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 Gy\u0151r in its capacity as a place of authentication (locus credibilis). It was prepared at the request of K\u00e1roly Halasy of D\u00e9vav\u00e1nya, Royal Councillor and retired vicecomes (alisp\u00e1n) of Heves and K\u00fcls\u0151-Szolnok Counties, concerning his family\u2019s patent of arms. The transcription was issued in Gy\u0151r on 21 October 1832 in the form of a simple paper booklet, authenticated with the chapter\u2019s seal. The original patent of arms (armalis) had been granted by King Matthias II in Vienna on 10 March 1618 to J\u00e1nos Halasy\u2014an ancestor of K\u00e1roly Halasy\u2014and, through him, to his wife Ilona T\u0151ke (Te\u0151ke), as well as to their children Mikl\u00f3s, Istv\u00e1n, P\u00e1l, Mih\u00e1ly, and Anna. The charter was issued under the privy seal of the Kingdom of Hungary and countersigned by B\u00e1lint L\u00e9pes, 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 L\u0151rinc Szily, sworn county notary, certifying that Kom\u00e1rom County officially proclaimed the grant of arms at its general assembly held in Kom\u00e1rom on 2 September 1619, thereby rendering it legally valid. <\/p>\n\n
As several noble families bearing the name Halasy lived in Hungary, some descendants of J\u00e1nos Halasy later distinguished themselves by adopting the territorial predicate \u201cof D\u00e9vav\u00e1nya\u201d after acquiring estates on the Great Hungarian Plain. Among the descendants of the Catholic Halas(s)y family of D\u00e9vav\u00e1nya was Paula Halassy (1839\u20131895), wife of Istv\u00e1n Horthy (1830\u20131904) and mother of Governor Mikl\u00f3s Horthy. (For the maternal ancestry of the Governor, see the study<\/a> by G\u00e9za Cseh.) The Reformed Horthy family received its own grant of arms seventeen years later, in 1635. <\/p>\n\n The present whereabouts and fate of the original armorial charter remain unknown. Scholarly literature\u2014including the study on the Halasy family and its heraldry published in 1901 by the national archivist Andr\u00e1s Kom\u00e1romy\u2014has known the document only through copies. According to Kom\u00e1romy, the authenticated 1832 transcription, now preserved in a public collection, was still in the possession of J\u00f3zsef 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. <\/p>\n\n Anton Avar<\/p>\n