A vármegye és a jómódú birtokos köznemesség a 18. században
Counties and the wealthy gentry in the 18th century

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims to find out what forces and the interests of what social group were behind the county, this definitive institution of Hungarian historical development from the beginning of the 18th century until 1791. A survey of the landed society of the county shows that the group of wealthy gentry occupied an outstanding position in Somogy County. On the basis of records from the 1730s and 1740s, especially of the 1743 levy of the Pannonhalma tithe, it can be established that the functioning of the county served the interests of this group in general, and those of its individual members in particular. The effects of the latifundia of the aristocracy worked through their local representatives, and this made it possible for them to partially divert and use for their own purposes the resources of the large estates and thus to rise among the bene possessionati . Since certain general characteristics of county politicking and some of its details discernible in the years 1790-91 suggest the leading role of bene possessionati , the article concludes with a socio-historical hypothesis on the rise of the nobility bene possessionata. This development in Somogy County, coinciding with the direction of the national development also reflected in the institutional history of the national assembly, exemplifies the forms of realization the local regrouping of the Hungarian estates took in the 18th century, with a definite fading of the dominance of aristocracy and the gentry taking the lead.

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