The compendium represent the achievements of the five researchers involved in the project of the above title. They contributed papers on specific life patterns of elites between the 16th and 18th centuries: on elite strategies during the Counter-Reformation (Counter-Reformation and the Conversion of the Protestant Nobility in Carniola. The impact of the conversion of Ditrich Auersperg in 1625 on the social rise of his immediate family), on the preservation of family name, status and wealth through adoption (Noble Adoptions and the Transfer of Noble Titles), on the social uplift of foreign non-nobles in the new homeland (Ambition, social-material strategies and practices in the Valvasor family), on the social strategies of the high nobility (Forms of charity of the Cobenzl family and social functions of charity for social status, careerism, estate management), and on the structure, work and material conditions of the land-prince clerkship in the 18th century. (Ambitions, careers and realities of the landed clergy in Carniola in the 18th century).