A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

“As to the first consideration, it appears this is a chapel belonging to a country town. It has belonging to it all sorts of parochial rights, as clerk, warden, &c., all rights of performing Divine service, baptism, sepulture, &c., which is very strong evidence of itself that this is not barely a chapel of ease to the parish to which it belongs, but stands on its own foundation, capella parochialis, as it is called in Hobart; and this differs it greatly from the chapels in London, which are barely chapels of ease, commencing within time of memory, which have not baptism or sepulture; all which sort of rights belong to the mother-church, and the rector or vicar of the parish, who has the cure of souls, has the nomination, as the rector of St. James’s or St. Martin’s has, but they have no parochial rights, which clearly belong to this chapel. Nor have any of the inhabitants of this chapelry a right to bury in the parish church of Northop, and that right of sepulture is the most strong circumstance, as appears from 3 Selden’s History, Tithes, fol. column 1212, to show that it differs not from a parish church.

“The next circumstance to determine this question is the right of the inhabitants, viz. to have service performed there, and baptism and christening, and having no right to resort to the parish church of Northop for these purposes, nor to any other place, if not here; nor are they or have they been rateable to the parish church of Northop. It was determined in the case of Castle Birmidge, Hob. 66, that the having a chapel of ease will not exempt the inhabitants within that district from contributing to repairs of the mother-church, unless it was by prescription, which would then be a strong foundation, that it must be considered as a curacy or chapelry.

“Next, as to the rights and dues of the curate. All these concur to show it to be a perpetual curacy, and not at all at the will and pleasure of the vicar; for the curate has always enjoyed the small tithes and surplice fees, nor is there any evidence to show that the vicar has received the small tithes.”

A nomination to a perpetual curacy may be by parol. “Most regularly,” Lord Hardwicke says, “it ought to be in writing;” but, he adds, “I do not know that it has been determined that it is necessary. A presentation to a church need not be in writing, but may be by parol; if so, I do not see why a nomination to a perpetual curacy may not be by parol.”

A perpetual curate has an interest for life in his curacy, in the same manner and as fully as a rector or vicar; that is to say, he can only be deprived by the ordinary, and that in proper course of law; and, as Lord Hardwicke observes, it would be a contradiction in terms to say that a perpetual curate is removable at will and pleasure.

The ministers of the new churches of separate parishes, ecclesiastical districts, consolidated chapelries, and district chapelries, are perpetual curates, so that they are severally bodies politic and corporate, with perpetual succession, and consequently may accept grants made to them and their successors; and they are to be licensed and to be removable in the same manner as other perpetual curates. This is also the case with those ministers who are appointed to new districts or parishes under the Church Endowment Act; and as licence operates to all such ministers in the same manner as institution would in the case of a presentative benefice, it would render voidable any other livings which such ministers might hold, in the same manner as institution.

VICARS CHORAL. The assistants or deputies of the canons or prebendaries of collegiate churches, in the discharge of their duties, especially, though not exclusively, those performed in the choir or chancel, as distinguished from those belonging to the altar and pulpit.

The vicars choral, as their name implies, were originally appointed as the deputies of the canons and prebendaries for Church purposes; that is, to provide for the absence or incapacity of the great body of capitular members: the clerical vicars to chant in rotation the prayers at matins and evening, &c., and the whole body to form a sufficient and permanent choir for the performance of the daily service; a duty which the canons were originally required to perform in person. The presbyteral members were usually four, being the vicars of the four dignitaries, personæ principales (see Persona). Sometimes they were five; the rest were deacons, and in minor orders, in later times chiefly laymen.

This institution was most salutary; since, were every canon required to have the peculiar qualifications required from vicars, viz. a practical knowledge of ecclesiastical music, men of more essential and higher qualities would of necessity be often excluded from the canonical stalls. In fact, the appointment of deacons and inferior ministers to this peculiar office, which we do not find established till the beginning of the fourth century, (i. e. the κανονικοὶ ψαλταὶ, vide Bingham, iii. 7,) bears a striking analogy to the regulation of the Jewish temple; where some of the Levites, the deacons of the elder Church, were newly appointed by David to the musical service.... Originally the vicars choral were commensurate with the capitular members, each of these having a vicar, appointed by himself, and holding his place only so long as his principal lived. The numbers have now greatly diminished. At York, they were at one time, 36; at Lincoln, 25; at Hereford, 20. At St. Patrick’s each vicar is still denominated from a dignitary or prebendary, twenty-six in number; but one vicar is in many instances the representative of two stalls; and he is designated from both, as “the prebendary of A and B, vicar.”

In all cathedrals of the old foundation in England, and in Ireland, where there were choirs, the vicars choral formed a minor corporation, in some way under the control of the dean or chapter, but with separate estates, with collegiate buildings, halls, chapels, some of which still subsist. Those at Hereford were incorporated in the 15th century, those at Exeter in Henry IV.’s time. At Southwell they formerly formed a college, till the Reformation. These presidents were styled custos, or warden, subdean, subchanter, provost, or procurator. In Ireland, but twelve of the cathedrals have had foundations for vicars choral, as far as any record remains, and in some of these their very sufficient endowments had been suffered by a long course of neglect and abuse to be diverted from their original purpose, and were a few years ago alienated by law.—A better spirit has happily arisen of late years.—In Scotland it does not appear that vicars choral were attached to all cathedrals. Bishop Elphinston endowed twenty vicars choral or minor canons at Aberdeen, in 1506; at Glasgow, vicars of the choir were founded in 1455; Elgin cathedral modelled on that of Lincoln, in 1224, had twenty-two vicars choral, commensurate with the chapter.