Palatine Lajos Batthyány appointed Imre Csintó the first archives manager of the Archivum Regni on 1 March 1756, creating the legal predecessor of the Hungarian National Archives. But the history of the royal archives dates back to beginning of the12th century, with the establishment of the chancellery, the central body in charge of written documents, and the decree by King Béla III' in 1181 introducing a written record of administration.
The royal chancellery became more organized, with the creation of a separate authority for each department, thanks to Lajos I's reforms in the Anjou era. The royal documents -- an insignificant amount at this stage -- followed the relocation of the court to Visegrad. After the Hungarians? crushing defeat by the Turks in Mohács in 1526, the royal archives had to be rescued. Some of the documents were boxed and shipped to Bratislava. However, the Esztergom castle captain attacked some of the boats carrying the documents. Some were lost, but Lajos II's widow, Maria Habsburg, had seen to it that numerous documents were taken to Spain and the Netherlands. Hungary?s king after the defeat, János Szapolyai, also took a selection from the papers.
The major share of the royal documents were scattered across the country under Turkish occupation. The Turkish invaders took an ambivalent approach to the country?s documents, burning some, but saving others.
In the early 17th century, a decision was made to hand the country?s documents over to Prince Mátyás. Palatine István Illésházy began collecting the important documents. A 1613 regulation stated that the original documents possessed by the palatine's widow must be handed over to the estates of the realm. The term Archivum Regni was interpreted as the estates archives from then on.
After the reclaiming of Buda from the Turks and the calming of the political situation, the estates encouraged the establishment of a national archive in 1689. There were plans to set up the archives where the parliament was housed. However, these plans eventually fell through because of the Rákóczi freedom fight.
The issue of the archives was repeatedly brought up in parliamentary sessions in the 18th century. It was mostly the noble classes that encouraged the archiving of the documents, in order to form a record of political and economic power. A decision was taken to set up the Archivum Regni in the Parliament in Bratislava in 1723, yet its implementation was delayed for various reasons.
Lajos Batthyány's appointment as palatine signalled a turnaround in the history of the archives, as Batthyány's family possessed one of the most highly organized collection of documents at the time.
Csintó was appointed on 1 March 1756. With his appointment a detailed set of guidelines on how to sort the documents in the collections of the palatine and the Archivum Regni were also drawn up. Csintó had to draft an index of the entire Archivum Regni to enable searches.
The archives grew at a remarkable pace in the 18th century. In 1784, the institution was moved from Bratislava to Buda, but the designated building was too small to house the vast number of documents.
In 1854, Ferenc Toldy recommended the foundation of the Hungarian Historical Archives, and an initiative was launched to collect an outstanding number of documents. The 1876 founding of the Hungarian Historical Society prompted demand for the National Archives. The interior ministry supported the idea, though funding and accommodation issues remained unresolved. Historian Gyula Pauler was appointed national archives manager in 1874. Pauler made arrangements to store the material according to both their chronology and their place of origin.
Pauler wanted to move the documents from the interior ministry to a larger building. Samu Pecz drafted the plans for this building in 1898, after studying other European archives. Construction began in 1913, but was not completed until 11 years later. Both the building and the materials stored in it suffered major damage in both World War II and the 1956 revolution.
