II. József kerületi biztosai

Joseph II introduced important reforms of local administration in Hungary, Transylvania, Lombardy and the Austrian Netherlands between 1785 and 1787. In Hungary, the traditional counties were incorporated in ten circles led by royal commissioners, who acted in loco in favour of the central power of the Habsburg Monarchy. Between 1785 and 1790, while the new system of local administration existed, 15 men were nominated as commissioners, and 12 other men were proposed by the Emperor or the Hungarian-Transylvanian Court Chancellery to this job. This paper gives a prosopographical analysis of this group of high civil servants. The group is characterized by several factors, like age, noble rank, carrier, Protestantism, Freemasonry. Tools and methods of network analysis are applied specifically for the group of the royal commissioners. A specific database of the kinship of the royal commissioners was set up in order to identify the social background of the Josephinian administrative elite. The genealogical network was verified by extensive archival research into the correspondence of the royal commissioners. Some considerations of problems I had to face while applying network analysis to an historical material, and a call for a reliable on-line biographical database, best hosted by the National Archives of Hungary, round out this study