Anotarius is a public secretary who is appointed by competent authority to draw up official or authentic documents (compare English "notary"). In theRoman Catholic Church there have beenapostolic notaries and evenepiscopal notaries.[1] Documents drawn up bynotarii are issued chiefly from the official administrative offices, the chanceries; secondly, from tribunals; lastly, others are drawn up at the request of individuals to authenticate their contracts or other acts.
The title and office existed in the bureaucracy of theChristianised Roman Empire at the Imperial Court, where the college of imperial notaries were governed by aprimicerius.[2] From the usage in the Emperor's representative in the West, theExarch of Ravenna, the post and title was applied in the increasingly complicated bureaucracy of thePapal curia in Rome. There werenotarii attached to all theepiscopal see, whence they passed into use in the royal chanceries. All thesenotarii were inminor orders.
As theex officio head of the papal chancery, theprimicerius of the notaries was an important personage. During a vacancy of the papal chair, he formed part of the interim government, and a letter in 640 is signed (the pope being elected but not yet consecrated) by one "Johannes,primicerius and serving in the place of the holy apostolic see".[3]
There were formerlyapostolic notaries and evenapostolic prothonotaries commissioned by papal letters, whose duty it was to receive documents in connection withbenefices, foundations, and donations in favor of churches, the wills of clerics and other affairs to which the ecclesiastical hierarchy was an interested party. The title no longer exists; the only ecclesiastical notaries at present are the officials of the Roman and episcopalcuriae.[citation needed]
Liber Pontificalis attributes the seven regional notaries of the Church in Rome, one for each ecclesiastical district of the Holy City, to an institution ofPope Clement I (traditionally 88–98), to record the acts of the martyrs;[4] though this is unattested in any early document, the notice ofPope Julius I (337-352) in theLiber Pontificalis relates that this pope ordered an account of the property of the Church, intended as an authentic document, to be drawn up before theprimicerius of the notaries. These important officials became theprothonotaries.
