Thanks to the efforts of the Hungarian Heritage Archives Foundation, a significant document has recently been transferred to the Hungarian National Archives. The document is an authenticated transcription (transsumptionalis) issued by the cathedral chapter of Győr in its capacity as a place of authentication (locus credibilis). It was prepared at the request of Károly Halasy of Dévaványa, Royal Councillor and retired vicecomes (alispán) of Heves and Külső-Szolnok Counties, concerning his family’s patent of arms. The transcription was issued in Győr on 21 October 1832 in the form of a simple paper booklet, authenticated with the chapter’s seal. The original patent of arms (armalis) had been granted by King Matthias II in Vienna on 10 March 1618 to János Halasy—an ancestor of Károly Halasy—and, through him, to his wife Ilona Tőke (Teőke), as well as to their children Miklós, István, Pál, Mihály, and Anna. The charter was issued under the privy seal of the Kingdom of Hungary and countersigned by Bálint Lépes, Bishop of Nitra and royal chancellor. Alongside the grant of Hungarian nobility, the Halasy family received the following coat of arms, faithfully reproduced in the 1832 chapter transcription: on a golden shield, upon a black bend, a rampant double-tailed silver lion; above the shield, a crowned barred helmet is placed; in the crest, a double-tailed silver lion (rendered brown in the painting) holding in its dexter paw an arrow pointed downward; the mantling is blue lined with gold on the dexter side and red lined with silver on the sinister side. The transcription also incorporates the publication clause added to the original charter by Lőrinc Szily, sworn county notary, certifying that Komárom County officially proclaimed the grant of arms at its general assembly held in Komárom on 2 September 1619, thereby rendering it legally valid.
As several noble families bearing the name Halasy lived in Hungary, some descendants of János Halasy later distinguished themselves by adopting the territorial predicate “of Dévaványa” after acquiring estates on the Great Hungarian Plain. Among the descendants of the Catholic Halas(s)y family of Dévaványa was Paula Halassy (1839–1895), wife of István Horthy (1830–1904) and mother of Governor Miklós Horthy. (For the maternal ancestry of the Governor, see the study by Géza Cseh.) The Reformed Horthy family received its own grant of arms seventeen years later, in 1635.
The present whereabouts and fate of the original armorial charter remain unknown. Scholarly literature—including the study on the Halasy family and its heraldry published in 1901 by the national archivist András Komáromy—has known the document only through copies. According to Komáromy, the authenticated 1832 transcription, now preserved in a public collection, was still in the possession of József Halasy in 1901. Several copies of the 1618 Halasy armorial charter survive in the Hungarian National Archives; however, none of them contain a reproduction of the original heraldic miniature. This feature makes the newly acquired example particularly exceptional among the known copies. The archival reference number of the document transferred to the Hungarian National Archives through the generosity of the Hungarian Heritage Archives Foundation is: HU-MNL-OL-R 64-2.-771.
Anton Avar