikai nyelve,” in “Politica philosophiai okoskodás”: Politikai nyelvek és történeti kontextusok a középkortól a 20. századig, ed. G. T. Fazakas, and Gy. Miru, and F. Velkey (Debrecen, 2013); J. Takáts, “Politikai nyelvek a ‘Nemzeti hagyományok’-ban,” Holmi 23 (2011). Simonyi, Angol diplomatiai iratok, 3:478. Cited in Gy. Lánczy, “Széchényi Pál kalocsai érsek s a magyar nemzeti politika (1642–1710),” Századok 14 (1882): 292. Ereky, Jogtörténelmi, 1:356–57. Cf. Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, 4:318. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) Zernack, “Staatsmacht,” 3, 8. Cf. Beales, “Enlightened Despot,” 6. Cited in Kessler, “Stände,” 186–87. For the estates in the Swedish political system in the Age of Liberty (up to 1772) see, for example, J. Scherp, “Swedish Model,” 1–13. For workings on the parliament of the United Provinces, see I. Nijenhuis, “Representation by Numbers: How Attendance and Experience Helped Holland to Control the Dutch Estates General (1626–1630),” in Political Representation: Communities, Ideas and Institutions in Europe (c. 1200—c. 1690), ed. M. Damen, J. Haemers, and A. J. Mann (Boston, 2018), 182–202. Cited in Neugebauer, Standschaft, 21. Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, 4:320. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat, 14. K. Benda, “Az országgyűlések,” 6. Hóman and Szekfű, Magyar történet, 4:317–18. (The author of the cited volume is Gyula Szekfű.) Otto Hinzte is cited in Baumgart, “Ständetum,” 11. Evans, “Habsburg Monarchy and Bohemia,” 142–44; G. Rhode, “Stände und Königtum in Polen/Litauen und Böhmen/Mähren: Bemerkungen zur Entwicklung ihres Verhält-

Historiographical Traditions and European Comparisons

34.

35.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44.

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nisses vom 16. bis ins 18. Jahrhundert,” in Die geschichtlichen Grundlagen der modernen Volksvertretung: Die Entwicklung von den mittelalterlichen Kongregationen zu den modernen Parlamenten, ed. H. Rausch, 2 vols. (Darmstadt, 1974–1980), 505–6. H. Haselsteiner, “Abszolutizmus és rendiség a Habsburg örökös tartományokban,” in Európa és a Rákóczi-szabadságharc, ed. K. Benda (Budapest, 1980), 145; G. Ammerer et al. (eds.), Bündnispartner und Konkurrenten des Landesfürsten? Die Stände in der Habsburgermonarchie (Wien and München, 2007); P. Mat’a and Th. Winckelbauer (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarchie 1620 bis 1740: Leistungen und Grenzen des Absolutismuspraradigmas (Stuttgart, 2006). V. Press, “Vom ‘Ständestaat’ zum Absolutismus: 50 Thesen zur Entwicklung des Ständewesens in Deutschland,” in Ständetum und Staatsbildung in Brandenburg–Preussen: Ergebnissen einer internationalen Fachtagung, ed. P. Baumgart, vol. 66, Études présentées à la Commission internationale pour l’histoire des assemblées d’état et du parlamentarisme (New York, 1983), 322–26; Klingenstein, “Skizze,” 380. For Winfried Schulze’s comment, see Baumgart (ed.), Ständetum, 385. Brauneder, Österreichische Verfassungsgeschichte, 99. Cf. Van Horn Melton, “Nobility,” 122, Klingenstein, “Skizze,” 375. This divide is apparent even when William D. Godsey convincingly argues for the growing importance of the Lower Austrian estates in financing the fiscal-military state of the Habsburgs through taxes and loans following the great reforms of the mid-eighteenth century. Godsey, Sinews, 151–212. Cf. Endres, “Adel,” 113. Neugebauer, Standschaft, 21, 44; W. Neugebauer, Politischer Wandel im Osten: Ost- und Westpreussen von den alten Ständen zum Konstitutionalismus (Stuttgart, 1992), 486–92. There is an old Hungarian historiographical tradition that stresses parallels between the constitutional developments in England and in Hungary. It argues for the uniqueness of the Hungarian constitution on the European continent and for its proximity to the English one. I rather suspect that this thinking is based on stressing superficial similarities and ignoring basic social and political discrepancies, however. Neuhaus, Das Reich, 58. Endres, “Adel,” 114. Ibid., 113, Neuhaus, Das Reich, 65.

