Metadata: County Court Sălaj. Urbarial cases
Collection
- Country:
- Romania
- Holding institution:
- Romanian National Archives, Directorate of Sălaj County
- Holding institution (official language):
- Arhivele Naţionale Româna, Direcţia judeţeană Sălaj
- Postal address:
- Tudor Vladimirescu Str. No. 26A, Zalău 450067, judeţul Sălaj, Romania
- Phone number:
- 0040-260-611016
- Email:
- salaj@arhivelenationale.ro
- Reference number:
- Fond 43
- Title:
- County Court Sălaj. Urbarial cases
- Title (official language):
- Tribunalul judeţului Sălaj. Cauze urbariale
- Creator/accumulator:
- County Court Sălaj
- Date(s):
- 1780/1910
- Language:
- German
- Hungarian
- Latin
- Extent:
- 1 linear metre (44 files)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
- The fonds contains cases judged by Sălaj County Court concerning relations between landlords and their former serfs after the imperial decrees of 1854 which abolished the obligations of the serfs to the noblemen owners of the estates. The cases largely concern conflicts about the use of pastures, woods and communal lands and the merging and distribution of land parcels to former serfs. The county courts judged the cases in the first instance, with the possibility of appeal to higher judicial authorities. Jewish-related material can be found in cases of Jewish landowners from villages in Sălaj County from before the First World War.
- Archival history:
- The inventoried and microfilmed fonds is preserved in the Romanian National Archives, Directorate of Sălaj County.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The process of judgement of property disputes between landlords and the peasants on their estates has its origins in the beginning of the period of Austrian reformism during the reign of Empress Maria Theresa (1740–80), when responsibility for such cases was transferred from the landlords to the county judiciary. The Austrian government issued decrees in 1854 which liberated former serfs of their obligations to the landlords, and cases appearing during their application were heard by special land courts, which functioned until 1861 when their jurisdiction was given to county courts, a situation which continued until the First World War. The system was then transformed by the radical agrarian reforms of 1921 implemented by the new Romanian regime.
- Access points: locations:
- Sălaj
- Subject terms:
- Legal matters
- Real estate
- System of arrangement:
- The collection is arranged in chronological order.
- Finding aids:
- Inventory No. 85 of the Romanian National Archives, Directorate of Sălaj County.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Romanian Institute for the Research of National Minorities
- Author of the description:
- Anton Dörner (retired researcher), Ladislau Gyémánt (emeritus professor, Cluj-Napoca), 2016