Avoyer

An avoyer (German: Schultheiss; Italian: scoltetto; Latin: scultetus) was a medieval official in Switzerland representing a lord and tasked, in their name, with administering high justice or low justice. The office derives from a Frankish-era judicial functionary and corresponds to the Swiss urban development of the office known in Germany as Schultheiß.

Probably initially linked to landed lordship, the avoyer subsequently became the representative of the lord, both in cities and in the countryside, in judicial and administrative matters. The position largely overlapped with that of the Ammann, Meier, Landvogt, or Reichsvogt.