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INDEX

d Abensperg-Traun, Otto Honorius von, 33 Aczél, István, 47, 202, 259 Adamovics, Rókus, 259 Adelffy, Antal, 154, 155, 164, 176n104 age of reform, 195, 253, 255. See also Vormärz Alexander Leopold, archduke, palatine, 13, 40, 135, 160, 219, 221, 277, 282, 293 Almássy, Pál, 52 Althann, Michael Friedrich von, 84 Arad County, 52, 287 Árokszállásy, András, 30 Asch, Ronald G., 257 Austria (Austrian lands, provinces, territories), 4, 16, 29, 46, 64, 96, 98, 120, 133, 225, 306 Lower Austria, 29, 31, 65, 96, 98, 101, 120; Lower Austrian estates, 35, 311n38; Lower Austrian provincial assembly, 41, 54, 65 Styria, 120 Upper Austria, 98, 133 Austrian Netherlands, 279, 287 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 4 Bacskády, Ferenc, 168, 180, 186 Bahlcke, Joachimn, 83, 302–3 Ballagi, Géza, 320 Balogh, János, 137, 160 Balogh, Péter, Ócsai. See Ócsai Balogh, Péter Banat. See Temesköz Baranya County, 280, 285 Barcsay, Ákos, 222–3, 294, 302 Barkóczy, Ferenc, 108, 241–2

Barlok, István, 125 Bartakovics, Márton, 106, 138, 168 Batthyány, Alajos, 227, 230, 232–33 Batthyány, Ferenc, 230 Batthyány, József, 109–10, 117, 231, 243 Batthyány, Lajos, 44, 106, 238, 240–1, 246–47 Bazin (Pezinok), 182 Bél, Mátyás (Matthias Bel), 63–64 Belgrade, 287 Benczur, József, 109 Benda, Kálmán, 305 bene possessionati, 5, 178, 208, 275, 279–80, 282–83, 294. See also gentry Beniczky, István, 154, 158, 176n104 Beöthy, Imre, 293 Bérenger, Jean, 302, 306 Berzeviczy, Gergely, 259, 301 Bethlen, József, 58 Bihar County, 135, 280 Blaskovich, Sámuel, 154, 171n5, 172n6, 173n20, 173n21, 173n34, 173n35 Bodin, Jean, 16, 224–25 Bohemia. See under Czech provinces Bohus, János, 165 Bohus, Sámuel, 160 Bolingbroke, Henry St John, 304 Bónis, György, 178, 182–83 Bornemisza, István, 125 Boronkay, József, 16, 88, 231, 275 Borsod County, 287 Brandenburg-Prussia, 276. See also Prussia Brauneder, Wilhelm, 133, 306 Britain, 305. See also England

