A Historical and Archival Guide to Székesfehérvár (Székesfehérvár, 2003)

THE HISTORY OF SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR TOWN ARCHIVES

index books were modernised,

44 and taking the minutes of municipal meetings were regulated.

45 Preserving documents was not the only task of the archives. One of the town's statutes from the 1 8

lh century ordained that valuables, money, objects that were found in the territory of the town must be handed to the judge or a church. A part of the articles that had been given to the judge went into the archives. The archives had some treasury functions. Deposits were placed in the archives. In Székesfehérvár the first data about it is from the middle of the 18

th century, when János Olai requested the delivery of his maternal inheritance, which had been placed in the archives. It was money first of all that had been given in trust, and valuables in the second place. The town sometimes used the deposits to cover its costs, but anybody could take them as loan. Therefore the council made a special report to the royal commissioner on the interest of the capital that had been withdrawn from the deposits in the archives. The movable property of those who died in the town without heir were placed in the archives before the public sale. In some cases public funds were taken care of by the archives. The money in the archives had to be replaced with new money in case of devaluation.

46 The archives not exclusively performed this safe deposit function. Private persons left silver coins, silver-ware, deposit vouchers in the archives, and it actually happened that a person in military service deposited his documents and valuables with the archives. As a result in 1 826 a safer door was made for the archives' room. From the late 18

th century mostly the land registration office guarded the lost property and money. From the late 1830s because of the money left in this office - together with other, mainly advance money that was usual with the buying and selling of real estates - it was also called deposit pay-office.

47 The duties of the archivist were regulated by the organisational statute during the development of civil administration. The statutes issued in the spring of 1848 drew the duties of the archives only in outline: "The directive for the archives is that original documents can not he given to anybody from other towns

48 without the permission of the authority and must be kept in order all the time":

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