prisoner not having been formally charged when brought before the vice-chancellor); so the writ was granted and the prisoner released. She afterwards brought an action against the proctor, which failed. It was now decided to abolish the practice of hearing these cases in camera. The whole practice was, however, objected to by the authorities of the town, and after conference an agreement was arrived at, the proctorial jurisdiction over persons not members of the university being abolished (1904).
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.)
PROCURATOR (Lat. procurare, to take care of), generally one who acts for another. With the Romans it was applied to a person who maintained or defended an action on behalf of another, thus performing the functions of a modern attorney. Roman families of importance employed an official corresponding to the modern steward and frequently called the procurator. Later the name was applied especially to certain imperial officials in the provinces of the Roman Empire. With the establishment of the imperial power under Augustus, the emperor took under his direct government those of which the condition or situation rendered a large military force necessary. Here certain officials, known as the procuratores Caesaris, took the place occupied by the quaestor in the senatorial provinces. They were either equites or freedmen of the Caesar and their office was concerned with the interests of the fiscus (the public property of the Caesar). They looked after the taxes and paid the troops. There were also officials bearing this title of procuratores Caesaris in the senatorial provinces. They collected certain dues of the fiscus which were independent of those paid to the aerarium (the property of the senate). This organization lasted with some modihcations until the 3rd century. The procurator was an important official in the reorganized empire of Diocletian.
The title remained all through the middle ages to describe very various officials. Thus it was sometimes applied to a regent acting for a king during his minority or absence; sometimes it appears as an alternative title to seneschal or dapifer. It preserved its legal significance in the title of procurator animarum, who acted as solicitor or proxy in the ecclesiastical courts, and was so called because these courts dealt with matters affecting the spiritual interests of the persons concerned. The economical significance remained in such titles as procurator anniversariorum, the exactor of dues for the celebration of anniversaries; this office was assigned to laymen. The procurator draperii was entrusted with the administration of matters pertaining to the art of cloth-making. The procurator duplarum was the collector of fines in certain churches from absent canons, &c. The officials entrusted with the administration of the goods of a church were called variously procurator ecclesiae, procurator parcitatis, procurator universitatis. Bishops and bishops-elect frequently described themselves by the title of procuratores ecclesiarum. The prior of a dependent religious house was sometimes styled procurator obedientiae. The official who represented the public interests in the courts of the inquisition was known as the procurator fidei. The administrator of the affairs of a large community was sometimes called the procurator syndicus, the administrator of goods left to the poor, procurator pauperum. In monasteries the economus was, and is, sometimes described as procurator. Thus the procurator has still the administration of material affairs in every Dominican priory. Procurator di San Marco was a title of honour in the republic of Venice. There were nine official procurators and numerous distinguished persons bearing the honorary title.
The term procurator (Fr. procureur) is used in those countries whose codes are based on the Roman civil law for certain officials, having a representative character, in the courts of law. Thus under the ancien régime in France the procurers du roi were the representative of the Crown in all causes (see France: Law and Institutions); and now the procureurs généraux, and under them the procureurs substituts, procureurs de la république and procureurs still represent the ministère public in the courts. In Scotland the procurator is a law agent who practises in an inferior court. A procurator in Scotland has been, since the Law Agents Acts 1873, exactly in the same legal position as other law agents. The procurator-fiscal is a local officer charged with the prosecution of crimes. He is appointed by the sheriff. He also performs the duties of an English coroner by holding inquiries into the circumstances of suspicious deaths. A common English form of procurator is proctor (q.v.).
See Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd ed., 1890–1891), and Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis (new ed. by L. Favre, Niort, 1883). (E. O'N.)
PRODICUS OF CEOS (b. c. 465 or 450 B.C.), a Greek humanist of the first period of the Sophistical movement, known as the “precursor of Socrates.” He was still living in 399 B.C. He came to Athens as ambassador from Ceos, and became known as a speaker and a teacher. Like Protagoras, he professed to train his pupils for domestic and civic affairs; but it would appear that, while Protagoras's chief instruments of education were rhetoric and style, Prodicus made ethics prominent in his curriculum. In ethics he was a pessimist. Though he discharged his civic duties in spite of a frail physique, he emphasized the sorrows of life; and yet he advocated no hopeless resignation, but rather the remedy of work, and took as his model Heracles, the embodiment of virile activity. The influence of his views may be recognized as late as the Shepherd of Hermas. His views on the origin of the belief in the gods is strikingly modern. First came those great powers which benefit mankind (comparing the worship of the Nile), and after these the deified men who have rendered services to humanity. But he was no atheist, for the pantheist Zeno spoke highly of him. Of his natural philosophy We know only the titles of his treatises On Nature and On the Nature of Man. His chief interest is that he sought to give precision to the use of words. Two of his discourses were specially famous; one, “On Propriety of Language,” is repeatedly alluded 'to by Plato; the other, entitled Ὦραι, contained the celebrated apologue of the Choice of Heracles, of which the Xenophontean Socrates (Mem. ii. 1, 21 seq.) gives a summary. Theramenes, Euripides and Isocrates are said to have been pupils or hearers of Prodicus. By his immediate successors he was variously estimated: Plato satirizes him in the early dialogues; Aristophanes in the Ταγηνισταί calls him “a babbling brook”; Aeschines the Socratic condemns him as a sophist.
See Spengel, Artium scriptures, pp. 45 sqq.; Welcker, “Prodikos der Vorganger des Sokrates,” in Rheinisches Museum (1833), and in Kleine Schriften, ii. 393; Hummel, De Prodico Sophista (Leiden. 1846); Cougny, De Prodico Ceio (Paris, 1858).
