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Place of authentication


A "place of authentication" (Latin: locus credibilis, Hungarian: hiteleshely) was a legal institution peculiar to the Kingdom of Hungary. They were chapters or monasteries obliged to offer services similar the ones now provided by public notaries. For instance, they drew up contracts known as "confessions" (Latin: fassio), issued authentic copies (Latin: transsumptum) of any document kept by or presented to them, and bore witness to the scene of any sort of legal act. Besides their own archives, they also took care of private papers of local noblemen.

The institution came into being at the end of the 12th century, and it stopped functioning in the middle of the 19th century Around 1500 more than thirty ecclesiastic institutions functioned as such in the entire kingdom (out of which two in Transylvania, and also two in Slavonia), but the activities of most of them were restricted to some administrative districts called "counties", only four of them having an authority extending all over the kingdom. They left no room for the institution of public notaries, thus when the latter appeared in the kingdom after 1300, their activity was restricted to the field of canon law.

Until the late 12th century, only charters issued by the monarchs possessed legal credibility in the Kingdom of Hungary. However, in lawsuits between laymen it had already in the 11th century become customary for oaths to be taken and ordeals to be administered by members of ecclesiastic bodies, such as chapters and monasteries. Around 1200 at the latest chapters started to keep records of the cases that came before them. The earliest example of this practice is the Regestrum Varadinense that contains the minutes of 389 cases brought before the cathedral chapter of Várad (Oradea, Romania) between 1208 and 1235.


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