an officer under the Roman emperors, dispatched from court into the provinces, to compel the payment of taxes, &c. not paid within the time prescribed. The word is formed of the verb compellere, "to oblige, constrain." These were charged with so many exactions, under colour of their office, that Honorius cashiered them by a law in 412.

The laws of the Visigoths mention military compulsors; which were officers among the Goths, whose business was to oblige the tardy soldiers to go into the fight, or to run to an attack, &c.

Cassian mentions a kind of monastic compulsors, whose business was to declare the hours of canonical office, and to take care the monks went to church at those hours.