GROSSATORS. – From the terms “grossa,” luculentior scriptura, and “grossare,” meaning to bring into the world or to write in a clearer and more polished form, the grossators took their name in the papal Chancery.
In the organization of the Chancery under Innocent III, they belonged to the second office, which, having received drafts from the first, drew up the documents in the form in which they were to be dispatched. Under the organization of Boniface VIII, they were called scriptores litterarum apostolicarum, were appointed by the vice-chancellor, and were dependent on a rescribendarius and a distributor of notes to be grossed, elected every six months from among the papal notaries; if a corrector supervised the work. In time the name of grossators disappeared, though their function naturally remained in the scriptores.