What is "vidame"

Vidame \Vi*dame"\, n. [F., fr. LL. vice-dominus, fr. L. vice instead of + dominus master, lord.] (Fr. Feud. Law) One of a class of temporal officers who originally represented the bishops, but later erected their offices into fiefs, and became feudal nobles.

n. (context historical English) One of a class of temporal officers who originally represented the bishops, but later erected their offices into fiefs, and became feudal nobles.

Vidame, a French term descended from mediaeval Latin vicedominus ('vice-lord', which may mean 'vice-count', depending on the feudal status of the territory), was a feudal title in France. The vidame was originally, like the avoué ( advocatus), the royal or crown judge, a secular official chosen by the bishop of the diocese, with the consent of the count, to perform functions on-behalf of the prince-count in the church's earthly interest, canonically incompatible with the clerical state, or at least deemed inappropriate, especially involving violence, even in the service of justice, and to act as protector, rather in the tradition of the Roman Defensores.

Unlike the advocate, however, the vice- dominus was at the outset an ecclesiastic, who acted as the bishop's lieutenant ( locum tenens) or vicar. But the causes that changed the character of the advocatus operated also in the case of the vidame.