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

Az Egri Érsekség Levéltára (Eger Archiépiscopal Archives)

1649, having their seat there till the 1690s. After the liberation of Eger in 1687 the bishops György FENESY and István TELEKESSY and the chapter occupied their ancient seat for good. After the return from the exile, in the early eighteenth century the episcopal chancellery and the Court Christian kept the arriving records and the decisions without filing. Nor were the drafts of the expeditions preserved. But from 1745, the enthronement of bishop Barkóczy, the protocols contained the drafts of the expeditions in copy, instead of the law-suits of the Court Christian, becoming epistolaries up to 1804. From Barkóczy the bundles of such law-suits were attached to the judicial records. The bishop Károly ESZTERHÁZY opened a separate room in 1779 for the archives in his chancellery, then he ordered the archivist of the Court Christian to register the records. In the course of this work an arrangement according to subjects was executed, the records were classified into bundles marked with block letters, and each of them received an Arabic numeral. As a result registers were gained. This ecclesiastical archives (archivum, conservatorium, tabularium) fulfilled also the tasks of the registry, as it gathered, managed and preserved the recent records of the episcopal chancellery and the Court Christian. After the death of the bishop Esterházy the disproportionately large diocese of Eger was partitioned. In 1804 the bishoprics of Kassa and Szatmár were formed from some parts, while the bishopric of Eger was raised to the rank of a metropolitan archdiocese. Since then it remained competent for Heves, Borsod and Szabolcs counties, a part of Szolnok county, the Jász and the Hajdu districts. In 1804 the records pertaining to the territories of the two new dioceses were separated and soon sent to them. As to the division of the archives an agreement came to being, according to which the new dioceses may take the originals of those records which pertain to their territories only, but they should copy those pertaining to the archdiocese of Eger in any respect and carry the copies to their new archives. Consequently the original series of the diocesan protocols (from 1600 to 1804), containing numerous data on the segregated Kassa and Szatmár dioceses, remained in Eger. The volume of the archival material decreased by about 40 per cent through this act, and also the order of the archives was mixed up, therefore the archbishop Fuchs ordered the full rearrangement of the remaining records in 1805. In the course of this the archival material of the episcopal period prior to 1804 was closed, the ancient system of references (with block letters) abolished, and the earlier records have been classified into