aristocracy

After the battle of Mohács, political elite of the Hungarian kingdom was apart from the prelates formed predominantly by aristocracy. They were represented by about fifty families who in the middle of the century owned 45-50 % of the country's land. Their members would hold the highest administrative and military offices, occupy prominent positions at the Diet, become leaders of the Estates Confederated against the Habsburgs, controll majority of the comes posts in the counties and with the help of their familiares practically govern the whole regions.

Research of the oldest aristocratic clans in Hungary encounters several difficulties. Sources of the period until as late as the 12th century usually noted only names of nobles without any mention of their family affiliation, nor any other genealogical relation, such as father or grandfather. Therefore, genealogical trees of most Hungarian aristocratic families can be put together only from the 13th century. However, there are some exceptions, such as the Hont-Poznans, an exceptional family that is written into the early medieval history of Hungary.

In the early modern period people were deeply aware of the importance of consanguinity and according to the heritage rights of the period they were expected to take care even of distant relatives. Moreover, in the aristocratic families special attention was paid also to familial ties created by their wedding strategy. Nonetheless, continuity of the family could be endangered by several factors, such as inadequate contemporary level of medicine, death of the male members of the family in war conflicts or some adverse demographical conditions.

The contribution deals with the period of time when Karl of Schwarzenberg was the Austrian Ambassador to Paris, that is the period of his Paris mission before the commencement of the campaign in Russia. It presents Schwarzenberg's personality as seen in his hitherto unstudied correspondence between him and Klemens von Metternich, plus some other sources of a personal nature, belonging to the same period and the same social ambience. The fundamental source was the 29 letters Schwarzenberg sent to Metternich from Paris.