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

Győr-Sopron Megyei l.sz. Levéltár (Győr-Sopron County Archives (No.l.)

preserves the administrative and judicial records of the nobilitary county from the beginning of the seventeenth century continually. The most important organ of the corporative nobilitary county, the general assembly was a regularly sitting body at the beginning of the seventeenth century, dealing with questions pertaining to the life, juristic relations and land possession of the population living in its territory. After the expulsion of the Turks, in the early eighteenth century the administrative and judicial tasks of the county magistrates have grown, as it is testified by the separation of the management of administrative and judicial records in 1701. The decrees of Joseph II between 1786 and 1790 meant a break in the history of county administration; the counties Györ and Moson were united during this period. The activity of the nobilitary general assembly ceased, the administration and the jurisdiction were organized separately. The Archives has the most complete series of records (records of the county administration and jurisdiction, papers of the sub-prefect, the tax-collector, the chief constables, survey data) from this period, even if regarded in comparison with the national level. After the death of Joseph II the earlier system was restored, remaining valid up to 1848, the victorious bourgeois revolution with minor modifications. In the archival material of the nobilitary general assembly till 1848 several series are distinguished, increased in course of administrative development: records related to the diets, nobilitary privilege, socage ("urbarial" matters), orphanage, jurisdiction (inquests, attestations), also those of committees of the general assembly (in the matter of cholera epidemics, of the French assault of 1809, of nobilitary taxation). From the period of the transition to the capitalist period the Archives has a rich material as to the local events and administration of the bourgeois revolution and the fight for freedom in 1848/49. This archival group contains many valuable data on the activity of the liberal and conservative group of local political life, on the situation and conditions of life of the peasants. Of the county archival material of the period of absolutism (1849-1867) the collection on the consolidation of holdings and the attached collection of maps have the greatest significance. For those dealing with agrarian history the records of this archival group supply the most valuable information from the end of the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth. The archival groups of the self-government of the bourgeois period of the county (records of the Lord Lieutenant, the sub-prefect, the chief constables) are rich and valuable sources for each branch of research. Among the