PRIMICERIO AND SECUNDICERIO. — P. (who was inscribed first on the wax tablet or matricula), was at the beginning the one who held the highest office in a given organization and was therefore written first at the head of a wax tablet. Various individuals are known to have held this title; the most famous is the p. of the college of notaries (v.) of the Roman Church and was the tenth of the seven regional notaries; the s. was the twentieth.
This is to be distinguished from the protoscrinarius, who also presided over a college of notaries, but not pontifical ones, rather those of the city of Rome. The first reasonably reliable mention of the existence of the p. is found under Julius I (341-52), in the Liber Pontificalis (I, p. 205). With certainty, however, the college of regional notaries existed and was presided over by the primicerius notariorum 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 is found shortly afterward, under Gregory I (cf. P. Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, I, Berlin 1869, p. 384, no. 2). St. Augustine dedicated his Enchiridion de fide, spe et caritate to Lorenzo p. (G. B. De Rossi, De origine scrinii, Rome 1886, p. XXXI, no. 2), and the work of the poet Arator (544) was entrusted by Pope Vigilius to Surgenzio p. (PL 68, 55).
Under him was the secundicerius, who is mentioned in 526 (Epistola de ratione Paschae: PL 67, 512). Both dignities also existed in the imperial Chancery (H. Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre, I, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1912, pp. 187 ff.) and are found not only in the Roman Church but also in other churches, such as Alexandria, Constantinople, and Ravenna (Council of Ephesus, a. 431, Chalcedon, a. 451; Mansi, IV, 1127; VI, 983; H. Bresslau, op. cit., pp. 194 ff.).
The p. was also a dignity or a simple chapter office, established especially to instruct deacons and clerics (X, I, 25 de officio primicerii). It still exists here and there even today in chapters, more often as a dignity, usually the third after the archdeacon and the archpriest, sometimes even the first according to different constitutions. The p. in confraternities or archconfraternities is often the title of those who hold directive functions in them; here, too, for specific determinations one must refer 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 with the archdeacon and the archpriest (Liber Diurnus Rom. Pontificum, forms 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 registers have the Datum of the p. or the s. (H. Bresslau, op. cit., p. 209 ff.). These functions PATARIA (v.); but from the 9th century onward they passed to a specific official, who was called bibliotecarius and then cancellarius, and thus vice-cancellarius (v. CANCELLERIA). From then on the importance of the two dignities declined, and they are mentioned until 1195. The title of p. was also held by the head of the defenders or advocates (v.) of the papal court (primicerius defensorum). Moreover, there are found a primicerius domesticorum et protectorum, a primicerius cubiculi and others cataloged summarily by Du Cange (Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, ed. A. L. Henschel, VI, Paris 1938, p. 4978).