The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES - An Overview of Catholic Ecclesiastical Archives by Andor Lakatos
The history of ecclesiastical archives is invaribly related to the changes that have occurred in the church organization. The first chapter cathedrals as advisory bodies were soon organized to help the work of the bishops leading the dioceses founded by Saint Stephen. As a result, the two types of catholic archives belonging to diocese were formed. They still exist today and remain unaltered. For example, in the form of archives of bishop and in the form of chapter. In the main diocese, the archdiocese that is in charge of archbishops estates, we can find archives on archbishop as well as on chapters. Along with the developement of the ecclesiastical organizations, numerous monasteries also spread and began to flourish in Hungary. Due to this the new function, chapters and certain monastic convents appeared at the end of the 12 th century. Theses institutions provided legal authorization. Among these were to issue authentic documents and to have probative value even in legal proceedings and retain their copies. The authentic places - in Europe in a special and exceptional way - performed the tasks of a notary public. This meant they replaced the missing notary public, in Hungary they had to do the livery of seizin, they registered inheritance, land properties and deeds of sale, and they kept these documents separately and in a separate registry. The work of authentic places became more generalized in the middle of the 13 th century, whereby they began to use their own seals. They issued documents at the request of individual clients and issued authentic copies at the request of the royal court. The first formularies duties were to write in Latin and write The authentic seal of Kalocsa Cathedral Chapter, 1739. (The Archives of Archbishop and Cathedral Chapter of Kalocsa)
