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An advocatus, sometimes simply advocate, Vogt (German, ), or avoué (French, ), was a type of medieval office holder, particularly important in the Holy Roman Empire, who was delegated some of the powers and functions of a major feudal lord, or for an institution such as an abbey. They typically had responsibility for the "comital" functions which defined the office of early medieval "", such as taxation, recruitment of militias, and maintaining law and order. This type of office could apply to specific agricultural lands, villages, castles, and even cities. In some regions, advocates came to be governors of large provinces, sometimes distinguished by terms such as Landvogt.
In different parts of medieval Europe, the term advocate developed different meanings, and other terms were also sometimes used to represent similar offices. For example, Anglo-Norman comital functions for larger districts were executed by vicomtes in Normandy, and sheriffs in England. In contrast, the advocatus or advocate as an officer of a court of law, which is still current in modern English, first appeared in the 12th and 13th centuries, concomitant with the rediscovery of Roman law.Jean-Louis Gazzaniga, "Advocate", in André Vauchez (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2002). The common thread which connects the different meanings of advocate is that someone is called upon to perform a function for others.
While the term was eventually used to refer to many types of governorship and advocacy, one of the earliest and most important types of advocatus was the church advocate (advocatus ecclesiae). These were originally lay , who not only helped defend religious institutions from violence, but were also responsible for exercising the comital or lordly responsibilities within the church's lands, such as the management of courts which could inflict a death penalty. In return they received an income from the lands, and the positions of these office-holders often came to be seen as inheritable titles themselves, with their own feudal privileges connected to them.
Apart from the English terms advocate and advowee, German terms are sometimes mentioned in English accounts of the Holy Roman Empire, and these include Vogt (, from Old High German, also Voigt or Fauth; plural Vögte). The territory or area of responsibility of a Vogt is called a Vogtei (from advocatia).
Related terms include ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and .
Such advocates were to be found even in Roman times; a Synod of Carthage decreed, in 401, that the emperor should be requested to provide, in conjunction with the bishops, defensores for the churches.Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, 2d ed., I, p. 83. There is evidence, moreover, for such defensores ecclesiæ in Italy, at the close of the fifth century, but Pope Gregory I confined the office to members of the clergy. It was the duty of these defensores to protect the poor and defend the rights and possessions of the church.
In the Frankish Kingdom, under the Merovingians, these lay representatives of the churches appeared as agentes, defensores and advocati. This cites:
The concept of the Vogt was related to the Old German idea of the Munt, or guardian, but also included some ideas of physical defence and legal representation (whence the connection with advocatus or "advocate").
Under the , the duties of the church advocate were enlarged and defined according to the principles of government which prevailed in the reign of Charlemagne; henceforward the advocatus ecclesiæ in the medieval sense. A Capitulary of about 790Monumenta German. Histor., Cap. Reg. Francor., I, p. 201. ordained that the higher clergy, "for the sake of the church's honour, and the respect due to the priesthood" (pro ecclesiastico honore, et pro sacerdotum reverentia) should have advocates. Charlemagne, who obliged bishops, abbots and abbesses to maintain advocati, commanded to exercise great care in the choice of persons to fill the office; they must be judicious men, familiar with the law, and owning property in the—then still administrative—countship (Grafschaft).See Capitulary of 802, and 801–813, 1. c. I, pp. 93, 172. The churches, monasteries and canonries, as such, received advocates alike, who by degrees assumed the position above defined.
Under the Carolingians, it was made obligatory for , and to appoint such officials in every county where they held property. The office was not at first hereditary nor even for life, the advocatus being chosen, either by the abbot alone, or by the abbot and bishop concurrently with the count.
In the post-Carolingian period, it developed into a hereditary office, and was held by powerful nobles, who constantly endeavoured to enlarge their rights in connection with the church or the monastery. Conciliar decrees were passed as early as the ninth century to protect ecclesiastical institutions against the excessive claims of their advocates, who indeed became a burden to their ecclesiastical clients in many ways. They dealt with the possessions entrusted to them as with their own property, plundered the church estate, appropriated tithes and other revenues, and oppressed in many ways those whom they were appointed to protect.
The office, since it offered many advantages, was eagerly sought after. The excessive claims of the advocates gave rise to disputes between them and the churches or monasteries. The bishops and abbots, who found their rights curtailed, appealed to the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope for protection. In the twelfth century, warnings were issued from Rome, restraining the high-handed actions of the advocates under pain of severe ecclesiastical penalties, which still did not put an end to all the abuses that prevailed. On occasions, emperors and princes exercised the office of an advocate, in which case they appointed deputy-advocates (subadvocati) to represent them.