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British Parliament. See Westminster Brunner, Otto, 12 Brunszvik, Antal, 158–59, 176n104 Brunszvik, József, 230 Buda, 44, 60–64, 199, 220–22, 228, 243, 287, 289, 294 chancellery, 13, 15, 31, 47, 51, 54–55, 92–95, 102, 108, 130, 148–49, 219, 227, 229, 231 Charles VI (Charles III of Hungary), 2, 31–32, 34, 45, 48–49, 55, 59, 62, 66, 81, 83–85, 94–95, 99, 102, 105–6, 120, 122–23, 125–26, 128, 132, 151– 53, 157–59, 169–70, 179, 181, 190, 192–93, 211–14, 216–17, 219, 221, 235–37, 245–46, 250–1, 285, 306 Charles VII (Charles Albert, Prince of Bavaria), 4, 99, 211 Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz, 31, 37, 59, 85–86, 117, 236 common law, 5, 12, 17, 43, 58–59, 177, 210, 224–25 compromise of Szatmár. See under Treaty concursus, 17, 92–95, 101–2, 120, 128, 132–33, 145, 148, 151–52, 159, 168, 193, 196–97, 284–86 conspiracy of the Hungarian Jacobins, 258, 260, 262, 291 contributio (contribution, war tax), 13–15, 42, 51, 56, 84, 89, 92–97, 101–7, 109–10, 152, 177, 181–83, 191, 196, 239, 253, 259, 287, 290 Conze, Werner, 305 coronation, 2, 12, 29, 31, 34, 49, 62, 81, 105–6, 120, 137, 148, 152, 159, 187, 189, 209–11, 214, 216–18, 220–23, 228, 233, 235, 238, 243–44, 287, 294, 302 coronation charter. See diploma inaugurale coronation oath, 2, 37, 210, 216–17, 221–22 Corpus Juris (Hungarici), 14, 17, 61, 64 co-ruler, 15, 117, 121, 188, 192, 194 council of lieutenancy, 13, 50, 57, 61, 83, 95, 101–2, 105, 146, 148–49, 157, 183, 191, 193, 286, 288, 290–91

county court. See under court of justice court of justice county court (sedria), 125, 279–81 court of appeals (tabula septemviralis), 20, 61, 148–49, 159, 193, 232 district court, 126, 137, 146, 148–49, 154–55, 164 judicium subalternum, 279 royal court of justice, 4, 22–23, 41, 50–2, 57, 59–61, 80, 103, 118, 121, 123–25, 127, 131–32, 146, 148–49, 155, 158–59, 161, 178, 180, 182, 184, 186, 193, 202 Croatia (Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia), 22–23, 27n63, 41, 43, 50–51, 97, 111, 123, 289 Csáky, Imre, 34, 49, 53, 126, 136 Csáky, Miklós, 240 Csáky, Zsigmond, 192–93 Csanád, 22 Csázma (Čazma), 22 Csiba, János, 154, 158, 176n107 Csongrád County, 182 Csuzy, Gáspár, 121, 162, 168–69 Czech estates, 18 Czech lands (territories), 4, 16, 96, 99, 277, 306–7 Czech provinces Bohemia, 18, 29, 96, 99–100, 106, 305; Bohemian assembly (diet), 54, 65; Bohemian estates, 4, 98; Bohemian nobility, 133 Moravia, 16, 32, 99, 306 Silesia, 4, 99, 287 Czindery, György, 41 Czindery, Pál, 258–63 Czompó, Sándor, 154–55, 164, 172n17, 176n104, 197 Dalmatia. See Croatia Darvas, Ferenc, 293 Darvas, József, 165 Deák, Ferenc, 17, 275 Debrecen, 82, 84, 192 Demkovics, József, 162, 169, 175n89, 176n117 deperdita, 96

Index

Dewald, Jonathan, 276 Dickson, P. G. M., 99, 277, 292–93 Dietrichstein, Károly, 31 diploma inaugurale (coronation charter, Wahlkapitulation), 2, 4, 15, 36, 38, 40, 45, 51, 88, 104, 106, 111, 121, 136, 151, 178–79, 189–90, 193, 197–98, 207, 209–11, 213–17, 219–21, 223–28, 236, 256, 285–88, 291–92 joint interpretation (revision) clause, 5, 213–21, 223, 225, 263 district court. See under court of justice Domokos, Lajos, 137, 200– 1, 230, 293 dualism of king and estates, 2, 4, 12, 14, 86, 92, 98–99, 116, 136, 177, 223, 236, 292 dominated by confessional questions, 4, 79, 175n68, 251 dominated by constitutional questions, 5–6, 161, 165, 171, 202, 207–8, 222, 227, 246, 251–55, 257, 262, 292, 294, 303 Eastern Prussia, 306. See also Prussia Ebergényi, László 61 Éble, Gábor, 137 Edelspacher, Ignác, 154–55, 165, 173n21, 176n102 Eger, 22, 59, 166 Ember, Győző 301 Endrődy,János, 30 England, 56, 147, 311n41. See also Britain English Parliament. See Westminster Eördögh, György, 84, 158 Erdődy, Ádám László 33, 45 Erdődy, Gábor, 83–84, 116, 126 Erdődy, György, 45, 126, 132, 187 Ereky, István, 55, 127, 304 Esterházy, Ferenc, chancellor, 61, 241 Esterházy, Ferenc, chief equerry, 44, 193 Esterházy, Imre, 33, 86–87, 127, 137, 282 Esterházy, Imre Jr., 168 Esterházy, József, 84, 86, 106, 138, 193–95, 197, 282 Esterházy, Miklós, 36 Esterházy, Pál, 50, 59

