Definition of "fautor"

The laity of England had refused to apostatise; the fautor of his schemes was dead; and then, then, as a last miserable alternative, he dropped from his ambitious height back into the foul slough of avarice, and plied all the arts of threat and of falsehood to reconfiscate the revenues of the see of Canterbury, and figured once more not as head of the Church, not as source of jurisdiction, not as lord of all, but merely as a croned robber.

1883, Martin Rule, The Life and Times of St. Anselm

The effect of the ſtatute of 16 R. 2 [Statute of Praemunire (16 Ric. II, chapter 5)] is, if any purſue or cauſe to be purſued in the court of Rome, or elſewhere, any thing with toucheth the king, againſt him, his crowne and regality, or his realme, their notaries, procurators, &c. fautors, &c. ſhall be out of the kings protection.

1644, Edward Coke, The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England: Concerning High Treason, and Other Pleas of the Crown, and Criminall Causes, London: Printed by M[iles] Flesher, for W[illiam] Lee and D[aniel] Pakeman, OCLC 12388731; reprinted as The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England: Concerning High Treason, and other Pleas of the Crown. And Criminal Causes, 15th edition, London: Printed for E. and R. Brooke, Bell-Yard, near Temple-Bar, 1797, OCLC 76956988, pages 119–*120

...Edmund Wyld, Esq., also, then a member of Parliament and a great fautor of ingenious and good men for mere merit's sake...

1894, Wilson Lloyd Bevan, Sir William Petty : A Study in english Economic Literature. Publications of the American Economic Association, vol. IX, no. 4, p. 17