PREFECT

(Lat. pra?fectus.) A common name of various Roman functionaries; among others a military officer, who had the command of the cavalry of a legion. The praetorian praefect was the commanding officer of the pTsetorian cohorts, who were the imperial guard, and always stationed at Rome. This office, after the time of Severus, engro ed the highest powers to which a subject could attain. {See Praetorian Cohorts.) Praefect was likewise the title given to the imperial governor of Egypt, which was on a different footing from the other "provinces, which were superintended by sen.atorial men with the titles of proconsul and propraetor. The praefect of Egypt, on the contrary, was always of the equestrian order, and was a military governor. This anomaly is said to have arisen from a prophecv which foretold that Egypt should recover its liberty when the Roman fasces and praetexta should come to it; and which August us took advantage of, to bring that province more immediately under his own superintendence. PRiEMUNl' RE. In Law, a name given to a species of offence, in the nature of a contempt, against the king and his government. The name is derived from the words " praemoneri," or " praemuniri facias," which are used in the beginning of the writ preparatory to the prosecution of the offence: " Cause A. B. to be forewarned, that he appear before us," . The first statute of praemunire was pa ed in the reign of Edward I. to restrain the encroachments of the Romish clergy; and several subsequent statutes before the Reformation have extended the number of penal acts under this title. The principal were those proceeding from an a umption of authority in England by virtue of papal and other foreign provisions. But, by still later statutes, acts of a very miscellaneous character have been rendered liable to the penalties of praemunire, as refusing to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, . [s. 981]