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Estland, 306 Esztergom, 22, 42 Esztergom County, 109, 186 états généraux, 23 Eugene of Savoy, 32, 84, 104 Evans, R. J. W., 292–93, 302 Farkas, Gáspár, 168 Fekete, György, 103, 118, 121, 163–64 Fekete, János, 195 Felsőbüki Nagy, István, 33, 123, 126, 236 Felsőbüki Nagy, József, 13 Ferdinand II, 210 Festetics, Antal, 259 Festetics, György, 289 Festetics, Lajos, 284 Festetics, Pál, 125 Forgách, Miklós, 230 Forgó, András, 303 France, 23, 123, 258, 261–62 Francis I, Holy Roman emperor. See Francis of Lorraine Francis I, king of Hungary, later emperor of Austria (earlier Holy Roman emperor as Francis II), 46–47, 56, 62, 66, 110, 137, 211, 219–22, 243–44, 246–47, 250, 262 Francis of Lorraine, 117, 129, 188, 192, 194, 241. See also co-ruler Frederick II of Prussia, 1, 216, 304 Frederick William I of Prussia, 134 Frederick William II of Prussia, 287 free labor. See gratuitus labor Frivajsz, Mihály, 232 Galicia, 159 gentry, 5, 275, 278, 280–83, 288, 291, 294, 303. See also bene possessionati German imperial assembly. See Reichstag Godsey, William D., 101 Golden Bull. See resistance clause of the Golden Bull Gömör County, 229 Grassalkovich, Antal, 15, 104, 107, 118–22, 162, 164, 238, 282 Grassalkovich, Antal, Jr., 230 gratuitus labor (free labor), 15, 96, 103, 132

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Graz, 106 Győr, 22, 128–31 Győr County, 109 Gyürky, István, 159, 172n14, 174n55 H. Balázs, Éva, 282 Hainburg, 33 Hajnal, István, 301 Hajnóczy, József, 23, 35, 55, 64, 93, 121, 180, 195, 226, 291 Haller, Antal, 230 Haller, János, 52 Haugwitz, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 119. See also under reforms Heckenast, Gusztáv, 97 Hellenbach, János Gottfried, 81 Hermann, József, 127 Heves County, 109, 114n92, 186 Hildebrand, Franz Anton, 63–64 Hobbes, Thomas, 248 Hochedlinger, Michael, 99 Hofkriegsrat, 27n63 Holy Crown of Hungary, 23, 24n4, 58, 81, 210, 213–14, 217, 222, 287 Holy Roman Empire, 82, 123, 211, 235 Horváth, Ádám, Muraniczi. See Muraniczi Horváth, Ádám Horváth, Mihály, 106, 187 Horváth-Simonchich, János, 118, 122–23 Hungarian Chamber, 62, 63, 96, 128, 146–47, 155, 173n21, 289 Hungarian Royal Council of Lieutenancy. See council of lieutenancy Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery. See chancellery Hurstfield, Joel, 86 Illésházy, István, 195 Illésházy, Miklós, 235, 237, 245 Illésy, Ferenc, 158 insurrectio (noble levy), 44, 103, 105, 107– 10, 139, 151–52, 162, 169, 183, 194, 240, 253, 290 Izdenczy, József, 15, 29 Jeszenák Pál, 84, 104, 157, 172n14 Jeszenák, János, 129, 157, 163, 173n22 Jezerniczky, Károly, 195

