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From: "Jane Lyons" <>
Subject: [LOUTH] Rectory, Vicarage, Parish................
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2000 11:33:30 -0000

Over the years I have asked questions and been asked questions by those who
those who progress past names and who begin to wonder about words they see
'benefice' 'in fee' 'rectory' vicarage'. I always thought that Civil
Parishes were there before religious parishes. We're always told that the
Churhc of Ireland Parishes pretty much follow the boundaries of the Civil
parishes and yet, as we read through lewis Topogaphical Directory of Ireland
we find that this is not necessarily so.

This is being posted to the Donegaleire list because it specifically
mentions the Diocese of Raphoe.

This will be continued.............

Extracted from:
RECTORY VICARAGE AND PARISH IN THE WESTERN IRISH DIOCESES
K. W. Nicholis
Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries,

"In most areas of western Europe the parochial system (whose essential
feature was that a particular church was entitled to the tithes and the
profits arising from spiritual minstration within a given area, the parish)
was in general a creation of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. In
England the system was already fully established by the time of King Edgar
(959-63). In the Celtic countries, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, the
introduction of the system was of much later date, and followed on the
Hildebrandine reformation and in the wake of Norman conquest and
penetration. For Ireland, outside the towns of the Ostmen, there is no
evidence whatsoever that the formation of parishes had even commenced before
the arrival of the Normans. The Norman invaders of Ireland consequently
found a land yet undivided into parishes, with the result that for some time
after the conquest we find the lay lords exercising 'the right of conferring
tithes at will on anyone in orders or [on] any religious corporation [which]
preceded the more rigid rule that tithes should be paid to the local parish
priest'. This is in contrast to the situation in contemporary England, where
grants of portions of the ecclesiastical revenues of a parish 'were always
of pensions charged on the parish church, never of pieces of land'. In
Ireland, however, even after the establishment of the parochial system and
down to the end of the mediaeval period we find in the Munster dioceses the
peculiar ecclesiastical benefices called 'particles' (particulae), composed
of the tithes of particular lands within a parish and which for purposes
other than the payment of tithe continued to form part of that parish.The
formation of parishes in the eastern and southern parts of Ireland which
were occupied soon after the Norman invasion seems to date from the period
of their settlement, the last quarter of the twelfth and the opening years
of the thirteenth century, and the parishes in these regions, usually small
and often very small, corresponded in general, as was the case in some
regions of South Wales, with the holdings of the military tenants of the
area. Professor J. Otway-Ruthven, in a paper published in 1965, has traced
the development of the parochial system in the rural deanery of Skreen in
Meath, one of the most thoroughly settled and Anglicised areas of mediaeval
Ireland, and a similar pattern of parishes, reflecting in their boundaries
those of the secular manors or fees, is characteristic of most of southern
Leinster and of Munster. As a contrast to such parishes, Professor
Otway-Ruthyen cites the case of such an enormous parish as Ardnurcher, in
Cos. Westmeath and Offaly, which extended over a heavily wooded and boggy
region in which Norman penetration had been very slight.

In the regions mentioned, as in England, there was no regular system for the
partition of the parochial tithes. Originally, of course, the rector or
parson had been the parish priest and had received the entire tithe;
however, with the coming of the custom of impropriation, by which the
parochial revenues were vested in a religious house, and with the increase
of the practice of granting rectories as benefices for the support of clerks
who were actively engaged elsewhere, in study or in official work, it became
necessary to provide vicars who would perform the actual duties of the cure.
By the end of the twelfth century the vicarage was becoming a benefice in
its own right, in which the holder had a right of freehold, rather than a
mere perpetual curacy, and was acquiring its own endowment, consisting of a
portion of the tithes of the parish. There was no specific rule, however,
for this vicarial remuneration; the vicar might receive a half, a third, or
only a quarter of the total tithes, or he might receive the 'small tithes'
of the parish, while the rector received the 'great tithes' (those of corn,
hay and wood) or again the vicar might receive the tithes of some particular
lands within the parish. In other cases the rectory remained 'entire', the
rector continuing to exercise the cure and receiving the entire tithe of the
parish, and no vicar existed.

In the purely Irish dioceses of Ulster, however- Clogher, Derry and Raphoe -
we find, in contrast to the haphazard arrangements already described, a
system of quite extraordinary regularity. In these dioceses, as throughout
the ecclesiastical province of Tuam and in the dioceses of Sodor (Isles) and
Argyle in Scotland, the archaic custom of the tripartition or
quadripartition of tithes, otherwise unknown in the British Isles although
common elsewhere in Europe, and under which the bishop received a third or a
quarter (respectively) of all tithes within the diocese, was in force, and
in every parish there existed both a sinecure rector and a vicar, who
received fixed shares of tithe under the system of tripartition or
quadripartition. The system is best described in the words of Bishop George
Montgomery, writing about 1609 :
". . . The Byshop of Clogher hath besyde his lands the fourth part of all
tythes throughout his Dyoces, which is called quarter episcopalis. The
Byshops of Derry and Rapho have the third part, and it is called tertia
episcopalis."
"The rest of the tythes are devyded betwene the Parson and Vicar. In
Clougher the Parson hath two fourth parts, the Vicar hath one. In Derry and
Rapho the Parson and Vicar have each of them one third part."
"The parsonages were usually bestowed upon students that intended to take
orders, towards their mayntenance at schoole, and were enioyned within few
yeares after they accepted the parsonage to enter into orders, but hold not
themselves bound to execute devyne service.
"The Vicars are tyed to perpetuall residence and service of the cure, and
besyde their portion of tythes, have the benefit of all oblations and other
small ducties at buryals and christenings to themselves alone for attendance
of the service ...."
"The parsonages and vicarages through all theise three Dyoceses have byn
ever collated by the Byshops of theise Sees, without contradiction or
challenge of any person"

Bishop Montgomery's statement as to all livings being in the collation of
the bishops seems not to have been true for an earlier period, as in the
fifteenth century several lay advowsons, probably relies of the Norman
settlement, occur in the diocese of Derry, and a single doubtful example
occurs at that period in the diocese of Clogher. Impropriations were very
rare in the three dioceses mentioned. The coexistence in each parish of a
sinecure person or rector and a serving vicar was the almost universal
practice in the Gaelic parts of Ireland. In the three dioceses mentioned
only a single parish of Derry formed an exception to this rule; the '1306'
Taxation of Raphoe Diocese shows it already fully established there, and by
the beginning of the fifteenth century it was here and elsewhere referred to
as the immemorial custom.The rule of tripartition or quadripartion of
tithes may possibly have led to the conclusion that the shares other than
the bishop's should each go to different persons, but it is perhaps
significant that in a number of places the parson or rector was the direct
successor of the ancient comharba and in fact bore that title."

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• [LOUTH] Rectory, Vicarage, Parish................ by "Jane Lyons" <>