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(Latinnotarius).
Persons appointed by competent authority to draw up official or authentic documents. These documents are issued chiefly from the official administrative bureaux, thechanceries; secondly, from tribunals; lastly, others are drawn up at the request ofindividuals to authenticate their contracts or other acts. The public officials appointed to draw up these three classes of papers have been usually called notaries.
Etymologically, a notary is one who takes notes. Notes are signs or cursory abbreviations to record the words uttered, so that they may be reproduced later in ordinary writing. Notaries were at first private secretaries, attached to the service ofpersons in positions of importance. It was natural for thescience of notes to be in high esteem among those employed in recording the transactions of public boards, and for the name notary to be applied to these officials; so that before long the word was used to signify their occupation.
The title and office existed at the Imperial Court (cf. Cod. Theod., VI, 16, "De primicerio et notariis"), whence they passed into all the royalchanceries, though in the course oftime the term notary ceased to be used. This was the case also with thechanceries of thepope, the greatepiscopal sees, and even everybishopric. There are grounds for doubting whether the seven regional notaries of theRoman Church, one for eachecclesiastical district of the Holy City, were instituted by St. Clement and appointed by him to record theActs of the martyrs, as is said in the"Liber Pontificalis" ("Vita Clementis", ed. Duchesne, I, 123); they date back, however, to an early age. Not only were there notaries as soon as a bureau forecclesiastical documents was established, but in very ancient days we find these notaries forming a kind of college presided over by aprimicerius; the notice ofJulius I in the"Liber Pontificalis" relates that thispope ordered an account of theproperty of the Church, intended as an authentic document, to be drawn up before theprimicerius of the notaries.
The latter were in the ranks of theclergy and must have received one of theminor orders; for the notariate is an office and not an order. At intervals thepopes entrusted the notaries of theircuria with various missions. Their chief, theprimicerius, with whom asecundicerius is sometimes found later, was a very important personage, in fact, the head of the pontifical chancery; during the vacancy of thepapal chair, he formed part of the interim Government, and a letter in 640 (Jaffé, "Regesta", n. 2040) is signed (thepope being elected but not yetconsecrated) by one "Joannes primicerius et servans locum s. sedis apostolicae".
There were of course many notaries in the service of the pontifical chancery; the seven regional notaries preserved a certain pre-eminence over the others and became the prothonotaries, whose name and office continued. The ordinary notaries of the chancery, however, were gradually known by other names, according to their various functions, so that the term ceased to be employed in the pontifical and otherchanceries. The prothonotaries were and still are acollege ofprelates, enjoying numerous privileges; they are known as "participants", but outside ofRome there are many purely honorary prothonotaries. The officialduties had insensibly almost ceased; butPius X in his reorganization of theRoman Curia has appointed participant prothonotaries to the chancery (Const. "Sapienti", 29 June, 1908). A corresponding change occurred in the bureaux of the episcopal churches,abbeys, etc.; the officials attached to the chancery have ceased to be known as notaries and are called chancellor, secretary, etc. Lastly, mention must be made of the notaries of the synodal orconciliar assemblies, whoseduties are limited to the duration of the assembly.
Society in former times did not recognize the separation of powers; so, too, in theChurch the judicial authority was vested in the sameprelates as the administrative. Soon, however, contentious matters were tried separately before a specially appointed body. The courts required a staff to record the transactions; these clerks were likewise notaries. In most civil courts they are, however, called registrars, clerks of the court, etc., but in theecclesiastical tribunals they retain the name notary, though they are also called actuaries. Thus the speciallaw of the higherecclesiastical tribunals, theRota and the Signatura, reorganized byPius X, provides for the appointment of notaries for these two tribunals (can. v and xxxv). The reason why the head official charged with drawing up the documents of the Holy Office is called the notary, as were the clerks who in former times drew up the records of theInquisition, is, doubtless, that of all theRoman Congregations the Holy Office is the only real judicial tribunal. The notaries ofecclesiastical tribunals are usuallyclerics; theduties may however be confided tolaymen, except in criminal cases against acleric.
Finally, there is the class ofpersons to whom the term notary is restricted in common parlance, to wit, those who are appointed by the proper authorities to witness the documentary proceedings between privatepersons and to impress them with legal authenticity. They are not engaged in thechanceries, in order that they may be within easy reach of privateindividuals; they have a public character, so that their records, drawn up according to rule, are received as authentic accounts of the particular transaction, especially agreements, contracts, testaments, and wills.
Consequently, public notaries may be appointed only by those authorities who possessjurisdictionin foro externo, and have a chancery, e.g.popes,bishops, emperors, reigning princes, and of course only within the limits of theirjurisdiction; moreover, the territory within which a notary can lawfully exercise his functions is expressly determined. There were formerly Apostolic notaries and even episcopal notaries, duly commissioned bypapal or episcopal letters, whoseduty it was to receive documents relating toecclesiastical or mixed affairs, especially in connection withbenefices, foundations, and donations in favor of churches, wills ofclerics, etc. They no longer exist; the onlyecclesiastical notaries at present are the officials of the Roman and episcopalcuriae. Moreover these notaries werelayman, and Canon Law forbidsclerics to acts as scriveners (c. viii, "Ne clerici vel monachi", 1. III, tit. 50).
DU CANGE, Glossarium, s.v. Notarius; FERRARIS, Prompta bibliotheca, s.v. Notarius; FAGNANI, Commentaria in c. Sicut te, 8, Ne Clerici vel monachi; and in c. In ordinando, I, De simonia; HERICOURT, Les lois ecclesiastiques de France (Paris, 1721), E, xiii; GIRY, Manuel de diplomatique (Paris, 1894).
APA citation.Boudinhon, A.(1911).Notaries. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11122a.htm
MLA citation.Boudinhon, Auguste."Notaries."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 11.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1911.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11122a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Joseph E. O'Connor.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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