BENEFICE

(Lat. beneficium.) A word denoting a certain cla of church preferments, viz. rectories, vicarages, perpetual curacies, and chaplaincies; and distinguished from a dignity, under which title are compri bishoprics, deaneries, and pre be'nds. Under the Roman? certain grants of lands made to the veteran soldiers were called benefic i a; and the same term was applied at the commencement of the feudal system to estates conferred by the sovereign and held under him: which afterwards a uming a hereditary character became ■• I so called. In the middle ages the popes a umed the feudal right with reference to ecclesiastical "patronage,'' and the term beneficium was hence applied to livings, , on the a umption that they were held under the pope as a superior lord. It was the a ertion of this claim by Innocent III. and his succe ors, which roused the jealousy of the European sovereigns, especially those of England and France; and from the contentions consequent upon this the first opening was made to the cause of Reformation. [s. 156]