Service and education: the Royal Hungarian Bodyguard as a cultural institution in eighteenth-century Vienna

Abstract

The Royal Hungarian Bodyguard, founded in 1760, was the first guard unit at the Viennese court to be recruited on a territorial basis and exclusively from noblemen. The establishment of the Guard served three purposes: to significantly increase the presence of Hungarians at court, to represent the monarch (the power of the sovereign) and the Hungarian estates, and to provide a cultural space for young Hungarian noblemen. For them, the Guard became an aid in building patron-client relations and in orientation in the court environment, which was especially important for the natives of eastern Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania as well as for Protestant noblemen. The article examines the role of the Guard in expanding the cultural horizons of young Hungarian nobles. The purpose of the paper is to present the role of the guard as an instrument of education and acculturation of Hungarian nobles against the background of well-known and recently discovered sources, such as guard establishment proposals, school register books and so forth, and to awaken interest of international research to the importance of this special institution. At the beginning of the article, an overview of the early proposals of the establishment of the Guard is given, then the principles of its operation are described, and finally, several examples are given to illustrate the role of the Guard in the careers of Hungarian magnates and noblemen.