In countries where the Roman law prevails in any degree, the pleaders in courts of justice are still called advocates, but their character and duties vary under different governments. [ADVOCATES, FACULTY OP ; and Advocates in English courts are usually termed COUNSEL.
The Lord Advocate, or King's Advo cate, is the principal crown lawyer in Scotland. Loan.] In the middle ages various functionaries bore the title of Advocati.
Advocati Ecclesiarum were persons who were appointed to defend the rights and the property of churches by legal proceedings. They were established under the later Empire, and subsequently it was determined, in a council held by Eugenius IL, that bishops, abbots, and churches should have Advocati, or, as they were otherwise called, Defensores, from their duty of defending the rights of the church. These Advocati were laymen, and took the place of the earlier officers of the same kind, called (Economi, who were those ecclesiastics to whom was in trusted the care of church property. In course of time the office of Advocates Ec clesiarum was conferred on powerful no bles, whose protection the church wished to secure. Charlemagne was chosen Ad vocates by the Romans, to defend the Church of St. Peter against the Lombard kings of Italy. Pepin is styled, in a do cument of A.D. 761, King of the Franks and Roman Defender (Defensor Ro menus). The title of Advocate of St. Peter was given to the Emperor Henry ; and Frederick I. was called Defender of the Holy Roman Church.
The business of these Advocati was ori ginally to defend the rights of a church or religious body in the courts, but they subsequently became judges, and held courts for the vassals of those religious houses whose Advocati they were. They
were paid by a third part of the fines ; the other two-thirds went to the church for whom they acted. The Advocates and his train, while making their judicial cir cuit, were entitled to various allowances of food. The advocati had great oppor tunities of extending their privileges, which they did not neglect, and the re cords of the middle ages abound in com plaints of their rapacity and oppression, which were stopped by the princes' deter mining the amount to which they were entitled for their services.
But circumstances led to still further changes. The nature of the feudal sys tem rendered it necessary for the abbots and heads of churches to hire the military services of others, as the ecclesiastics could not bear arms themselves, and, in order to gain the services of warlike chiefs, they granted to them lands to hold as fiefs of the church. This practice of en feoffing advocates with church property was of high antiquity, at least as early as A.D. 652. The advocates did homage for the church lands which they held. The subject of the advocates of churches is treated by Du Cange with great full ness and clearness.
One sense of Advocatus remains to be explained, which has reference to the term Advowson. Advocatus is the Pa tronus who has the right of presenting a person to the ordinary for a vacant bene fice. The Patronus is the founder of a church or other ecclesiastical establish ment; ht is also called Advocatus. The Patronus endowed the church with lands, built it, and gave the ground.