From the time of Charlemagne, who had such officials appointed in ecclesiastical territories not directly under the control of his counts, the Vogt was a state functionary representing ecclesiastical dignitaries (such as bishops and abbots) or institutions in secular matters, and particularly before secular courts. Such representatives had been assigned to the church since late antiquity, as it was not to act for itself in worldly affairs. Therefore, in areas such as the territories of abbeys and bishoprics, which by virtue of their ecclesiastical status were free (or immune) from the secular government of the local count (Graf, in origin an administrative official in charge of a territory and reporting to the emperor), the Vogt fulfilled the function of a protective lordship, generally commanding the military contingents of such areas (Schirmvogtei). Beyond that, he administered the high justice instead of the count from the italic=unset court (Landgericht, Vogtgericht or Blutgericht).
In private and family monasteries (see proprietary church), the proprietor himself often also held the office of Vogt, frequently retaining it after reform of the proprietorship (see also lay abbot).
The three-way struggle for control of the Vogtei of the more important abbacies, played out among the central monarchy, the Church and the territorial nobility,This institutional struggle is analysed by italic=no, italic=yes (Weimar, 1950) chapters i to xii. was well established as a prerogative of the nobility; the Hirsau Abbey (1075) confirmed count Adalbert of Calw as hereditary advocate of the Abbey, an agreement so widely copied elsewhere in Germany that from the tenth century, the office developed into a hereditary possession of the higher nobility, who frequently exploited it as a way of extending their power and territories, and in some cases took for themselves the estates and assets of the church bodies for whose protection they were supposedly responsible. In Austria, the teaching of the Church that, according to canon law individuals were prohibited from exercising authority over Church property, was only accepted reluctantly by the nobles. The rights of advocacy were bought back by the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century abbeys in alliance with the Babenberg and early Habsburg dukes; the abolition of the Vogtei (Entvogtung) thereby exchanged local secular jurisdiction for the protective overlordship of the duke of Austria, sometimes by forging charters that the duke confirmed.italic=unset (Cologne and Vienna, 1985).
Terminology and customs evolved over time. In German for example, the delegated governor of a city could be called a Stadtvogt, while the governor or rural estates could be called a Landvogt. A Burgvogt was a castle administrator or castellan, responsible for the general running of a castle and also for exercising judicial powers there. In addition to governing lands, forts and cities, the term advocatus (or Vogt, Voogd etc.) could be applied to more specific administrative functions delegated by territorial rulers, equivalent to English reeves and . However other terms were also sometimes used for these such as Dutch schout, and German Schultheiss.
Land administered by a Vogt could also be known locally as a Vogtland (terra advocatorum), a name still used to refer to a region, the Vogtland, that adjoins the principalities of Reuss and adjacent portions of Saxony, Prussia and Bavaria.
Imperial advocacies tended to become hereditary. Sometimes the emperor himself assumed the title of Vogt, in application to parts of his eminent domain. An imperial (Reichsvogt) was an officer of the emperor, who served as administrator and judge of a subdivision of royal property, or of a royal abbey. The seat of an imperial Reichsvogt was often at an imperial city.
When the imperial cities gained more independence, by the late Middle Ages, they took over their own governance. The land Vogt office of the Alsace, consisting of the ten imperial cities of the Décapole, was ceded to the king of France in 1648, but the cities remained part of the Holy Roman Empire. However, the cities were soon thereafter annexed by France.
Several small land Vögte continued to exist until the end of the Empire in 1806, mainly in the Swabian Circle.
In what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg the Habsburg dynasty continued into modern times to rule through governors who used the title landvoogd or gouverneur-generaal, which was for example the main title of Margaret of Parma.
In modern Dutch language, the word voogd is the primary word for the concept of legal guardian.
In exceptional cases, the population of the Landvogtei was allowed to elect their own Landvogt. This concerned italic=no in particular, which was nominally a subject territory of Bern, but enjoyed a special status as a military ally. The office of Landvogt was abolished in 1798, with the foundation of the Helvetic Republic.
Although the title of Duke of Burgundy was extinguished by the French king after the annexation of its ancestral lands in 1477, the Habsburg kings of Spain and archdukes of Austria continued to use the title to refer to their realms in the Netherlands.
The advocatus ecclesiae was also known as a custos or adjutator in the 10th and 11th centuries. Initially, only counts and dukes were appointed advocati, but by the end of the 11th century the title was being bestowed on mere castellans. The monks usually consulted their advocate before electing a new abbot, giving the advocate influence over the selection. When a nobleman founded or reformed a monastery, he usually became its advocate. In the 12th century, the office of the advocate was on the decline - a result of the Gregorian reforms. The Cistercian Order, for example, never allowed lay advocates.Constance B. Bouchard, "Advocatus/Avoué", in Medieval France: An Encyclopedia (Garland, 1995), pp. 16–17.
In modern Poland, a wójt is the elected head of a rural gmina, whereas heads of urban gminas are called burmistrz (burgomaster), or president.
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