A Károlyi család közös birtokkormányzatának hivatali hálózata 1827 és 1877 között

The focus of the study is on the office network of the Károlyi family’s joint estate administration between 1827 and 1877. The analysis is based entirely on the records of the family’s common office, the data of which – nearly 7000 cases – have been organised in a relational database based on a proprietary data model. This was subsequently integrated into a web-based data management, network analysis and visualisation environment. This was first used to describe the spatiality of the case management network of this estate and thus the structure of the common administration of the Károlyi family. We then mapped the administrative interactions, which included 2444 participants (nodes) with more than 15 000 administrative connections. The largest nodes, and the most active members of the administrative network, were the Károlyi brothers, Lajos, István and György Károlyi. Not only because they had the final say and decision in most matters, but also because they consciously took an active role in the administration of the common estates. Later we analysed the administrative network of the Károlyi brothers, showing the officials at different levels of the estate administration, who had different functions in the administration and who were also the main nodes of the administrative network. The analysis also touched on both the process of bureaucratisation and professionalisation, shedding light on how clientelism became embedded in the world of bureaucratic organisations. Studies also showed how senior officers were connected and how they became a professional group in their own right by the mid to late 19th century. However, the description of the formal network can only be the first step in the description of the large estate administration and office networks, as the exploration of informal contacts and the processing of office careers can provide a further and more realistic picture of the functioning of the estate.