[1] After the protonotaries left the adumbration of the minutes to the Abbreviators, those de Parco majori of the dignity of prelate were the most important officers of the Papal Chancery.
The early Christians practised the abbreviated mode, no doubt as an easy and safe way of communicating with one another and safeguarding their secrets from enemies and false brethren.
[2] In course of time the Papal Chancery adopted this mode of writing as the "curial" style, still further abridging by omitting the diphthongs "ae" and "oe", and likewise all lines and marks of punctuation.
Afterwards the establishment of the Dataria Apostolica and the Secretariate of Briefs lightened the work of the Chancery and led to a reduction in the number of Abbreviatores.
[2] Whatever may be the date of the institution of the office of abbreviator, it is certain that it became of greater importance and more highly privileged upon its erection into a college of prelates.
[2] In the pontificate of Pope Pius II, their number, which had been fixed at twenty-four, had overgrown to such an extent as to diminish considerably the individual remuneration, and, as a consequence, competent men no longer sought the office, and hence the old style of writing and expediting the bulls was no longer used, to the great injury of justice, the interested parties, and the dignity of the Apostolic See.
He ordained further that some should be called "Abbreviators of the Upper Bar"[2] (Abbreviatores de Parco Majori; the name derived from a place in the Chancery that was surrounded by a grating, in which the officials sat, which is called higher or lower (major or minor) according to the proximity of the seats to that of the Vice Chancellor[1]), the others of the Lower Bar (Abbreviatores de Parco Minori); that the former should sit upon a slightly raised portion of the chamber, separated from the rest of the chamber by lattice work, assist the Cardinal Vice-Chancellor, subscribe the letters and have the principal part in examining, revising, and expediting the Apostolic letters to be issued with the leaden seal; that the latter, however, should sit among the Apostolic writers upon benches in the lower part of the chamber, and their duty was to carry the signed schedules or supplications to the prelates of the Upper Bar.
He appointed seventy-two abbreviators, of whom twelve were of the upper, or greater, and twenty-two of the lower, or lesser, presidency ("parco"), and thirty-eight examiners on first appearance of letters.
Ciampini mentions a decree of the Vice Chancellor by which absentees were mulcted in the loss of their share of the remuneration of the following session of the Chancery.
[2] Pope Pius VII suppressed many of the offices of the Chancery, and so the Tribunal of Correctors and the Abbreviators of the lower presidency disappeared.
Although the duty of Abbreviators was originally to make abstracts and abridgments of the Apostolic letters, diplomas, et cetera, using the legal abbreviations, clauses, and formularies, in course of time, as their office grew in importance they delegated that part of their office to their substitute and confined themselves to overseeing the proper expedition of the Apostolic letters.
Bulls engrossed on a different parchment, or in different characters with lines and punctuation marks, or without the accustomed abbreviations, clauses, and formularies, were rejected as spurious.
He also empowered them to confer, later within strict limitations, the degree of Doctor, with all university privileges, institute notaries (later abrogated), legitimize children so as to make them eligible to receive benefices vacated by their fathers (later revoked), also to ennoble three persons and to make Knights of the Order of St. Sylvester (Militiae Aureae), the same to enjoy and to wear the insignia of nobility.
Abbreviators of the lower presidency before their suppression were simple clerics, and according to permission granted by Pope Sixtus IV (loc.
Pope Leo XIII in a motu proprio of 4 July 1898 most solemnly decreed the abolition of all venality in the transfer or collation of the said offices.
3, "Maximo") granted prelates of the greater presidency the privilege of wearing a hat with a purple band, which right they held even after they ceased to be abbreviators.