Metadata: Documents of the regional court in Szatmár County
Collection
- Country:
- Hungary
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of Hungary, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County Archives, Nyíregyháza
- Holding institution (official language):
- Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg Megyei Levéltára, Nyíregyháza
- Postal address:
- 4400 Nyíregyháza, Széchenyi u. 4
- Phone number:
- +36 42 414 313
- Web address:
- http://www.szabarchiv.hu/drupal/elerhetosegunk
- Email:
- szszbml@mnl.gov.hu
- Reference number:
- IV.A.508
- Title:
- Documents of the regional court in Szatmár County
- Title (official language):
- Szatmár Vármegye Nemesi Törvényszékének az iratai
- Creator/accumulator:
- Szatmár county
- Date(s):
- 1645/1848
- Language:
- Latin
- Hungarian
- German
- Extent:
- 1.0 linear metres (6 boxes and 4 volumes)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The 'Documents of the regional court in Szatmár County' collection comprises the judicial documents of Szatmár County in the period of 1645-1848.
The collection is rather small. The subject-based classification of the collection features materials relating to criminal cases, mixed civil procedures and lawsuits, documents of the Supreme Court, the register of prisoners (1822-1829), testimonies, contracts, divisions, urbarialia, miscellium, refusals, protests, despotic issues and the description of the estate owned by the Kornis family in Szinyérváralja. The documents include material related to the life of the Jewish residents in Szatmár County. The documents were written in Hungarian and mostly in Latin, but some of them are in German as well.
Jewish related documents were not selected and treated as a separate unit. The documents can be found in six boxes under 11 headings. Some of the documents offer additional Jewish-related information to the main issue of the legal case: for example, it mentions a three-day long Jewish wedding in Szinyérváralja, 1769 (IV.A. 508. No 57.) in describing an investigation carried out according to normal practice in that era on the case of a child born out of wedlock. In another criminal case, one of the lads was the servant of “Benedek, the Jew” in 1766 (IV.A. 508. No 30.). Some other sources focusing on Jewish-related issues belong to another group of resources. In terms of their subjects, the documents deal with the following: lawsuits relating to economic transactions, payment of debt, trading with gold, issues of conversion, purchase transactions, businesses between Christian and Jewish inhabitants, businesses and lawsuits within the Jewish community, hiring lawyers, farming leases, crimes. The date of the oldest document is 1721 (IV.A. 508. No 21), which discusses the case of Polish gold traders. However, the majority of Jewish-related documents are from the 18th century and the early 19th century.
Besides the so-called unbound documents, the others are combined into volumes. The description of the Szinyérváralja estate (Volume 11), one of the four volumes, does not include Jewish-related materials. Volume 8 covers the sources of Royal Court decisions with about 6 Jewish-related entries. The oldest one is from 1786. The entries recorded sentences concerning issues of debt payment and farm leases. Volumes 9-10 are gaol-books from the period of 1822-1829. These records detailed the prisoners’ name, religion, date, location, cause of their arrest and the penalty. The names are not in alphabetical order, but religious affiliated is indicated. In documents written in Hungarian the expressions Jewish, Judeaus, Hebraus are used haphazardly and alternately when referring to their religion. There are about 52 entries related to Jewish inhabitants in the volume.
- Archival history:
-
The document collection of Szatmár County is based on documents preserved by county officials as no archives had been established before the 16th century. Therefore, mostly congregation records were collected in Szatmár County at the beginning. The categorisation of the collected materials started under the rule of Maria Theresa (1740-1780). The documents were also classified into subject groups at that time. The dossier was catalogued by Ferenc Schemberger in the 1770s. Although he and later those who archived the documents treated the civil and criminal cases separately, these were later included in a joint judicial fonds with other fragments.
The archives were established in Nagykároly and the documents collected previously were also held there. The emergence of the new borders after World War I resulted in the division of the archived documents and also the relocation of the archives. Part of the materials remained in Hungary, whereas the other part was taken to Romania. Documents of the congregation of nobilities were also divided regardless of their timespan. Due to air raids, the materials owned by Hungary were moved to Zajta in 1944 and then to Mátészalka during World War II. Finally, in 1950 they were placed in the newly established archives in Nyíregyháza where they are still held.
- Access points: locations:
- Nagykároly
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of documents in 6 boxes and 4 volumes. Their numbering is unclear. This is primarily due to the fact that civil lawsuits and criminal proceedings were initially numbered separately, but later they were united, and other pieces of documents were added to them. Moreover, volume 7 used to contain the copy of congregation records in Szatmár county in 1836, but it has been removed from the collection.
- Yerusha Network member:
- University of Szeged
- Author of the description:
- Dr. Tibor Almási and Dr. Erzsébet Mislovics, University of Szeged, 2019
