Section 4 is entrusted with several duties:

The mission of service to the public manifests itself in a cordial welcome on the phone or at the entry hall of the National Archives and in providing a calm, study friendly and hearty working environment in the reading room. There, the visitor regulations are binding and provide the best possible working conditions to the readers while ensuring that the scientific and technical personnel can preserve the documents in an optimal manner. 

This section also manages the archives of the Ancien Régime and family archives, among which the first named are essentially made up of the archival fonds of the central institutions of the former Netherlands since the Burgundian period. They comprise among others:

• The archives of the government bodies, of the Collateral Councils (Council of State, Privy Council, Council of Finance) and of their legal successors (Royal Council of Philippe V, Council of the general Government under Joseph II)
• The archives of the Chamber of Audit
• The archives groups of the secretariats assisting the governor-general and the government councils (Audience, Secretariat of State and War, German Secretariat of State)
• The archives of the subordinate bodies set up during the Austrian period in order to discharge the Collateral Councils from dealing with particular issues: Junta of Amortisation, Committee for the suppression of the order of the Jesuits in the Netherlands, Committee of the Cash Office for Religion, etc.)
  
• The archives of the Courts of Justice (Grand Council of Mechelen, Council of Troubles, etc.)
• Archives of different institutions of various nature and competence (House of Charles of Lorraine, Court Works Office, etc.)

These archives of exceptional richness allow the study of our institutional, cultural, economic, social and military history under the Ancien Régime.

The family archives, composed of about one hundred archival fonds, comprise among others the archives of respectively the Houses of Arenberg, of Merode and of Ursel, with a total length of about 2000 metres. These archives are an irreplaceable complement to the official archival fonds. They hold previously undiscovered elements for numerous research fields: political and institutional history, military history, genealogy and heraldry, social history, history of mentalities, as well as the history of art and literature and intellectual history.

Section 4 also preserves a rich collection of maps and plans and helps complementing the research carried out on other archives groups of the Ancien Régime and the contemporary period.

For many years, the restoration workshop has been one of the centre pieces of the National Archives. After its closure fifteen years ago, it has now been decided to re-open the workshop, which is currently being put back into service: new premises and equipment will ensure in a close future that a number of crucial tasks for the preservation and restoration of documents can again be carried out.

Research instruments

A series of guides and research instruments give access to these rich archives groups:

Guides:
- M. SOENEN, Archives des institutions centrales des Pays-Bas sous l'Ancien Régime 1994
Series: Gidsen - Guides 15
- A. VAN NIEUWENHUYSEN (completed by) R. LAURENT, Archives de familles et de particuliers 1997
Series: Gidsen - Guides 29
- E. AERTS, Geschiedenis en archief van de Rekenkamers 1996
Series: Gidsen - Guides 27
- E. AERTS, H.COPPENS Index op de auteursnamen voorkomend in VAN HEESVELDE P., Overheidsinstellingen van de Habsburgse Nederlanden (1477-1793). Een bibliografie 1993
Series: Miscellanea Archivistica. Manuale 12
- E. AERTS, M. BAELDE, H. COPPENS, H. DE SCHEPPER, H. SOLY, A.K.L. THIJS, K. VAN HONACKER (ed.) translated from Dutch into French by C. DE MOREAU DE GERBEHAYE Les institutions du gouvernement central des Pays-Bas Habsbourgeois (1482-1795) 1995
Series: Studia 56

Research instruments

Donations and contributions to the National Archives

Please feel free to contact us about any question regarding archives donations. Some helpful general information about declarations of donations can be downloaded here:

- Brochure “Private archives contributions”

Research Projects

A research project in collaboration with the Royal Historical Commission (www.kcgeschiedenis.be) has started in January 2007 and is titled "Indexation of the diplomatic correspondence between Vienna and Brussels (1740/48 – 1790)".