The Abbey founded by Prince Géza in 996 must have had its archives in all likelihood from the beginning whose first item is the letters-patent issued by Saint Stephen to the monastery in 1001. Apart from short interruptions, the archives was always kept in its original place, it was moved to Győr, a place of greater security, only during the Turkish occupation of Hungary, and – following the Order’s dissolution by Joseph II – it was moved to Buda until the beginning of the 19th century. Owing to the careful preservation, its documents of earlier periods lasted for the most part, thus one of the most abundant and valuable collections of charters from the first centuries of the existence of the state of Hungary can be found in Pannonhalma. In addition to the monastery’s interpolated letters-patent, the register from the period of Saint Ladislaus (circa 1093) and the first original papal charter (issued by Paschalis II in 1102) available in our country are kept here. A valuable part of the Capsarium is formed by the great number of private charters from the 12th century. Together with the documents of other mediaeval abbeys, many similarly valuable early charters got to Pannonhalma: the foundation deed of the Abbey of Tihany is the earliest sporadic relic of the Hungarian language, and the deed of donation by Prince David preserved the seal of Saint Ladislaus for us. The register of the goods of the Abbey of Bakonybél from the period of Saint Ladislaus also comes from the 11th century. The archives was kept in the treasury according to a charter from the beginning of the 13th century. The groupings of the charters in Liber Ruber, the cartulary completed before the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241-42, render it probable that royal and papal charters were stored separately. It is partly confirmed by the inventory of the archives written on 3 folios circa 1400; the individual charters in it are marked by references for the first time in our country. According to this inventory, the documents were kept in the library then, but the documents of the ecclesiastical body entrusted with notarial functions, which started its operation in the 13th century, were separated from the archives of the Order. At the beginning of the 18th century, the documents were filed into capsae and fasciculi, and they were completed with duplicate books and indices. In 1723, the Archabbey’s notarial function was revived, which involved the creation of a new seal. In the 19th century, Mór Czinár working as an archivist for three decades continued the process of organization and making references. The serial of the Archabbot’s documents – completed with a register-book and index – was created in 1866, and the documents of the Order’s management were also separately collected from the middle of the 19th century. At the turn of the century, Viktor Récsei arranged the charters of the Capsarium into a series of chronological order. In the 17th and the 18th centuries, the collection of the archives was completed with the documents of the reorganized abbeys (Bakonybél, Tihany, Dömölk) and the old archival material of many vanished abbeys, and ultimately with the archives of the Abbey of Zalavár, which joined the Hungarian Benedictine Congregation only at the end of the 19th century. After the end of the 19th century, the archives was enriched with significant family deposits (Guary, Chernel, Somogyi, Kende, Erdődy families). In 1945, the archives of Stephanie Belgian Royal Princess and her husband, Prince Elemér Lónyay got to Pannonhalma by virtue of bequest. The collection interest of the archives includes the documents of the Hungarian Benedictine Congregation: of the Archabbey in Pannonhalma, of all its abbeys, monasteries and affiliated houses, as well as those of the Territorial Abbey. Among these, outstanding ones are the documents of the Order’s administration, those of the offices of the Archabbot and the Prior, those of the General Chapter; in addition, the documents of the educational institutions, those of the offices of the management and business associations, and the documents of the institutions of the affiliated houses are also important components of the field of interest.
Archivists since 1802
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Archivists chief archivists, directors of the archives |
Archivists associate archivists, assistant archivists |
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| 1802-1811 | Vacancy | |||
| 1811-1812 | Pendl Alajos | |||
| 1812-1816 | Vacancy | |||
| 1816-1819 | Pendl Alajos | |||
| 1820-1823 | Predmerszky Döme | |||
| 1823-1827 | Pendl Alajos | |||
| 1827-1829 | Fenix Farkas | |||
| 1829-1832 | Czinár Mór | |||
| 1832-1842 | Szeder Fábián | |||
| 1831-1838 | Farkas Vince | |||
| 1842-1870 | Czinár Mór | |||
| 1842-1843 | Sárkány Miklós | |||
| 1867-1870 | Ballay Valér | |||
| 1872-1884 | Sztahovics Remig | |||
| 1884-1885 | Wendler László | |||
| 1885-1888 | Haudek Ágoston | |||
| 1889-1893 | Horváth Bálint | |||
| 1894-1899 | Récsei Viktor | |||
| 1899-1906 | Erdélyi László | |||
| 1899-1900 | Danka Placid | |||
| 1902-1905 | Rezner Tibold | |||
| 1906-1919 | Sörös Pongrác | |||
| 1919-1937 | Mihályi Ernő | |||
| 1937-1940 | Hollósi Konrád | |||
| 1940-1943 | Lovas Elemér | |||
| 1943-1946 | Mihályi Ernő | |||
| 1949-1950 | Csóka Lajos | |||
| 1950-1951 | Bánhegyi Jób | |||
| 1951-1980 | Csóka Lajos | |||
| 1962-1967 | Tibold Attila | |||
| 1967-1981 | Csóka Gáspár | |||
| 1979-2009 | Reichardt Aba | |||
| 1981-2012 | Csóka Gáspár | |||
| 2004-2012 | Dénesi Tamás | |||
| 2012- | Dénesi Tamás | |||
| 2013- | Boros Zoltán | |||