​PRIMATE (from Low Lat.primas＝one who held the firstplace,primas partes). During the 4th and 5th centuries A.D.the title was applied to both secular and ecclesiastical officials.The Theodosian Code mentions primates of towns, districts andfortified places (Primates urbium, vicorum, castellorum). ThePragmatic Sanction of Justinian also mentions primates governinga district,primates regionis; and in this sense the titlesurvived, under Turkish rule, in Greece until the 19th century.An official called “primate of the palace” is mentioned in thelaws of the Visigoths. Primas also seems to have been usedloosely during the middle ages for “head” or “chief.” Du Cangecitesprimas castri. The title, however, has been more generallyused to denote a bishop with special privileges and powers.It was first employed almost synonymously withmetropolitanto denote the chief bishop of a province having his see in thecapital and certain rights of superintendence over the wholeprovince. At the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) the metropolitan constitutionwas assumed as universal, and after this the terms“metropolitan,” and “primate,” to denote the chief bishop of aprovince, came into general use. The title of primate was usedmore generally in Africa, while elsewhere metropolitan was moregenerally employed. The primates in Africa differed from thoseelsewhere in that the title always belonged to the longestordained bishop in a province, who had not necessarily his seein the capital, except in the case of the bishop of Carthage, whowas head also of the other five African provinces. There werealso three sorts of honorary primates: (1) primates aevo, the oldestbishop in a province next to the primate, on whom power devolvedwhen the primate was disabled or disqualified; (2) titularmetropolitans, the bishops of certain cities which had the nameand title of civil metropoles bestowed on them by some emperor;(3) the bishops of some mother-churches which were honouredby ancient custom but were subject to the ordinary metropolitan,e.g. the bishop of Jerusalem, who was subject to his metropolitanat Caesarea.

At a later date “primate” became the official title of certainmetropolitans who obtained from the pope a position of episcopalauthority over several other metropolitans and who were, at thesame time, appointed vicars of the Holy See. This was done inthe case of the bishops of Arles and Thessalonica as early asthe 5th century. Such primates were sometimes also calledpatriarchs,primates diocesearum (political, not episcopal dioceses),primates provinciae,summi primates,praesules omnium sacerdotumin partibus suis. In this sense the Western primatewas considered the equivalent of the Eastern patriarch. Thearchbishop of Reims received the title ofprimas inter primates.By the False Decretals an attempt was made to establish sucha primacy as a permanent institution, but the attempt was notsuccessful and the dignity of primate became more or lesshonorary. The overlapping of the title is illustrated by the caseof England, where the archbishop of York still bears the titleof primate of England and the archbishop of Canterbury thatof primate of all England. A less general use of the title is itsapplication in medieval usage to the head of a cathedral schoolor college (primas scholarum) and to the dignitaries of a cathedralchurch. The abbot of Fulda received from the pope the title ofprimas inter abbates. In the Episcopal Church of Scotland thesenior bishop is styled theprimas.