Dr. Péter Balázs: Guide to the archives of Hungary (Budapest, 1976)

(Special Archives of Churches) - (Archives of the Catholic Church) - Esztergomi Prímási Levéltár (Esztergom Primatial Archives)

change in the life of the archives. In the spirit of Enlightenment and rationalism, in the age of birth of modern historical science, this great personality valued the material also from a historical point of view, so he let it be entirely rearranged according to a system valid essentially up to our day. The thus rearranged archives have grown to the multiple volume under the primate Batthyány and returned to Esztergom in 1820, together with the archbishopric, at the enthronement of the primate Sándor RUDNAY. After temporary placements it was allotted a stack-room with iron framework on three levels by the primate János SIMOR in the Primatial Palace, built in the early 1880s. The most valuable parts of the material are still in this stack-room. Its more recent (nineteenth and twentieth century) domanial records and the duplicates of registers were, however, placed in one of the first floor stack-rooms of the Basilica. World War II did not cause any damage to the archives. The Primatial Archives is maintained by the Esztergom Archdiocesan Authority. Its ecclesiastical supervisor is the National Catholic Collections Center, the professional state control is exercised by the Archival Board of the Ministry of Culture. In 1970 the Minister of Culture declared it a special archives, in application of the Archives Act. Beside the leader a pensionary is active in it as a part-time scientific collaborator. * The most ancient charter of the archives is an original issued by king Béla II in 1138. The charters prior to Mohács are separated and kept in a collection, they total 873 pieces. Each of them is preserved in a separate envelope and the collection is situated in a closed wardrobe. Their management and preservation is helped by the chronological collection of their calendars and another in the order of references. The archival material totals 3000 running metres. The records of the archbishopric are devided into two large series, a) The Archivum Ecclesiasticum contains the records of church administration in the strict sense; those prior to 1776 (to Batthyány) are called Archivum Ecclesiasticum Vetus since the arrangement of the time, those after 1776 Archivum Ecclesiasticum Novum. The records up to 1799 are provided with an excellent contemporary Index Generalis (index to persons, places and subjects), the later ones are arranged, in the order of the primates, to socalled "Categoria"-s, groups according to subjects. There are indices and