User:Andrew Lancaster/Advocatus
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During the Middle Ages, an advocatus (sometimes given as modern English, advocate; German, Vogt, or French avoué) was an office-holder, who was delegated to perform some of the responsibilities of a secular lord, in place of that lord. Especially in the Holy Roman Empire, many such positions developed.
While the term was eventually used to refer to many types governorship and advocacy, one of the earliest and most important types of advocatus, was the church advocate (advocatus ecclesiae). These were originally lay lords, who not only helped defend religious institutions in the secular world, but were also responsible for exercising lordly responsibilities within the church's lands, such as the handling of legal cases which might require the use of a death penalty. The positions of these office-holders eventually came to be seen as heritable titles themselves, with their own feudal privileges connected to them.
The advocatus as an officer of a court of law first appears in the 12th and 13th centuries, concomitant with the rediscovery of Roman law.[1]
The term could also denote a mayor of a village.