Legate
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
The title of an ambassador or envoy from the pope to the court of a catholic sovereign or nation. There have been three kinds: Legates a latere, being such as the pope commissions to take his place in councils, and so called because they have always been chosen from cardinals attending the pope, who are his confidants, and always a latere, or at his side. Legates de latere, or legati dati, those intrusted with apostolical legation; they acted under a special commission. Legates by oflice, or legati nati, those that were legates by virtue of their offices, as, in England, the Archbishop of Canterbury in former times.