joint interpretation clause. See diploma inaugurale Joseph, archduke, palatine, 13 Joseph I, 33, 93, 122, 213–14, 221, 225 Joseph II, 3, 13, 16, 60, 63, 96, 110, 134, 160, 217, 219–20, 223, 225, 227, 250, 253–54, 256, 277–79, 287, 290, 292 judicium subalternum. See under court of justice Kalocsa, 22 Kapy, Gábor, 42, 158 Károlyi, Antal, 138 Károlyi, Ferenc, 22, 117, 136–37 Károlyi, Sándor, 22, 45, 53, 56, 128, 136– 37, 142n78, 157, 197, 282 Károlyváros (Karlovac), 131 Katona, István, 230 Katona, Pál, 84, 160 Kaunitz, Anton Wenzel von, 12, 109–10, 133, 135, 138, 263, 277, 289. See also under reforms Kazinczy, Ferenc, 259 Kazy, László 168 Kecskeméti, Károly, 301–2 Keczer, Sándor, 106 Kellió, Miklós, 162 Kenessey, István, 84, 158 Keresztesi, József, 88, 289 Kinsky, Franz Ferdinand von, 31–32, 57, 126, 237 Kis, János, 180 Kismarton (Eisenstadt), 182 Kiss, József, 180 Kiss, Pál, 128 Klobusiczky, Ferenc, 122 Koháry, István, 126 Kolinovics, Gabriel, 21 Kollár, Ádám Ferenc, 16–17, 89, 108–9, 120, 122, 152, 194, 225, 240–1 Koller, Ferenc, 118, 120, 122, 241, 247 Kollonich, László 231 Komárom (Komárno), 128, 130–1 Körös County, 27n63 Kosáry, Domokos, 283, 301 Koselleck, Reinhart, 207, 223, 233, 250, 252 Kossuth, Lajos, 254, 303

Index

Kovachich, Márton György, 259 Kovács, Antal, 259 Kovács, László 129 Kubinyi, Imre, 160, 165 kuruc (rebels), 75n232, 99, 179, 217 Kvassay, László 154–55, 165, 173n36, 175n90, 176n102, 176n103, 176n105 Lakits, György Zsigmond, 13, 16, 178, 184, 187, 190 Laxenburg, 31 Leopold I, 2, 31, 101, 213, 288, 306 Leopold II, 46, 88, 110, 135–36, 211, 213– 15, 217, 219, 221, 223, 227, 229–31, 242, 243–44, 250, 259, 287, 289 Liechtenstein, Hans Adam von, 33 Linz. See under Treaty Lippich, Boldizsár, 168 Lipsius, Justus, 225 Lőcse (Levoča), 182 Lombardy, 106 Lower Austria. See under Austria Lower Slavonia, 27n63, 103 M. Varga, Benedek, 222 Madarász, László 280 Mágocsy, Mihály, 162, 169 Maholányi, János, 122 Majláth, György, 43 Majláth, József, 158, 176n104, 202 Málnási, Ödön, 136 Mályusz, Elemér, 46, 195 Mannagetta, Johann Georg, 31, 45 Marczali, Henrik, 46, 84, 168, 259 Maria Theresa, 2, 4, 12–13, 15–16, 32, 34, 36–37, 44, 47, 56–58, 61, 83, 96, 99– 101, 103–4, 106–10, 117–22, 127–28, 130–1, 133–37, 139, 152–53, 159–60, 162–64, 166, 168–69, 186–87, 192–93, 195, 211, 213–14, 216–18, 221–22, 225, 238–42, 245–46, 250, 278, 285, 290–91, 301–2, 306 Máriássy, Gábor, 160 Máriássy, István, 137, 230 Martini, Karl Anton von, 250, 279 Martinovics, Ignác, 7n8, 226 Mecséry, Ádám, 53 Megyery, Gábor, 80

