Michal Duchoň: Family Relationships among Town's Elites: A Case Study from Modra, Pezinok and Svätý Jur during the Years 1600 - 1720

Family relationships played a significant role among the members of town's elites. Marriage was one of the key tools for family continuity. Creating new personal and family connections, marriages strengthened existing social, economic and political relationships. Marriages gave legitimacy for the new born children, concentrated property and created continuity of elite per se.
According to their property, education and social status, the elites from the Little Carpathian towns played key roles in their administration. The highest administration positions and positions in town councils were in their hands. The source of their property was viniculture. Little Carpathian towns attracted nobles, too. Members of this social class came there to find employment in offices or to create relationships with wealthy townspeople's families. However, during the 17th century the Little Carpathian elites did change. Some of the older elites which controlled the towns during the 16th century had lost their positions. Their place was filled in by new elites emerging from newcomer families or from intellectuals. The original religious unity of the protestant town's elites was dismantled. Those families started to create completely new relations. Connections among the families in towns and even between the towns themselves at the end of the 17th century were so strong that almost all wealthy townspeople had been relatives.

town's elites, Little Carpathian towns, town's administration, viniculture, 17th-18th century, family relationships