PATRON, a word of which the various meanings in Europea languages are derived from that of the Lat. patronus. (See below PATRON AND CLIENT.) The earliest use of the word in English appears to have been in the special sense of the holder of an advowson, the right of presentation to a benefice. From this mean ing is deduced that of the person in whom lies the right of pre senting to public offices, privileges, etc. From the earliest Christian times the saints took the place of the pagan tutelary deities (Di tutelares) and were in this capacity called tutelares or patroni, patron-saints.
A full list of saints, with the objects of the peculiar patronage of each is given in M. E. C. Walcott's Sacred Archaeology (1868). PATRON AND CLIENT. This relationship, which existed at Rome as elsewhere in Latium from time immemorial, had ceased long before the end of the republic to be of any great peactical importance, and its origin is thus obscure. In any case in early Rome the hereditary bond between patron and client seems to have been not altogether unlike that which existed between a feudal lord and his man. The client was bound to follow his patron to war and to contribute to such expenses as his ransom if he were captured and the dowries of his daughters. He was
also perhaps bound to work on his patron's land, and it is probable that the institution of precarium (tenancy at will) originated in grants of land to clients, which, though legally revocable at any time, were in fact hereditary. The ethical element was always strong; thus the patron was bound to protect his client and, in particular, to represent him or give him aid if he were involved in litigation, though whether this means that the client was origi nally incapable of appearing in a court of law himself is not clear. Litigation between the two was forbidden, and they might not give evidence against each other.
With the obsolescence of legal clientship in the later republic the word came to be used of those dependants whom a rich or influential man gathered round him and who attended him, for instance, at his morning levee. This relationship, often one of arrogance on the one side and servility on the other, is graphically described by Martial.