The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES - An Overview of Catholic Ecclesiastical Archives by Andor Lakatos
became frequently mixed or disordered. After the extirpation of Turkish the return of archives were extremely sporadic and slow.Very often it took many decades. Despite the fact that we cannot talk about methodical and wilful devastation of documents from the Turks there was considerable damage, loss of documents and mixing up. For the archives of this period the repercussions of their damage and destructions are still being felt today. The 18 th century was the period for rebuilding of the ecclesiastical organization. The bishoprics and chapters could finally 'move back home' to their old capitals in which they continued their authentic places activities. The Catholic Church was able to ascquire property on the territories re-occupied from the Turks. Most of the file series of the archives were continuous from this time on, the archives of parishes started to grow, the use of written records, literature became to increase. The state itself could not look at this process with folded arms and the Hapsburg rulers became active organizers in rebuilding of the Catholic Church. Maria Theresa, interpreting her right of a ruler and patronage in a wider sense established new dioceses by subdividing larger dioceses into smaller ones. The newly established dioceses obtained the old documents relating to their area from their 'mother dioceses'. The kings intervened in chruch affairs by appointing the bishops and chapters. Although they strictly regulated the economy of church properties and the enlightened royal rule could often be fulfilled with the help of the church, e.g. surveying sources of energy and population of the country or disseminating useful, practical knowledge and making them popular. During this in 1723 a law was issued on the formation of the archives of the country. While collecting the material of Archivum Regni the archives of authentic places were called upon to report or relinquish the country documents. In July, 1755, eleven country interest documents were selected from the chapter of Pozsony about which palatine was informed. From the gathered replies of other authentic places, that very few had any county documents to provide, most had been irreparabley destroyed. The enlightened royal plans often caused problems in the for monastic orders. The documents on a disbanded Jesuit order were delivered to the Hungarian Chamber in 1773 and the documents of other orders thought to be 'useless' were dissolved by Joseph II in 1782. In March, 1789, Joseph II. ordered that all the archives of chapters and authentic places be sent to Buda but this order was never fulfilled and he himself rescinded it a year later. During the same period, the baroque bishop's palaces were based on the designs of medieval castles in which the bishop's archives were placed. There was a demand for arranging the collected material from the beginning of the 18 th century. The files were marked by letters in thematic group and arranged in chronological order through a series of numbers. Parallel the lists of documents were made-, its Latin name is elenchusa. Behind the motivation of
