PROCURATOR, generally one who acts for another. With the Romans it was applied to a person who maintained or defended an action on behalf of another, thus performing the functions of a modern attorney. Roman families of importance employed an official corresponding to the modern steward and frequently called the procurator. Later, the name was applied especially to certain imperial officials in the provinces of the Roman empire. With the establishment of the imperial power under Augustus, the emperor took under his direct government those of which the condition or situation rendered a large military force necessary. Here certain officials, known as the procuratores Caesaris, took the place occu pied by the quaestor in the senatorial provinces. They were either equites or freedmen of the Caesar and their office was concerned with the interests of the fiscus (the public property of the Caesar). They looked after the taxes and paid the troops. There were also officials bearing this title of procuratores Caesaris in the senatorial provinces. They collected certain dues of the fiscus which were in dependent of those paid to the aerarium (the property of the senate). This organization lasted with some modifications until the 3rd century. The procurator was an important official in the reorganized empire of Diocletian.
The title remained all through the middle ages to describe very different officials. Thus it was sometimes applied to a regent act ing for a king, during his minority or absence ; sometimes it ap pears as an alternative title to seneschal or dapifer. It preserved its legal significance in the title of procurator animarum, who acted as solicitor or proxy in the ecclesiastical courts, and was so called because these courts dealt with matters affecting the spir itual interests of the persons concerned. The economical signif icance remained in such titles as procurator anniversariorum, the exactor of dues for the celebration of anniversaries; this office was assigned to laymen. The procurator draperii was entrusted with the administration of matters pertaining to the art of cloth-mak ing. The procurator duplarum was the collector of fines in certain
churches from absent canons, etc. The officials entrusted with the administration of the goods of a church were called variously pro curator ecclesiae, procurator parcitatis, procurator universitatis. Bishops and bishops-elect frequently described themselves by the title of procuratores ecclesiarum. The prior of a dependent reli gious house was sometimes styled procurator obedientiae. The official who represented the public interests in the courts of the inquisition was known as the procurator fidei. The administrator of the affairs of a large community was sometimes called the pro curator syndicus; the administrator of goods left to the poor, procurator pauperum. In monasteries the economus was, and is, sometimes described as procurator. Thus the procurator has still the administration of material affairs in every Dominican priory. Procurator di San Marco was a title of honour in Venice.