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Meskó, Ádám, 41, 124 Mihályffy György, 125 Miskolczy, Ambrus, 301 Mohos, János, 161 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, 4, 11, 244, 253–54, 278, 292 Moravia. See under Czech provinces Muraköz, 43, 82 Muraniczi Horváth, Ádám, 161 Nádasdy, Ferenc, 109 Nádasdy, László 104, 126, 137, 192 Nádasdy, Lipót, 239 Nádasdy, Tamás, 197, 289 Nádassy Mihály, 30 Nagy, István, Felsőbüki. See Felsőbüki Nagy, István Nagy, István, historian, 97 Nagy, József, Felsőbüki. See Felsőbüki Nagy, József Nagyvárad (Oradea), 22 Namier, Lewis, 5, 147, 153, 158, 171 Németi, 128, 142n78 Nemsovay, György, 168 Nény, Corneille de, 117 Nesselrode, Hermann Hans Johann von, 32, 104 Neugebauer, Wolfgang, 306 Niczky, Ádám, 154–55, 164, 176n104 noble levy. See insurrectio Nógrád County, 109, 160, 186, 230 Nyitra (Nitra), 22, 53, 59, 80 Nyitra County, 59, 138, 189 Ócsai Balogh, Péter, 138, 195, 228, 230, 232, 250, 275, 288 Oedt, Johann von, 133 Okolicsányi, János, 121, 139, 162–64, 168–69 Okolicsányi, Pál, 80–81, 83, 125 Orbán, István, 122 Orczy, László 259 Ottoman Empire (Ottomans, Ottoman forces), 1, 2, 61, 85, 261, 290, 305. See also War: Ottoman wars Padányi Biró, Márton, 82, 104, 127 Paksy, János, 33

348

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Index

Pálffy, János V, viceroy of Croatia, then lord chief justice, finally palatine, 17, 19, 126, 192, 282, 286 Pálffy, János VIII, Sr., general, supremus comes, 230 Pálffy, Károly, 245 Pálffy, Lipót, 242 Pálffy, Miklós, chancellor, then lord chief justice, 13, 16, 104, 107, 128, 134 Pálffy, Miklós, palatine, 86, 126, 136 Palmes, Francis, 304 Pálóczi Horváth, Ádám, 259 Papanek, Sándor, 31 Pászthory, Sándor, 229, 233 Patachich, Gábor, 39 Péchy, Zsigmond, 42, 53 Pécs, 22 Perényi, István, 195 Pest County, 30, 67n9, 135, 284–86, 291 Péter, László 17, 253, 275 Pető, Mihály, 197 Petrovszky, József, 158 Pfleger, Anton, 13 Podmaniczky, József, 195, 259 Poland, 16, 56, 210–11, 305–7 political language, 207, 233–34, 247–53, 303 of the ancient constitution, 248–49, 251, 254 of enlightened governance, 5, 247–48, 250–51 of “polishing,” 250 of republicanism, 5, 247–49, 251, 256 Pongrácz, András, 165, 176n102, 182 Pongrácz, Boldizsár, 293 Pozsega (Požega), 131 Pozsega County, 27n63, 103 Pozsony County, 33, 158 Pragmatica Sanctio, 2, 42, 83, 86, 123, 132, 134, 136, 157, 216, 236 Pressburg (Pozsony, Posonium, Bratislava), 3, 21–22, 31, 33–36, 44–45, 58, 60–63, 80–81, 83, 109, 116, 130, 182, 217–18, 222, 228, 238–40, 284, 307 Prileszky, György, 175n66 Prileszky, Károly, 200–1, 228 Prileszky, Pál, 22, 45, 53, 157, 172n12, 172n14, 173n20

