What is "abbreviator"

Abbreviator \Ab*bre"vi*a`tor\, n. [LL.: cf. F. abbr['e]viateur.]

1. One who abbreviates or shortens.

2. One of a college of seventy-two officers of the papal court whose duty is to make a short minute of a decision on a petition, or reply of the pope to a letter, and afterwards expand the minute into official form.

n. 1 (non-gloss definition agent noun Agent noun of abbreviate); one who abbreviates or shortens. (Early 16^th century.)(R:SOED5: page=3) 2 (context history Roman Catholicism English) One of a college of seventy-two officers of the papal court whose duty is to make a short minute of a decision on a petition, or reply of the pope to a letter, and afterwards expand the minute into official form. (Mid 16^th century.)

n : one who shortens or abridges or condenses a written work [syn: abridger]

Abbreviator, plural Abbreviators in English or Abbreviatores in Latin, also called Breviators, were a body of writers in the papal chancery, whose business was to sketch out and prepare in due form the pope's bulls, briefs and consistorial decrees before these are written out in extenso by the scriptores.

They are first mentioned in the papal bulls Extravagantes of Pope John XXII and of Pope Benedict XII.

After the protonotaries left the sketching of the minutes to the abbreviators, those de Parco majori, who ranked as prelates, were the most important officers of the apostolic chancery. By the time of Pope Martin V their signature was made essential to the validity of the acts of the chancery; and they obtained in course of time many important privileges.