VICAR, a title, more especially ecclesiastical, describing vari ous officials acting in some special way for a superior. Cicero uses vicarius to describe an under-slave kept by another slave as part of his private property. The vicarius was an important offi cial in the reorganized empire of Diocletian. It remained as a title of secular officials in the middle ages, being applied to persons appointed by the Roman emperor to judge cases in distant parts of the empire, or to wield power in certain districts, or, in the absence of the emperor, over all the empire. In the early middle ages the term was applied to representatives of a count adminis tering justice for him in the country or small towns and dealing with unimportant cases, levying taxes, etc. Monasteries and re ligious houses often employed a vicar to answer to their feudal lords for those of their lands which did not pass into mortmain.
The title of "vicar of Jesus Christ," borne by the popes, was introduced as their special designation during the 8th century, in place of the older style of "vicar of St. Peter" (or vicarius prin. cipis apostolorum).
All bishops were looked upon as in some sort vicars of the pope, but the title vicarius sedis apostolicae came especially to be applied as an alternative to legatus sedis apostolicae to describe papal legates to whom in certain places the pope delegated a portion of his authority. Pope Benedict XIV. tells us in his treatise De synodo dioecesana that the pope often names vicars-apostolic for the government of a particular diocese because the episcopal see is vacant or, being filled, the titular bishop cannot fulfil his functions. The Roman Catholic Church in England was governed by vicars-apostolic from 1685 until 185o, when Pope Pius IX. re-established the hierarchy. Vicars-apostolic at the present day are nearly always titular bishops taking their titles from places not acknowledging allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church.
Sometimes the pope appointed a neighbouring bishop as the vicar of a church which happened to be without a pastor. A special
vicar was appointed by the pope to superintend the spiritual af fairs of Rome and its suburbs, to visit its churches, monasteries, etc., and to correct abuses. It became early a custom for the prebendaries and canons of a cathedral to employ "priest-vicars" or "vicars-choral" as their substitutes when it was their turn as hebdomadary to sing High Mass and conduct divine office. In the English Church these priest-vicars remain in the cathedrals of the old foundations as beneficed clergy on the foundation ; in the cathedrals of the new foundation they are paid by the chap ters. "Lay vicars" also were and are employed to sing those parts of the office which can be sung by laymen. The incumbent of a parish where the tithes are impropriate is entitled vicar.
In the Anglican Church a vicar-general is employed by the arch bishop of Canterbury and some other bishops to assist in such matters as ecclesiastical visitations. In the Roman Catholic Church bishops sometimes appoint lesser vicars to exercise a more limited authority over a limited district. They are called "vicars f orane" or rural deans. They are entrusted especially with the surveillance of the parish priests and other priests of their dis tricts, and with matters of ecclesiastical discipline. They are charged especially with the care of sick priests and in case of death with the celebration of their funerals and the charge of their vacant parishes. In canon law priests doing work in place of the parish priest are called vicars. Thus in France the cure or head priest in a parish church is assisted by several vicaires.
See Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infiniae Latinitatis, ed. L. Favre (Niort, 1883, etc.) ; Migne, Encyclopedie theologique, series i. vol. so (Droit Canon) ; Comte de Mas Latrie, Tresor de chronologie (Paris, 1889) ; and Sir R. J. Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England (2nd ed. 1895).