of sources. At the same time, in recent decades, not least as a result of efforts to move beyond political and institution-centred historiography, it has become increasingly common to question this privileged status in source criticism. It is also frequently argued that the provenance-based structure of archives, organised according to record creators, acts as a constraint on research, particularly when the focus is not on institutional operation or decision-making but on other intersections of past experiences. The range of possible interpretations and applications of the principle of provenance constitutes one of the key issues in recent developments in archival theory and methodology. To date, the Dutch Manual, first published in 1898, remains the theoretical foundation of the archival canon. Based on this convention, the standard requirement for archival arrangement and description is to preserve the context of both the creation and use of records. This is equally crucial for social history and for traditional fields of research, and the methods of classification are, in fact, practices derived from this fundamental principle. The archival turn of the past three decades has foregrounded a critical examination of archival theory and practice, demonstrating that archives are not passive repositories serving other disciplines; rather, archival work involves knowledge production and meaning-making no less than research and interpretation. The digital world also brought about the need to reconsider such fundamental archival concepts as authenticity and uniqueness; indeed, even fonds and record, long regarded as the most basic pillars of the archival system, increasingly appear as conceptual rather than essential units. Today, technological transformation and shifting societal expectations from archives operate in conjunction. The most recent international archival standard, Records in Contexts (RiC), promotes and supports the presentation of archival materials as a data network independent of fonds boundaries. This, however, only heightens the importance of attending to the contextual relationships encoded in archival arrangement. Particularly because for the historian, the archive is the site of encounter with the past through its discursive traces. The organizing logic of these traces can be understood precisely through the ways in which fonds, preserved as organic units in context, are structured. As Canadian archivist Tom Nesmith puts it: “[…] history ‘from the bottom up’ still begins with the history of records.”

From the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, apartment buildings as business investment, as well as the concept of rented apartment as a housing option and living space, became increasingly common, which was one of the key elements of modern urban lifestyle. At the same time, housing also became one of the major areas of social conflict. In cities, the detailed regulation of tenancy, which defined the rights of and power structure between landlords, lessors and tenants was largely laid out in municipal ordinances. In Budapest, tenancy law underwent comprehensive revision first in 1882–85, then in 1909 and 1936. The latter two revisions were undertaken in a period when urban housing was beginning to be perceived as a social problem in politics, public discourse (a matter of heated disputes even), which were soon buried under nearly impenetrable layers of agendas and interpretation. The study examines the concepts and ways of argumentation which emerge in the legislative process. This methodology allows the long term examination of various research questions, such as how the inherently commercial relationship between landlords and tenants became a matter of public policy, what changes the interpretive framework underwent in the period, and what legal means were considered acceptable within this framework.