Kuzdelem az orszagos es regionalis hatalomert. A Nadasdy csalad, a Magyar arisztokracia es a Nyugat-Dunantul nemesi tarsadalma a 16-17. szazadban (2. resz). (Hungarian)

In the 16th and 17th centuries the Nadasdy family belonged for four generations to the politico-military elite of the Hungarian Kingdom, and to the tiny group of its richest aristocratic families. The founder of the family's power was Tamas Nadasdy, who rose to become the greatest landowner of Western Transdanubia by marrying Orsolya Kanizsay (1534), the only heir of an aristocratic family which died out on the male line. According to the tax register of 1549 in the counties of Sopron, Vas and Zala he possessed 8.46 percent of all the taxable tenant sessions. The importance of this figure is well reflected by the respective proportions of other dominant aristocratic families such as the Batthyany (6%) and the Zrinyi (7.3%). In the next generation, Ferenc II Nadasdy not only preserved what he had inherited but also managed to further increase it; the register of 1598 shows his proportion to have augmented to 10.3 percent of all the sessions. Yet an indication of the rapid transformation in the estate structure of the region is the fact that by then the greatest landowner of Transdanubia had become Gyorgy IV Zrinyi with 12.1 percent. The positions of the Nadasdy family in the region in terms of power and land ownership underwent important modifications in the first third of the 17th family. The setback suffered was most serioius in the county of Sopron, which was most sheltered from the Ottoman menace. In the second half of the 16th century the richest landowner of the county wa still the Nadasdy family with almost 30 percent of all tenant sessions. Yet local mobile society was profoundly transformed from the middle of the century in the wake of noble migration caused by the Ottoman expansion. Although the majority of the nobility continued to serve Tamas Nadasdy, some of them had fled from either Slavonia or the Southern Transdanubian counties, whereas another group, the members of which held important posts in the county (eg. The Bezeredy, Megyery, Rattky, Recsey families), had come from Zala and Vas. When Ferenc II Nadasdy was pointed foispan of Sopron county in 1588, the family took control over the county. Thus, around the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, the local eaders of the county, that is, the alispanok, were generally elected from among the Nadasdy familiars. Indeed, after the death of the new foispan, Ferenc II Batthyany (1625), at the turn of the 1620s and 1630s, Pal Nadasdy was even able to strengthen his position. Yet his success proved ephemeral in the face of a new rival, Miklos Esterhazy, who had just risen to the ranks of both the Kingdom's narrow political elite and the greatest landowners of the region. The middle section of the 17th century was dominated by the struggle of these two families for local power, that is, for the dominance over the county. This struggle involved as a matter of fact the participation of their followers as well. Whereas the late 1630s and the early 1640s, that is, the second half of the officeholding of Miklos Esterhaz as foispan of Sopron (1626-1645), was a predominantly peaceful period, the officeholding of his son, Laszlo Esterhazy (1645-1652) was more loaded with conflicts. Thereafter Ferenc III Nadasdy, who had remained in the background so far, managed to regain control over the leadership of the county against the young foispan, Pal Esterhazy (1652-1713). The direction of the county, and before all the office of alispan, was again taken by Nadasdy familiars. Yet, as a result of the conscious and systematic estate building efforts of the Esterhazy family, by the middle of the century the estate structure of the county had been profoundly transformed. According to the register of 1648, 20.7 percent of the taxable tenant sessions were owned by Ferenc III Nadasdy, whereas the greatest landowner of the county had become the Esterhazy family with 33 percent. Yet the present study does not limit itself to the struggle for local dominance; it also analyses the changing positions of the Nadasdy family in terms of the composition and numbers of their noble familiars. It lays special emphasis on the ranks of military familiars, on their role in the defence of the region and in the maintenance of the border castles, and on the relationship between military administration and familiaritas. The research focusing on the county of Sopron devotes great attention to the transformations of local noble society and to the role of aristocratic familiars within them. This makes possible the analysis of the role of the Nadasdy family in the organization of local society in a regional context. The relationship between dominus and familiaris, or according to modern terminology, between patron and client, is examined for a special point of view, that of the role of pledge within the local estate structure. Estates given in pledge meant for the lord an easy means of getting cash, whereas for their noble familiares they could pave the way for social rise. Moreover, from the lord's point of view the system of estates in pledge was also a multi-level extension of their social influence -- partly towards noblemen who were not in their service but held important local or higher offices, partly towards the familiares of other aristocratic families of the region. That it was so is well reflected by the fact that, despite the conflicts indicated above, even leading familiares of the Esterhazy family (eg. Zsigmond Eorsy, Mihaly Tar, etc) frequently received estates in pledge from Ferenc III Nadasdy. The bipolar power structure which had characterized the county of Sopron and the whole of Northwestern Transdanubia changed definitively after the fall of judge royal Ferenc III Nadasdy in 1671. Profiting from this, the Esterhazy family, led by palatine Pal, managed in the last third of the 17th century to take over most of the former functions of the Nadasdy in the region, and also to integrate into their own service the major part of the Nadasdy familaries. And, although the history of the Nadasdy family did not end with the execution of Ferenc III in Vienna, they were never able to regain the dominance on national and regional level which they had enjoyed, despite minor setbacks, during the whole period between 1536 and 1671. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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