Prónay, Gábor, 83, 104, 159–60, 166 Prónay, Gábor Jr., 160, 174n64 Prónay, László 160, 174n64 Prussia, 4, 46, 85, 99, 134, 147, 219, 276, 289. See also Eastern Prussia Prussian War. See War: of the Austrian Succession Rábakovácsi, 133 Ráday, Pál, 43, 81–84, 157 Radics, János, 84 Radvánszky, János, 160 Rákóczi War of Independence (rebellion). See under War Ratio Educationis. See under reforms reforms introduced by Haugwitz, 4, 13, 99, 101, 107, 252, 277, 306 introduced by Kaunitz, 99, 277 Ratio Educationis, 159 reform proposal made at the diet in 1712 (“six day” systema), 49–50, 52–53, 179, 188, 192, 275 reforms prepared by the systematicae commissiones sent out in 1791, 50, 53, 244, 261, 275 reforms suggested by the systematica commissio in 1722, 2, 48, 50, 53, 61, 94–95, 105, 125–26, 136, 157, 237, 245, 285 urbarial regulation, 16, 107–8, 110, 134, 159, 240 Regensburg, 20, 41, 85 Reichenbach. See under Treaty Reichstag (German imperial assembly), 20, 31, 35, 38, 41, 43, 49, 50, 52, 54, 59, 61, 64–66, 82, 85–86, 116, 179, 211, 228 resistance clause of the Golden Bull, 213– 14, 218, 221, 225 Revolt of Horea, Closca and Crisan, 260 Rösler, András, 33 Rösler, Farkas, 80 Rosty, Ferenc, 65, 110, 133, 138–39, 162, 169 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 233, 250, 278 royal court of justice. See under court of justice

Index

Rudnyánszky, József, 30, 158, 176n105 Ruszt (Rust), 182 Sárközy, István, 260 Sáros County, 229 Sauer, Kajetán, 52 Schlossberg, László 154–55, 164–65, 175n91, 176n102, 176n103, 197 Schulze, Winfried, 86, 306 Schwartner, Márton, 184 sedria. See court of justice: county court Sejm, 16, 20, 49, 65, 178, 185–86, 210, 225, 307 sejmik, 277 Selmecbánya (Banskà Štiavinica), 97 Sembery, Sámuel, 84 Sigray, János, 158, 176n106 Sigray, József, 125 Sigray, Károly, 88, 285 Silesia. See under Czech provinces Simontornya, 280 Sinzendorf, Philipp Ludwig von, 82, 122, 135 Skaricza, Gábor, 82 Slavonia. See Croatia Somogy County, 57, 88, 94, 132, 200, 254, 259–63, 275, 280, 284–91 Somogyi, János, 285 Somogyi, László 158 Somssich, Antal, 284 Somssich, Lázár, 260 Sonnenfels, Joseph von, 250 Sopron, 138, 182 Sopron County, 159 Spáczay, Pál, 80 Spissich, János, 260 Staatsrat. See State Council Starhemberg, Thomas Gundaker von, 31–32, 126, 137 State Council (Staatsrat), 12, 219, 227, 229, 231 Staten-Generaal, 307 status evangelicus, 81–83, 88 Styria. See under Austria subsidium (war subsidy), 46, 50, 52, 56, 92, 97, 110, 132–33, 159–60, 184, 195, 221, 259–60, 279, 289–90 Sweden, 6n2, 254, 299n97, 305

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systema. See reforms systematicae commissiones. See reforms Szabadka (Subotica), 131 Szabolcs County, 200, 227, 255–58 Szaitz, Leó 230 Száraz, György, 118, 158 Szathmáry-Király, György, 165 Szatmár, 128, 142n78. See also under Treaty Szatmár County, 128 Széchényi, Ferenc, 230 Széchényi, György, 29, 34, 61 Széchenyi, István, 259 Székesfehérvár, 182 Szekfű, Gyula, 4, 96, 99, 300–1, 305 Szeleczky, Márton, 161–62, 182 Szentiványi, Ferenc, 168 Szentiványi, János, 88, 259 Szentpétery, András, 84, 158 Szepes County, 287 Szepesség, 111 Szepesvár (Spišské Podhradie), 22 Szerém County, 27n63, 103, 287 Szily, János, 88, 91n54 Szily, József, 88, 91n54 Szluha, Ferenc, 42, 45, 125–26, 137, 237 Szuhányi, Márton, 56, 60, 102, 117, 137, 164 Szüllő, Zsigmond, 168 tabula septemviralis. See court of justice: court of appeals Takáts, József, 248, 303 Tallián, Ádám, 84, 162, 169 Tallián, László 133 Tallián, Pál, 259 Téglás, Béla J., 88 Teleki, József, 227, 229–30, 232 Teleki, László 195 Teleki, Sámuel, 135, 229 Temes County, 287 Temesköz (Temesi Bánság, Banat), 6n3, 97, 111 Temesvár (Timişoara), 131 Thirty Years’ War. See under War Tihanyi, Tamás, 259 Tiszta, Pál, 154–55, 165, 173n21, 176n103 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 301 Tolna County, 186, 280, 284–87

