Veres Gábor - Berecz Mátyás (szerk.): Hagyomás és megújulás - Életpályák és társadalmi mobilitás a végváriak körében - Studia Agriensia 27. (Eger, 2008)

POLGÁR MARIANNA: Festetics Pál németújvári tiszttartó Batthyány Ádám szolgálatában (1636-1640)

Marianna Polgár

PÁL FESTETICS, STEWARD OF NÉMETÚJVÁR IN THE SERVICE OF ÁDÁM BATTHYÁNY (1634-1640)

The Hungarian chapter in the history of the Festetics family starts with the career of Pál Festetics while he was in the service of the Batthyány family during the first half of the 17th century. This particular member of the Croatian aristocratic family was bom in about 1580. By the end of the 1620s, however, he had settled in Hungary, serving Adám Batthyány I. as his steward from 1634 right up until his death in 1640. The accounts and letters that survive in the Batthyány archives pay witness to the manifold duties that made up the steward’s job, and written in Hungarian they are very readable even today. Although the majority of the reports were sent to Batthyány from Németújvár (Güssing, Austria), some of them were also delivered from Szombathely. The family established and acquired properties in the vicinity of the latter. The castle at Németújvár lay at the heart of Batthyány family life, and like other such centres served as both the estate’s business stronghold and military base. The Festetics correspondence also tells us that although a large proportion of the estate produce went towards supplying the inhabitants of the castle and the soldiers, there is also evidence of cereals and wine being traded.

Although the estate and the castle lay in a reasonably protected region, Festetics reports on what was going on and the fears associated with Turkish incursions on a number of occasions.

Following his death, a son from Pál Festetics’s second marriage also ends up in the service of the Batthyány family, albeit as a soldier.

Güssing, Austria

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