The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES - An Overview of Catholic Ecclesiastical Archives by Andor Lakatos
Imperial document (Archives of Székesfehérvár Diocese) arranging work there could be personal associations, also. It is not a coincidence that Bishop Károly Eszterházy of Eger started to arrange the archives of that town in 1779, during his bishopric. He also arranged the archives of Vác in 1761 when he was bishop there. Furthermore, Archbishop József Batthyány arranged the archives in Kalocsa the beginning of 1760s and doing the same after transferring to Esztergom between 1779 and 1786. This kind of cataloging work continued until the 19 th century in which it was typical to group, classify and locate documents on thematic basis. This practice continued with a few exceptions until the introduction of a different filing systems. The first data on the archives of Catholic Church published in 1870 for scientific research. We can note the growing interest of researchers that the Hungarian Historic Association had by their methodical visits to archives and their surveys of ecclesiastical archives; and co-workers positive reports about lectures given by the Association. The first informative publications and descriptions were published; first the archives of chapter of Gyulafehérvár, 1880, 1898 ; the abbey of Pannonhalma, 1896 and in the form of source publications the most important documents of the archives were published; and the first collected medieval documents. The legislative Act no. XXXV of 1874 introduced the office of notary public and stopped the work of authentic places. This activity was decreased because of the growth of education and the dissemination of literature. The chapters did not issue new 'country' documents and the old ones were stored separately; they were called: country archives. Their maintenace was regulated by state laws later on the repository of private and authentic place archives of the chapter remained in the churches. They were later moved from these places only in the second half of the 20 th century.
