The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL ARCHIVES OF NATIONAL COLLECTION - Hungarian National Archives by Géza Érszegi and István G. Vass
the earlier centuries. Records like royal warrants, acts, parliamentary writings, documents of peace of treaties etc. An important step leading to the development of an independent archives was the legislation of the XLV legislative act in the year of 1723, in which the setting up of the National General Archives was declared by the estates. Its task was to preserve the documents or records of the country: documents such as those of Parliament, administration and courts. It also had to collect the writings relating to the country that could be found with individual people. But these regulations were realized only more than three decades later due to the strong instructions of the palatine, Lajos Battyhány. He started a national movement for finding and collecting records lost from earlier times and was responsible for appointing the first permanent clerk of the archives in 1756. With the help of it and its instructions, the Archives of the Country could really begin its independent, institution-like work. As a result of these preparations, the year of 1756 can be considered the year in which the Hungarian National, Archives were first established. The Archives of the Country existed in Bratislava until 1785, then moved to the settlement of Buda later to Országház /Parliament/ street. In the decades that followed, the Archives collected the records of parliaments, the records sent by the committees of Parliaments and palatines and the Lord Chief Justice. The competence of the Archives of the Country did not cover the writings of central government authority since according to the point of view of the estates they were subordinated to the authorities of the king. The most important authorities among these were the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery first established in the 16 th century, re-organized at the beginning of the 18 th century, then the Court Chancellery and the Council of governor-general set up in 1723. The public documents of Principality of Transylvania were kept in a particular area of Transylvania. These were the so-called authentic places like the archives of the Chapter of the town of Gyulafehérvár and the Convent of Kolozsmonostor. These archives were taken out of the hands of the ecclesiastical bodies during the spread of Reformation, after the formation of the Principality of Transylvania. Looking after these records was the task of officials who were appointed first by the Princes of Transylvania then later by Parliaments. At the same time a law was enacted to ensure that records that were extremely important from the point of view of principality and the inhabitants of the country had to be kept there. On the other hand, princes placed other documents such as documents of government, letters and ambassadors' reports at the authentic archives of principality at Gyulafehérvár. These archives had to undergo through many difficult ordeals because of historical changes in the princely dynasty, and experienced considerable damage because of the devastation and plundering
