A rendi politika határai. Egy diétai vita tanulságai
The Limits of the Politics of the Estates: Lessons of a Debate on the Diet of 1825/27

Summary/Abstract: On the diet of 1825-27, a heated argument erupted as for the census and taxation of – among others – those petty noblemen who had no choice but to sit on urbarial plots. Because of the discussion concerned the traditional rights and duties of the Hungarian nobility (and the fiction of the legal equality of the nobility), its significance pointed far beyond itself. Beyond the object level, the discussion was also moved on the meta level, to define the limits of the political debates on the diet, moreover, the estates’ politics in general. The present case study aims to show what politics meant for contemporaries, by means of historical political epistemology. The debate was fought predominantly by means of the language of “ancient constitutionalism”, which drilled down on the old laws and customs of the country. It opened the discussion about the significance of laws, customs, and other sources of law, which touched immediately or directly upon the group of the petty nobility in question or generally the nobility. Not only the elements and their significance of the centuries-long legal-constitutional tradition became a matter of debate, but also the validity of competing or complementary political languages and patterns of argumentation, like natural law, noble solidarity, political rationality, etc. were also discussed.

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