Bronnen voor de hedendaagse geschiedenis in de kerkelijke archieven van het bisdom Gent. Een overzicht.

Sources For Contemporary History In The Ecclesiastic Archives Of The Episcopate Of Ghent: In the archives of the episcopate of Ghent, the modern period was only dealt with in a chronological inventory up to 1880. We made an attempt to put more systematical order in the funds with regard to the period from 1802 up to about 1900. The new filing was arranged as follows : a. the bishop's correspondence. b. documents issued or submitted for approval by the episcopal administration. c. already filed series and dossiers. d. anew filed series. We also endeavoured to give a first look over the stock of records and documents kept in the vicarages, deaneries, convents and catholic teaching institutions of the East Flanders province. The results of the inquiry carried out to that purpose, have been classified according to the alphabetically ordered names of the cities and communes where the archives were kept At last have been sucritinized the records with regard to the modern ecclesiastic history of the episcopate of Ghent who were laid down among the States Archives. The conclusion of this investigation does not provide fully confidence: not only much records were already destroyed during W.W. I and II, but the remaining stock is frequently hard to get or not skilfully kept, and in most cases shows the greyish sameness of administrative correspondence involving wordly matters. Furthermore it appears that first rate sources can be regained in the episcopal and decanal archives, like as relation of decanal visitations, data about urban parishes and the correspondence between the bishops and their vicars.