Prefecture Apostolic of Palawan
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Republic and Diocese of Panama
Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweinheim
Commemoration of the Passion of Christ
Devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ
Passion of Jesus Christ in the Four Gospels
Feast of the Patronage of Our Lady
St. Paulinus II, Patriarch of Aquileia
Luis Ignatius Peñalver y Cardenas
Feast of Pentecost (of the Jews)
Christian and Religious Perfection
Religious of Perpetual Adoration
Religious of the Perpetual Adoration
Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration
Perpetual Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament
Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Pestalozzi and Pestalozzianism
Sts. Peter Baptist and Twenty-five Companions
Bl. Pierre-Louis-Marie Chanel (1)
Ven. Giuseppe Maria Pignatelli
Pierre-Guillaume-Frédéric Le Play
Hebrew Poetry of the Old Testament
Giovanni Francesco Poggio Bracciolini
Antonio and Piero Benci Pollajuolo
Joseph Anthony de la Rivière Poncet
Poor Brothers of St. Francis Seraphicus
Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus
Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ
Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis
Poor Servants of the Mother of God
Diocese of Porto and Santa-Rufina
Jean-François-Albert du Pouget
Archconfraternity of the Most Precious Blood
Congregation of the Most Precious Blood
Congregations of the Precious Blood
Count Humbert-Guillaume de Precipiano
Religious Congregations of the Presentation
Congregation of the Presentation of Mary
Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Sacred Congregation of Propaganda
Society for the Propagation of the Faith
Ecclesiastical Property in the United States
Prophecy, Prophet, and Prophetess
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America
Diocese of Przemysl, Sambor, and Sanok
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin
(Etymologically primus in cera, sc. in tabula cerata, the first in a list of a class of officials)
A term applied in later Roman times to the head of any administration-thus "primicerius notariorum", "primicerius protectorum" etc. (cf. Forcellini, "Totius latinitatis Lexicon", s.v.). In ecclesiastical use the term was given to heads of the colleges of Notarii and Defensores, which occupied so important a place in the administration of the Roman Church in later antiquity and in the early Middle Ages. When young clerics were assembled in schools for training in the ecclesiastical service in the different districts of the Western Church (from the fifth or sixth century), the directors of these schools were also commonly given this title. Thus, an inscription of the year 551 from Lyons mentions a "Stephanus primicerius scolae lectorum servientium in ecclesia Lugdunensi" (Le Blant, "Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule", I, 142, n. 45; cf. similar notices in Ducange, "Glossarium", s.v.; Gregory of Tours, "Hist. Francorum", II, xxxvii). St. Isidore of Seville treats of the obligations of the primicerius of the lower clerics in his "Epistola ad Ludefredum" (P.L., LXXXIII, 896). From this position the primicerius also derived certain powers in the direction of liturgical functions. In the regulation of the common life of the clergy in collegiate and cathedral churches, according to the Rule of Chrodegang and the statutes of Amalarius of Metz, the primicerius appears as the first capitular after the archdeacon and archpresbyter, controlling the lower clerics and directing the liturgical functions and chant. The primicerius thus became a special dignitary of many chapters by a gradual development from the position of the old primicerius of the scola cantorum or lectorum.
THOMASSINUS, Vetus et nova Ecclesiae disciplina, I (Lyons, 1700); GALLETTI, Del Primicerio di Santa Sede Apost. (Rome, 1776); PHILLIPS, Kirchenrecht, VI (Ratisbon, 1864), 343; KELLER, Die sieben rom. Pfalzrichter (Stuttgart, 1904).
J.P. KIRSCH