DEFENSOR ECCLESIAE. – At first, he was a legal representative of the Church, whose task was to assist it in legal proceedings.
Canon 97 of the Codex can. Eccl. Afric. (Eleventh Council of Carthage, 13 June 407 (Mansi, III, p. 802), had in fact charged two bishops with asking the Emperor to appoint ἐκδύκοι entrusted with defending the Church in a public capacity. In response to this request, the Emperor Honorius, by a constitution of 15 November 407 (Cod. Theod., XVI, 2, 38), established that the special privileges obtained by the Church were to be asserted by advocati; the latter, who were not, however, designated by the name d., were laymen chosen from among legal professionals. These d. did not last long, however; for fairly soon (Nov. XXXV of Valentinian III, a. 452) there is mention of d. who were no longer laymen, but members of the clergy, and traces of d. clerici are likewise found in the Justinian compilation. It is certain that already at the beginning of the sixth century the d. were minor clerics, tonsured but without Orders, although at times they rose to the Orders (Gregory of Tours, Vitae Patr., 6, 6; PL 51, 103 speaks of an Iulianus defensor, presbyter deinceps) and even to the episcopate. These were exceptions. According to a late text (an addition to chapter 10 of the Descriptia Lateranensis Ecclesiae; cf. ed. R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Codice top. della città di Roma, III, Rome 1946, p. 352), the d. in Rome were clerici ad nullos unquam alios ordines promovendi.
A decade after the Council of Carthage, a letter of Pope Zosimus (417–18) attests to the presence of d. in Rome (Zosimus, Ep. 9, chap. 3; PL 20, col. 673). Both here and in Africa, the d. had a distinctly social function: he was the protector of the poor and oppressed, and handled and defended negotia ecclesiarum. This primitive character gradually developed, and the d. eventually penetrated the diplomatic and political sphere occupied by the Church in the early Middle Ages.
It is apparently in this sense that the author of the Acta s. Sebastiani understands the term when he has Pope Caius confer upon his hero the title of d. E. (Acta s. Sebastiani, chap. 19, n. 68) (v. however, in this regard, the study by Martroye cited in the bibliography).
At the end of the fifth century, under Felix II (483–92), one Tutus is found, elected defensor ad tempus and sent on a mission to Constantinople, bearing the bull deposing Acacius. Tutus proved unworthy of the trust placed in him by the Pontiff: he allied himself with the schismatics, was deprived of his office, and excommunicated by a Roman Synod (485?; s. Felix II, Ep. 12, I; ed. A. Thiel, Epist. Roman. Pont., I, Braunsberg 1868, p. 258; Hefele-Leclercq, II, pp. 925–26).
From this point onward, diplomatic activity became one of the most important duties of the d. E.
Under Gelasius I (492–96), they first appear as high administrative officials, a function that becomes clear and precise half a century later under Pelagius I (556–60). A letter of this pontiff enumerates some of the duties of the d. E. (causarum cognitio, conventiones, actus, publica litigia). He was to provide for all the material needs of the Church, quaecumque vel ecclesiastica instituta vel supplicantium necessitas poscit (Pelagius II, Ep. et decr., VIII; PL 72, col. 745).
In the register of Gregory the Great (596–604), the principal source for the history at issue here, the institution of the d.
E. appears with contours by then clearly defined. Their role as administrators of the Church’s patrimony and, not infrequently, as papal legates endowed with broad powers placed them in a particularly privileged position.
We find them almost everywhere, at times serving as governors of territories belonging to the patrimony of St. Peter. The pope appointed them and personally directed them, giving them the most detailed instructions concerning every matter: discipline and public order, relations between the clergy and the bishops, and the manner of providing for monks, nuns, widows, abandoned girls, and foundlings. He even negotiated with them the price of provisions.
Below the great patrimonial d. there was an entire ranks of minor d., or second-level employees, who shared in the prerogatives and powers of the principal d.
The pontificate of Gregory M. marks the period of the d.’s greatest splendor. At the time of his election, the d. received a special letter of appointment, in which his powers were defined.
Gregory established that, within the corporation of the d., seven of them should form a special college under the title of regionarii (Gregory I, Reg. ep., 1., VIII, ep. 16 March 598; ed. P. Ewald-L. M. Hartmann, in MGH, Epistulae, II, Berlin 1899, p. 18). The Ordo Romanus I (from the end of the seventh century, but reflecting the customs of the Roman Curia in the time of St. Gregory) speaks of the d. who, on horseback, precede the pope when he proceeds in procession from the Lateran to the stational church (cf. M. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen âge, II: Les textes (Ordines I-XIII), Louvain 1948; Ordo Rom., I, nn. 7, 9, 18, 25). In the secretarium they remain beside the pontiff while he puts on his vestments (M. Andrieu, op. cit., I, n. 32), and occupy a special place during sacred functions (M. Andrieu, op. cit., I, n. 81). The primicerius defensorum frequently appears among the dignitaries of the papal court (M. Andrieu, op. cit., I, nn. 32, 68, 69, 74, 79, 81, 113).
The situation of the d. in the eighth century is not very clear; but from several testimonies, from their office in papal functions, and from a painting (mid-eighth century) in S. Maria Antiqua depicting a Theodotus primicerius defensorum (J. Wilpert, Erlebnisse und Ergebnisse, Freiburg 1930, pp. 107–108), one may perhaps deduce that the splendor of the d. in the time of St. Gregory had not vanished. They continued, with varying fortunes, until the institution disappeared at the end of the twelfth century.
In Gaul, the powers of the d. had to adapt themselves to the principles of government that prevailed in the kingdom of Charlemagne. A capitulary of 790 (MGH, Reg. Franc., I, p. 201) orders that the higher clergy, pro ecclesiastico honore et pro sacerdotum reverentia, should have their own advocati. Charlemagne prescribed the same for abbots, abbesses, monasteries, etc. But in these provisions it is clear that the d. E. abandons its original juridical meaning and takes on the specific sense of advocate that it subsequently retained.
The d. E. must not be confused with the defensor pauperum, which had almost contemporary origins, since the Sixth Council of Carthage in 401 (Mansi, III, 778) decided to ask the emperors to appoint special ἐκδύκοι who, under episcopal supervision, would defend the poor adversus potentias divitum. The defensor pauperum did, however, share certain duties with the d. E., as can be inferred from a letter of appointment found in the letters of St. Gregory the Great (Epist., V, 26 and IX, 97, ed. L. M. Hartmann, MGH).