Vicegerent

Vicegerent is the official administrative deputy of a ruler or head of state: vice (Latin for "in place of") and gerere (Latin for "to carry on, conduct").^[1]

In Oxford colleges, a vicegerent is often someone appointed by the Master of a college to assume their powers and responsibilities during a period of absence.

Usage

Catholic Church

In the Catholic Church, the Vicegerent is an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rome, who is granted the personal title of archbishop and serves as the chief assistant to the Cardinal Vicar of Rome.^[2]^[3]

1701–1712: Domenico Zauli [it]
1712–1715: Niccolò Caracciolo [it]
1723–1738: Nunzio Baccari
1738–1742: Filippo Carlo Spada [it]
1742–1759: Ferdinando Maria de' Rossi [it]
1759–1773: Domenico Giordani
1774–1786: Francesco Antonio Marcucci
1787–1798: Francesco Saverio Passari [it]
1800–1812: Benedetto Fenaja [de]
1814–1821: Candido Maria Frattini [de]
1821–1833: Giuseppe della Porta Rodiani [it]
1833–1841: Antonio Luigi Piatti [de]
1841–1842: Giuseppe Maria Vespignani [de]
1842–1851: Giovanni Giuseppe Canali [it]
1851–1862: Antonio Ligi Bussi [de]
1862–1868: Pietro de Villanova Castellacci [de]
1868–1876: Giuseppe Angelini
1876–1895: Giulio Lenti [de]
1895–1899: Francesco di Paola Cassetta
1899–1917: Giuseppe Ceppetelli
1917–1936: Giuseppe Palica
1936–1960: Luigi Traglia
- 1953–1960: Ettore Cunial, second vicegerent
1960–1972: Ettore Cunial
- 1969–1972: Ugo Poletti, second vicegerent
1973–1975: Luigi Rovigatti [it]
1975–1984: Giovanni Canestri
1985–1988: Ennio Appignanesi
1991–1996: Remigio Ragonesi [it]
1996–2003: Cesare Nosiglia
2003–2010: Luigi Moretti
2012–2017: Filippo Iannone
2020–2022: Gianpiero Palmieri [it]
2022–2024: Baldassare Reina
2024–present: Renato Tarantelli Baccari [it]

Church of England

Early in 1535, closely following the passing of Parliament's Act of Supremacy formally creating the Church of England, King Henry VIII appointed his chief minister Thomas Cromwell "Vice-Gerent in spirituals", effectively acting as the king's deputy in church matters and taking precedence over the two archbishops; this was a necessary step as Cromwell, as an unordained layman, otherwise had no jurisdiction within the Church. The office was not continued after Cromwell's execution in 1540.^[4] Cromwell's earlier appointment, that of Vicar General, had different responsibilities: under this title he directed the royal commissions into monastic affairs.^[5]

Russian Empire

The term "vicegerency" (Ukrainian: намісництво, romanized: namisnytstvo; Russian: намесничество, romanized: namestnichestvo) is sometimes used in English-language historiography for an administrative division in the Russian Empire in the late 18th century.^[6] The administrators were called vicegerents, the equivalent of a governor-general.^[6] The following such divisions were established on the territory of modern Ukraine between 1780 and 1797:

Kharkiv vicegerency in 1780;^[6]
Kyiv vicegerency in 1781;^[6]
Novhorod-Siverskyi vicegerency in 1781;^[6]
Chernihiv vicegerency in 1781;^[6]
Katerynoslav vicegerency in 1783;^[6]
Iziaslav (Zaslav) vicegerency in 1793 (renamed Volhynia vicegerency in 1795);^[6]
Bratslav vicegerency in 1793;^[6]
Podilia vicegerency in 1793; and^[6]
Voznesensk vicegerency in 1795.^[6]

In 1797, the vicegerencies were abolished and replaced by guberniyas, or governorates.^[6]

Southeast Asia

Patih or Pepatih is a regent title equivalent to vicegerent which was traditionally used among Austronesian polities of insular Southeast Asia, in particular those of Java and the Malay world. In the first place it denoted the chief minister of a kingdom or (in the case of Java) a traditional regency. Lesser ministers could also be known by the title. In some cases the headmen of local communities could be termed Patih, for example on 16th-century Java and in Banjarmasin in southeastern Kalimantan.^[7]

In his capacity of chief minister in a realm, the Patih was the right hand and representative of the ruler. The commands of the ruler were transferred to the regional or local chiefs via the Patih. In the Javanese kingdoms the Patih had his own palace, the Pepatihan, and carried a particular name; in Yogyakarta his name as regent was Danurejo, in Surakarta (Solo) it was Joyonegoro.^[8]

Notable vicegerents

King John became vicegerent under the Pope.^[9]
Thomas Cromwell, Vicegerent of Henry VIII, appointed 1535.
The Byzantine Emperors held as a title "God's Vicegerent on Earth".^[10]
Milton, in his work Paradise Lost, titles the Son "The Vicegerent", in Book 10.

Notes

^ Random House Dictionary (2009 ed.)
^ Pope Paul VI (6 January 1977). "Vicariae potestatis in urbe" (in Italian). Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
^ Rev. Thomas F. Knox (1876), "Studies in Biography - No V. The Last Survivor of the Ancient English Hierarchy, part II", The Month and Catholic Review, XXVI (February ed.), Simpkin, Marshall: 139, retrieved 9 March 2014
^ MacCulloch, Diarmaid (27 September 2018). Thomas Cromwell : a life. pp. 268–9, 533. ISBN 9781846144295.
^ Burnet, Gilbert (1753). The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. Vol. 1 (1850 ed.). London: William S Orr & Co. p. 135.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l "Vicegerency". Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved 28 October 2024.
^ A. Cortesão (1944), The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires, Vol. I-II. London: Hakluyt Society; J.J. Ras (1968), Hikajat Bandjar; A Study in Malay Histiography. The Hague: M. Nijhoff.
^ G.F.E. Gonggrijp (1934), Geïllustreerde Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië. Leiden: Leidsche Uitgeversmaatschappij, p. 1154.
^ Browning, Charles Henry (1898). The Magna charta barons and their American descendants with the pedigrees of the founders of the Order of Runnemede deduced from the sureties for the enforcement of the statutes of the Magna charta of King John. Philadelphia. p. 14.
^ Littlewood, Anthony R. (16 March 1988). Maguire, Henry (ed.). Byzantine court culture from 829 to 1204. Harvard University Press. p. 21. ISBN 9780884022428.