Lakos János: A Magyar Országos Levéltár története (Budapest, 2006)
A képek jegyzéke
end of the 12th century. Presumably, it existed as a private archives even during the reign of King Béla III, and records with national relevance but not concerning royal goods were transferred there in the 13th century. The royal archives became public in the medieval sense in the 14th century through royal register-books (regestrum regale, libri regii), papal bulls, national letters patent and mortgage bonds as well as records concerning the borders of the country etc. Usually, sources mention it as regale conservatorium. At the beginning the Royal Chapel Officer (comes capellae), then the Chief Treasurer (tavemicorum regalium magister) was appointed the President responsible for the archival material. During the Turkish occupation of most of Hungary's territories and the war of independence the royal archives got scattered and perished. For this reason - and due to the new Habsburg king - it could not promote the establishment of a modem and central state archives. The second part of the publication deals with the history of archives in the country divided into three parts in 1541. Archives of the royal government organs (first the Regency, later the Locotenential Council, the Treasury) operating in the area under Habsburg authority, i.e. the Royal Hungary, were not regarded as national records according to the contemporary opinion. Records with national importance were kept by the palatine (palatinus regni), the first knight-banneret representing the rights of the estates, presumably on the basis of a pre-1526 custom. In 1613 the law enacted the palatine's function of keeping public records. According to that act, the palatine's heirs were obliged to transfer national records to the Diet for the new palatine who, likewise his predecessors, kept them in the iron case of the country (cista/theca regni). From the end of the 17th century, that negligible amount of records - consisting of 11 charters in 1613, 45 charters and 3 fasciculi in 1681 - was called the national archives. In 1681 the Diet of the Estates passed an act to ensure that national records kept by the Treasury be transferred to the palatine, but it failed to come about. Mainly for the reason of disposing the possession of the territories recaptured from the Turks, collecting the records suitable for proving proprietary rights became essential for the Estates from the end of the 17'1 century. The first and unsuccessful plan of establishing a permanent archives with its own building and staff was initiated by Ferenc Klobusiczky in 1701. Then the Act XLV of 1723 ordered the foundation of such an institution and the collecting of national public records. However, nothing happened for two decades. Establishing the Archivum Regni (archives of the country) 520
