1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Procuration

PROCURATION (Lat. procurare, to take care of), the action of taking care of, hence management, stewardship, agency. The word is applied to the authority or power delegated to a procurator, or agent, as well as to the exercise of such authority expressed frequently “by procuration” (per procurationem), or shortly per pro., or simply p.p. In ecclesiastical law, procuration is the providing necessaries for bishops and archdeacons during their visitations of parochial churches in their dioceses. Procuration at first took the form of meat, drink, provender, and other accommodation, but it was gradually compounded for a certain sum of money. Procuration is merely an ecclesiastical due, and is suable only in a spiritual court. In those dioceses where the bishop's estates have vested in the ecclesiastical commissioners procurations are payable to the commissioners who, however, have abandoned their collection (Phillimore, Ecc. Law, 2nd ed., 1895, pp. 1051, 1060). Procuration is also used specifically for the negotiation of a loan by an agent for his client, whether by mortgage or otherwise, and the sum of money or commission paid for negotiating it is frequently termed procuration fee.

The English criminal law makes the provision or attempted provision of any girl or woman under twenty-one years of age for e purpose of illicit intercourse an offence, known as procuration. (See Prostitution.)