The Archives of the Governmental Sovereignty Administration until 1925

With another separation of the Habsburgian country complex in 1564, central authorities, whose contents have been preserved to very different extents, had to be created for Inner Austria. Thus, very little archives out of the written deposit of the Inner Austrian privy council have been preserved in the Provincial Archives, where they are stored in the so-called Meillerakten or Miszellen. Virtually non detectable are the files of the Inner Austrian Cort Aulic Council of which only few traces are stored in the House-, Court- and Governmental Archives in Vienna.

Since 1615, at least, the material of the Inner Austrian Government, which had been responsible for the judiciary administration of the Inner Austrian Country Group until 1749, has been preserved in a relatively cohesive manner. Additionally, these holdings have been made well available through extensive protocols. Starting with the administrative reform of 1750 and until its closure in 1782, the Inner Austrian government had only been in charge of the judiciary administration. An adjunct of 70 resolution books (copial books of the government from 1614 onward, which were, with some interruptions, continued by the Gubernium until 1783) exists in addition to the holdings. The Archives of the Inner Austrian Court War Council is situated in the War Archives in Vienna.

The holdings of the Inner Austrian Court Chamber (1564-1748) that been in charge of the entire financial and economic administration of Inner Austria, is a very extensive one. This institution emerged from the (Graz) Chamber, the Court Chamber and the Lower Austrian Chamber, which was post-arranged as intermediary authority to the Court Chamber in 1564, then, in 1620, was renamed to Inner-Austrian Chamber and finally, in 1625, was united with the Court Chamber to become the Inner Austrian Court Chamber. The so-called chronological series of the Court Chamber starts with 1569 and is made well accessible via protocol books and a modern inventory. Next to it, the so-called Specialised Section of the Court Chamber exists, which is also made well accessible, among other things, via a modern finding aid and which, mainly consisting of the former Specialised Section of the Lower Austrian Chamber, has been perpetuated since 1625. Today, the former chronological series of the Lower Austrian Chamber forms a part of the Miszellen (see below).In addition to these holdings, there exist copial books with copies of documents relevant to administration, contracts etc. of the Court Chamber in Vienna from 1530-1564, further, Court Chamber-Filing Department books 1564-1624, as well as chamber- and exempt books of the Lower Austrian Chamber 1565-1625.

Next to this, the already mentioned Miszellen and Meillerakten exist as a special group which consist of the remainders of those archives that had been transferred to Vienna in 1849 and returned to Graz in 1922 and that, in parts, reach back deeply into Medieval Times.

With the administrative reform carried out by Maria Theresia in 1748, the central authorities were either dissolved or got very restricted in their competences and were sometimes replaced by Representation and Chamber as intermediary authority for Styria. Yet, in 1784 this authority was already displaced by the (old) Gubernium that was partly in charge of the entire Inner Austrian Country Group again. The Foundation- (Court) Commission acted as subordinated authority through which the state tried to control the economy administration of the ecclesiastic institutions and the worldly social institutions. It is out of this authority´s deposit that the valuable holdings of the ecclesiastic and worldly foundation files emerged.

In 1784 a structure reform of the Gubernium was carried out (which is now being lead under the title Gubernium new), whose transactions and files are now exclusively organised in special groups (subjects with subgroups) and chair related matters. This organisation system was also taken over by the ethnarchy after the administrational reforms in 1850. Yet, with the new rules of procedure from 1906, the organisation was changed and departments (legal departments) split up into groups and file plan units were installed. Some files which were linked thematically were extracted later and now form special fascicles.

Beside this, there exist the holdings of several later-ranked authorities, as, for instance, the one of the Agrarian Reform Authority, the one of the Agrarian Provincial- and Agrarian District Authorities, the one of the Governmental Accountancy, the Religion Fund, the (Provincial) Construction Department of Graz, as well as several Constituency- and District Construction Offices. The plans, as well as other individual items, were all comprised in a valuable Collection of Plans.

Worth mentioning are also the Tenure Books and Tenure Files whose holdings range from the 15th Century until the Lehensallodialisierung in the 19th Century, or further archives of school authorities, such as the Lavanter School Files which were passed over from the Lavant-Marburg Diocese to the state after the end of the ecclesiastical school supervision in 1869 , older files of the Province-, District- and City Schools Inspectors  as well as archives of the Graz Academic Secondary School (Akademisches Gymnasium Graz) and the College of Education.

Additionally, there are comprehensive collections of Patents, Kurrenden and Normalien, an Inner Austrian Collection of Documents that has been made available via inventories and card indexes, as well as an Inner Austrian Collection of Manuscripts (including, among other things, the stocks of the former Treasury and Armoury of Graz, court treasury vault books, court quarter books, cloister inventories, etc.) or a comprehensive Map Collection.

(According to Karl Spreitzhofer)