This study examines the land inheritance practices of an eighteenth-century Sekler gentry family. The main source is an inheritance agreement signed in May 1755, which recorded the distribution of property among three siblings and their families after the death of the parents. The inter-generational transference of estates is characterised by male inheritance, females received movable property at the time of their marriage. The siblings took into account the size of the plots, soil quality, the financial situation of the families, and their earlier, unresolved property history. They divided and assumed individual ownership over the 138 separate plots of land inherited from their parents, however, their ownership was not entirely individual in the modern sense of the word. According to their original ownership status the plots of land were categorised into ancient and pledged estates, that is, acquisitions. Not every inherited estate was divided, undivided estates were inheritable and sometimes even remained in shared use. For the three heirs, ancient property was a joint institution, which helped to maintain social cohesion: it controlled actions and imposed duties on landowners for the benefit of social and individual security. Pledged property was considered individual acquisition, thus the user of these lands assumed full right of disposal over them, as long as the pledger or their relative did not redeem those as ‘closer kin’ on the basis of fee tail rights. Thus, besides the joint and individual ownership by siblings, the inter-generational transference of estates involved the exclusive franchise ‘by blood’ and the shared responsibilities of fee tail. Temporary property rights over pledged estates were similar to property rights over individualised, privately owned property: heirs did not have a strict duty to keep them together.

Following the euphoric weeks of the re-annexation, after the second Vienna decision in fall 1940 the Transylvanian territories re-annexed to post-Trianon soon began to experience conflicts and tensions both in the relationship between the state and society and among the various social groups as well. The paper takes the example of two Seckler counties – Csík and Udvarhely – to examine the development of the relationship between the state and the various groups of society, as well as between these groups themselves. In public discourse, the state featured as a personified entity: usually as an understanding, benevolent and charitable party, toward which society should be grateful. There was, however, another type of discourse in Transylvania: this regarded the relationship between the state and the organizations of society critically, criticized the extended authority of state institutions and emphasized the necessity of the independence of social organizations. A new phenomenon in the local societies of the Seckler region following the re-annexation was the tension between the „parachutists” coming from the parent country and the „natives”. The social basis of this tension was that such „parachutists” usually landed in better jobs and social positions, while the role of Transylvanian social organizations shrunk. The attitude of producer groups towards the state was fundamentally different from that of the state employees. The state interfered with the self-subsistent independence of such groups via the amendment of taxation rules, the regulation of produce prices and wages, thereby upsetting the traditions and customs of farming. The introduction of the new taxation rules gave rise to the most complaints. The administrative measures aimed at the establishment of wages did not harmonize with the traditional conditions of exchange in the region.