The Patent of Toleration and Lutheran citizens: migration, expansion, network

Abstract

The study examines a unique aspect of the settlement of Lutherans in Pest following the Patent of Toleration: the social-historical factors, namely the social networking, behind the successful establishment of individuals who were at the forefront of early capitalist wholesale trade and who deserve attention beyond the boundaries of church history. The term “network of relationships” is used to illustrate the extent of these (blood and affinal) relationships, primarily by presenting two family trees, but also considers other types of relationships and finds that these connections, linked to different social institutions, often overlap, and reinforce each other. The final part of the paper seeks to make this picture more dynamic by looking at further events in the people’s life course (the locations of schooling and commercial training years as well as the principals themselves), which help to trace the mechanisms of network-based operation.