BENEFICE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Benefice

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noun

Benefice n.

A favor or benefit. (Obs.)

(Feudal Law) An estate in lands; a fief. Note: Such an estate was granted at first for life only, and held on the mere good pleasure of the donor; but afterward, becoming hereditary, it received the appellation of fief, and the term benefice became appropriated to church livings.

An ecclesiastical living and church preferment, as in the Church of England; a church endowed with a revenue for the maintenance of divine service. See Advowson. Note: All church preferments are called benefices, except bishoprics, which are called dignities. But, ordinarily, the term dignity is applied to bishoprics, deaneries, archdeaconries, and prebendaryships; benefice to parsonages, vicarages, and donatives.

verb

Benefice v. t. (past & past part. beneficed) To endow with a benefice. Note: (Commonly in the past participle.)

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Etymology of 'Benefice'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Benefice" Quotes from Famous Books

... VIII. The crime of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment or the corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice for ...

— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... period minister of the Presbyterian Church in Swallow Street, and Dr. Desaguliers, of French Protestant descent, who had taken holy orders in England and in this same year of 1717 lectured before George I, who rewarded him with a benefice in Norfolk (Dictionary of National Biography, articles on James Anderson ...

— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... he raised the funds necessary for his campaign to reestablish and support the papal authority. This simony of his, says Dr. Jacob Burckhardt, "grew to unheard-of proportions, and extended from the appointment of cardinals down to the sale of the smallest benefice." ...

— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... manner—told me what the house was, and also indicated to me a rotten-looking brown wooden mansion in the same street, nearer the cathedral, as the Maison Scarron. The author of the "Roman Comique" and of a thousand facetious verses enjoyed for some years, in the early part of his life, a benefice in the cathedral of Le Mans, which gave him a right to reside in one of the canonical houses. He was rather an odd canon, but his history is a combination of oddities. He wooed the comic muse from the arm-chair of a cripple, and in the same position—he ...

— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... in the said village, who with his authority and presence there were causing notable injuries and annoyances; and a decree was asked from the royal Audiencia, providing that the said acting bishop should nominate in the usual form persons for presentation to the benefice of Bangues, and that he should change his residence to the capital of his diocese, [51] and should not live at the village of Vigan, except during the period which is allowed to the ecclesiastical visitors ...

— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898--Volume 39 of 55 • Various

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