DEFENSOR ECCLESIAE. - It was originally a legal representative of the Church, with the task of assisting it in trials.
Canon 97 of the Codex can. Eccl. Afric. (XI Council of Carthage of 13 June 407 (Mansi, III, p. 802), had in fact charged two bishops with asking the Emperor for the appointment of ἐκδύκοι entrusted with defending the Church in a public capacity. Granting this request, the emperor Honorius, by a constitution of 15 Nov. 407 (Cod. Theod., XVI, 2, 38) established that the special privileges obtained by the Church should be asserted by advocati; the latter, who are not however designated by the name of d., were laymen chosen from among the professionals. These d. did not however last long; for fairly soon (Nov. XXXV of Valentinian III, a. 452) there is mention of d. no longer laymen, but members of the clergy, and traces of clerical d. are likewise found in the Justinianic compilation. It is certain that already at the beginning of the 6th century the d. are minor clerics, with the tonsure, but without Orders, even if sometimes they ascend to Orders (Gregory of Tours, Vitae Patr., 6, 6; PL 51, 103 speaks of a Iulianus defensor, presbyter deinceps) up to the episcopate. These are exceptions. According to a late text (it is an addition to chapter 10 of the Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae, cf. ed. R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Codice top. della città di Roma, III, Rome 1946, p. 352) the d. at Rome were clerici ad nullos unquam alios ordines promovendi.
A decade after the Council of Carthage, a letter of Pope Zosimus (417-18) attests the presence of d. at Rome (Zosimus, Ep. 9, cap. 3; PL 20, col. 673). Both here and in Africa the d. has a markedly social function: he is the protector of the poor and the oppressed, he handles and defends negotia ecclesiarum. This primitive character gradually developed, and the d. ended up penetrating into the diplomatic and political sphere that the Church had in the early Middle Ages.
In this sense the author of the Acta s. Sebastiani seems to understand it, when he has his hero given the title of d. E. by Pope Caius (Acta s. Sebastiani, cap. 19, n. 68) (see however on this point the study by Martroye cited in the bibl.).
At the end of the 5th century, under Felix II (483-92) there is found a Tutus, elected defensor ad tempus, on a mission to Constantinople, bearer of the bull of deposition of Acacius. Tutus rendered himself unworthy of the trust granted him by the Pontiff, making common cause with the schismatics; he was deprived of his office and excommunicated by a Roman Synod (485?; see Felix II, Ep. 12, I; ed. A. Thiel, Epist. Roman. Pont., I, Braunsberg 1868, p. 258; Hefele-Leclercq, II, pp. 925-26).
From this moment diplomatic activity becomes one of the most important offices of the d. E.
With Gelasius I (492-96) they appear for the first time as high administrative officials, an office that becomes clear and precise half a century later with Pelagius I (556-60). A letter of this pontiff enumerates some of the occupations of the d. E. (causarum cognitio, conventiones, actus, publica litigia). He must 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 that concerns us, the institution of the d.
E. presents itself with contours by now well defined. The role of administrators of the Church's patrimony and not infrequently of legates of the pope, furnished with ample faculties, places them in a condition of particular favor.
We find them almost everywhere, sometimes with the function of governors of the territories belonging to the patrimony of St. Peter. The pope appoints and directs them personally, giving them the most minute instructions on all affairs: discipline and public order, relations between the clergy and the bishops, the manner of providing for monks, nuns, widows, abandoned girls, foundlings. He negotiates with them even the price of foodstuffs.
Below the great patrimonial d. there is a whole host of minor d. or second-rank employees, who participate in the prerogatives and powers of the principal d.
The pontificate of Gregory the Great marks the period of greatest splendor for the d. At the moment of election the d. received a special diploma of appointment, in which his attributions were fixed.
Gregory established that within the corporation of the d., seven of them should form a special college with 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 (of the end of the 7th century, but which reflects the usages of the Roman Curia of the time of St. Gregory), speaks of the d. who on horseback precede the pope when he goes 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 near the pontiff while he puts on the vestments (M. Andrieu, op. cit., I, n. 32), they occupy a special place in the sacred functions (M. Andrieu, op. cit., I, n. 81). The primicerius defensorum returns often among the dignitaries of the pontifical court (M. Andrieu, op. cit., I, nn. 32, 68, 69, 74, 79, 81, 113).
The situation of the d. in the 8th century is not very clear; but from certain testimonies, from their office in the papal functions, from a painting (mid-8th century) in S. Maria Antiqua, representing a Theodotus primicerius defensorum (J. Wilpert, Erlebnisse und Ergebnisse, Freiburg 1930, pp. 107-108) one can perhaps deduce that the splendor of the d. of the times of St. Gregory had not vanished. They continued still, with varying fortunes, until the disappearance of the institution at the end of the 12th century.
In Gaul the powers of the d. had to adapt 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 high clergy pro ecclesiastico honore et pro sacerdotum reverentia have their own advocati. Charlemagne prescribed the same for abbots, abbesses, monasteries, etc. But in these dispositions it is clear that the d. E. abandons its original juridical meaning, to assume the specific sense of advocate held thereafter.
The defensor pauperum must not be confused with the d. E., which had almost contemporaneous origins, since the VI Council of Carthage of 401 (Mansi, III, 778) decided to ask the emperors for the appointment of special ἐκδύκοι, who, under episcopal supervision, should defend the poor adversus potentias divitum. The defensor pauperum had however tasks in common with the d. E., as can be gathered from a decree of appointment found in the letters of St. Gregory the Great (Epist., V, 26 and IX, 97, ed. L. M. Hartmann, MGH).
Bibliography6 works
Annibale Bugnini