PRIMICERIUS AND SECUNDICERIUS. - P. (qui primus cerae seu matriculae erat inscriptus), was originally the one who held the highest office in a given order and was therefore written first at the head of a waxed tablet. Several are known who bore this title; the most celebrated is the p. of the college of notaries (v.) of the Roman Church, and he was the first of the seven regional notaries; the s., the second.
He is to be distinguished from the protocrinarius, who likewise presided over a college of notaries, though not pontifical ones, but those of the city of Rome. The first memory of any reliability concerning the existence of the p. is found under Julius I (341-52), from the Lib. Pont. (I, p. 205). With complete certainty, moreover, the college of regional notaries existed and the primicerius notariorum presided over it in the 6th century (his name is recorded in a Roman inscription of 565; cf. G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae, I, Rome 1888, no. 1098). Confirmation comes shortly afterward, under Gregory I (cf. P. Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, I, Berlin 1869, p. 384, n. 2). St. Augustine dedicated his Enchiridion de fide, spe et caritate to the p. Lawrence (G. B. De Rossi, De origine scrinii, Rome 1886, p. xxxi, n. 2), and the work of the poet Arator (544) was entrusted by Pope Vigilius to the p. Surgentius (PL 68, 55).
Under him was the secundicerius, of whom mention is made in 526 (Epistola de ratione Paschae: PL 67, 512). Both dignities existed also in the imperial Chancery (H. Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre, I, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1912, p. 187 ff.) and are found not only in the Roman Church, but also in other Churches, such as Alexandria, Constantinople, Ravenna (Council of Ephesus, a. 431, Chalcedon, a. 451; Mansi, IV, 1127; VI, 983; H. Bresslau, op. cit., p. 194 f.)
The p. was also a dignity or a simple capitular office, instituted especially to instruct deacons and clerics (X, I, 25 de officio primicerii). It still survives here and there even today in Chapters, more often as a dignity, ordinarily the third after the archdeacon and the archpriest, sometimes even the first according to the different Constitutions. The p. in Confraternities or Archconfraternities is often the title of the one who has directive functions in them; here too, for concrete determinations, one must have recourse to the individual Constitutions or Regulations.
The p. was a kind of prime minister of the supreme pontiffs (H. Bresslau, op. cit., pp. 194, 209) and during a vacancy governed the Church of Rome together with the archdeacon and the archpriest (Liber Diurnus Rom. Pontificum, form. 59, 61, 62, 63, ed. Th. v. Sickel, Vienna 1889, pp. 49, 53-57, 58).
In the Apostolic Chancery he was the prefect of the Chancery itself. From the time of Adrian I (771-95) many rescripts bear the Datum of the p. or of the s. (H. Bresslau, op. cit., p. 209 f.). These functions constitute the beginning of the Dataria (v.); but from the 9th century onward they passed to a special official, who was called librarian and then chancellor, hence vice-chancellor (v. CANCELLERIA). From that time onward the importance of the two dignities declines, and they are mentioned until 1195. The title of p. was also held by the head of the defenders or advocates (v.) of the pontifical court (primicerius defensorum). And furthermore there are found a primicerius domesticorum et protectorum, a primicerius cubiculi and others summarily catalogued by Du Cange (Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, ed. A. L. Henschel, VI, Paris 1938, p. 4978).
Bibliography5 works
Giuseppe Palazzini