Metadata: Records of General and Partial Congregations 1790-1848
Collection
- Country:
- Hungary
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of Hungary, Csongrád County Archives, Szeged
- Holding institution (official language):
- Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Csongrád Megyei Levéltára, Szeged
- Postal address:
- 6701 Szeged, Pf. 460
- Phone number:
- +36 62 425 199
- Web address:
- http://mnl.gov.hu/mnl/csml/mnl_csml_szeged
- Email:
- csml@mnl.gov.hu
- Reference number:
- IV.A.3.a
- Title:
- Records of General and Partial Congregations 1790-1848
- Title (official language):
- Köz-és kisgyűlési jegyzőkönyvek 1790-1848
- Creator/accumulator:
- Csanád county
- Date(s):
- 1790/1848
- Language:
- Latin
- Hungarian
- Extent:
- 10.03 linear metres (21 boxes. 118 volumes)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection includes the records of general congregations and partial congregations in Csanád county archives from the period of 1790-1848. The ‘Records of General and Partial Congregations 1790-1848’ collection is part of the extensive collection ‘Documents of the congregation of nobilities in Csanád county 1790-1848’.
The collection covers the documents of the congregation of nobilities in Csanád County. After the death of Joseph II the county regained its independence, which had the effect of restoring the former congregation system. General congregations constituted the intermediate level of public administration towards the end of the feudal administration system, and fulfilled the roles of public administration and partially jurisdiction. The congregations of the county, the local authority of the given county and the measures imposed on the county were the privileges of nobilities. However, from the 19th century non-nobles (especially the members of wealthy social classes and officials) could also take part in the congregations.
The documents feature submissions to congregations, investigations, notifications, reports, lists of tax assessments and liabilities. In addition, they similarly include orders of emissaries, reports, correspondence with other counties, commands of the Royal Council of Governor-general, reports or orders for the operation of guilds, information on transport (roads, bridges) and various types of inventories. The subjects of the documents include contracts, promissory notes, debt securities, decisions about debts and collections, cases of trespassing, lawsuits of landlords and tenants of farming leases, service obligations imposed on peasants, issues of insurrection, conscriptions of tenants, surveys of estates, provisions and equipment for noble insurgents, warfare against the French and encouragement for soldiers, spreading of the Hungarian language and orders to use it in official places with notarial functions, appointment of officials, support for the handicraft trade, regulations and rules regarding guilds, religious affairs, regulations on salt transport along the Maros river, discords and issues of nationalities (Serbian, Romanian) and the immigration of Armenians. The documents were predominantly written in Hungarian, but some of them are in Latin and German. The volumes of the source material include the congregation meetings in certain years in chronological order.
The registries contain substantial Jewish-related information under the record number 7180. The number of records showed a large growth in the 19th century, which was the result of the settlement of the Jewish population in the county and the priority status they gained in public life. Both the general and partial congregations discussed the emerging issues in a specified order, therefore Jewish cases were not separated. As a result, Jewish-related entries are scattered in the records. These entries are similar to the other ones in the material: they comprise orders imposed on the Jews by the Council of Governor-General or the county, inventories, lists of tax assessments, notifications, reports and petitions submitted by Jewish citizens. The types of the remaining documents are the very diverse: information on migration, petitions for settlement, warrants of caption for escapees, search for foreign escapees, farming leases contracted with landlords and lawsuits related to them, contracts, debt certificates, business relationships with the members of the local community and also with the county, commercial activities (peddling, small and wholesale trading), handicraft trade, cowhide purchase, conflicts with guilds, schedules for debt payment or collection, crimes where where victims could also be the perpetrators, horse theft, murders, use of fake money, taxes imposed on Jewish citizens, rate of tolerance tax, the volume and recovery of arrears, obligation for the recruitment of soldiers, issues of inheritance, religious affairs, community cases and issues of conversion. The groups of various subjects highlight that both the issues of public administration and jurisdiction are available in the collection.
The source material illustrates the wide spectrum of social relationships: the formation of a national system of economic relationships (issues of debt, trade), county-level (especially) business relationships, as meeting points with the members of the local society and relationships of members within the Jewish society. The source material presents the development and changes in the situation of the Jews in parallel with the increased number of regulations in the county and the related documents. Although the documents provide substantial material primarily about the members of the Jewish community in Makó, geographically the sources are also scattered. Cases of Jewish citizens in Tornya, Földeák, Nagylak, Sajtény and Battonya were also included in the collection. Characteristically, the number of records referring to certain members of the Jewish society is dominant, as opposed to issues related to communities in the county. Name censuses represent a particularly valuable source among the related entries, ordered as a result of tax assessment and obligatory recruitment. Moreover, family names became more common in Jewish society during this time. Based on the sources, the activities of certain traders or farm lease tenants are traceable for several years or decades (Brád, Iretz families).
- Archival history:
- The Csanád county archives were established in 1717. The document collection was maintained in the office building of the county seat, Makó. The turbulent past of the county and its territorial transformations (for example, it was merged with Békés and Csanád counties in the 1780s, and Szegvár became the new county seat) affected the placement of the collection. The new collection was stored in the new centre, and some selected old documents were transferred to Szegvár. Csanád County remained in Makó (although the counties were also temporarily transformed in the 19th century). September 1950 marked fundamental changes when Szeged became the new county seat, since Csanád County was merged into Csongrád county. The documents concerning the newly developed territory of the county were transported to Szeged, where they are available today. However, the municipality of Makó seeks to place the former Csanád county documents in its own archives building, and the collection might return to Makó again.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The country town of Makó became the centre of Csanád County in 1790. Meetings of the nobility were held and the records were maintained here. The congregations of the nobility (generalis congregatio and particularis congregatio) created the collection of documents. The volumes were bound on a yearly basis.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Iretz
- Nagylak, Sajtény
- System of arrangement:
- The records of general and partial congregations are structured as follows: abstracts of court cases and sentences in the county are available in the records. Records of partial congregations were bound together with those of general congregations, in 83 volumes. The record No. 1831 is not available in the archives (however, the brief extracts of the index books provides information on concerned issues) and in some cases, the records of specific meetings in certain years also disappeared. As the latter ones were not bound together with the document collection, they presumably got lost while they were being bound together, once the index books had been completed, in the 18-19th centuries. The index books generally comprise materials related to one year. In some cases, due to the growing number of entries, materials of certain years constituted more than one volume, e.g. the year 1847 is included in four volumes.
- Access, restrictions:
- It is likely that this material will be moved to Makó, where it will be unavailable for an undefined period of time.
- Finding aids:
- Index books related to the records were placed at the end of the collection. They include the short abstracts of the entries. The location of the index book for 1848 is unknown.
- Yerusha Network member:
- University of Szeged
- Author of the description:
- Dr. Tibor Almási and Dr. Erzsébet Mislovics, University of Szeged, 2019