350

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Index

Tolna, 109 Tomka Szászky, János, 14, 18, 178 Török, József, 154–55, 165–66, 176n103 Tóth, Lőrinc, 136 Transylvania, 6n3, 20, 96 – 97, 135, 216– 17, 229, 260, 288 Transylvania diet, 6n3, 179 Treaty (peace) of Linz, 85, 178, 188, 226, 228, 230–33, 287, 292 of Passarowitz, 6n3 of Reichenbach, 46, 195, 200, 219, 287 of Szatmár (compromise), 2, 4, 98 of Vienna, 16, 85, 226, 228, 230–33, 287, 292 of Westphalia, 64–65, 82, 211, 228 Trencsén County, 59, 189, 259 Tripartitum, 12, 16–17, 84, 188, 278, 291 Trumer, János, 162, 169 Turóc County, 287 Ugocsa County, 45, 285 Újvidék (Novi Sad), 128, 130–31 Ung County, 287 United Provinces, 305 Upper Austria. See under Austria urbarial regulation. See under reforms Ürményi, József, 55, 184–85, 189, 201, 219, 226, 229–30, 232, 242, 244, 247, 250 Vác, 30 Vámos, András, 157, 303 Varasd County, 27n63 Vas County, 182 Vasvár, 22 Vay, Ádám, 154–55, 164, 176n104 Vay, István, 230 Vay, József, 230, 293 Vay, Miklós, 195 vectura. See Vorspann Verőce County, 27n63, 103 Veszprém, 22, 104, 137 Veszprém County, 104, 109 Vienna, 3, 15, 31–32, 45, 48, 55, 61–62, 64, 66, 80, 83, 86, 99, 102, 104, 110, 116,

119, 132, 159, 166, 219, 234–37, 247, 262, 287, 304. See also under Treaty Vietoris, György, 158 Vitam et sanguinem! 44, 103, 162 Volkra, Ottó 196 Voltaire (Arouet, François-Marie), 278 Vormärz, 253, 306 Vorspann (vectura), 96, 129–30, 180 Wahlkapitulation. See diploma inaugurale War of the Austrian Succession, 4, 99, 107, 139, 151, 211, 306 of the Polish Succession, 102 Ottoman wars (1526–1699), 98 Rákóczi War of Independence, 1, 38, 93, 95, 98, 101, 105, 177, 214, 305 Seven Years’ War, 99 Thirty Years War, 98 Turkish War (1735–9), 102 war subsidy. See subsidium war tax. See contributio Werbőczy, István, 187, 225, 242, 249–50, 258 Wesselényi Conspiracy, 93, 98, 288 Westminster (English/British Parliament), 36, 307 Westphalia. See under Treaty Zágráb County, 27n63 Zagreb (Zágráb), 22, 27n63 Zala County, 182, 281 Zemplén County, 287 Zengg (Senj), 22 Zernack, Klaus, 277, 305 Zichy, Ádám, 42, 106, 165, 176n102, 192, 195 Zichy, Ferenc, 230 Zichy, Károly, 46, 136, 189, 219, 226, 229–30, 244, 246–47 Zichy, Péter, 33 Zinzendorf, Ludwig von, 12 Zlinszky, János, 30 Zombor (Sombor), 128, 130–1 Zsittkovszky, István, 157 Zsolnay, Dávid, 52