PREBEND

(Lat. Præbend a .) The stipend which is received by a prebendary, from the revenues of the cathedral or collegiate church with which he is connected. It denoted originally any stipend or reward, given out of the ecclesiastical revenues, to a person who had by his labours procured benefit to the Church; and the gratuity which was given either to a proctor or advocate, or any other person of the like kind. When the cathedral churches became well endowed, they left off receiving the income of their lands into one common bank, and dividing it among the members, but parcelled out the lands into several shares, appropriating them for the maintenance of each single clergyman who resided about the cathedral, calling it Præbend a , or Corpus Præbendæ , the Corps of the Prebend . Hence arose the difference between a prebend and a canonry . A canonry was a right which a person had in a church, to be deemed a member thereof, to have the right of a stall therein, and of giving a vote in the chapter; but a prebend was a right to receive certain revenues appropriated to his place. The number of prebends in the several cathedral churches was increased by the benefactions of respective founders; oftentimes out of the revenues of the rural clergy, and oftentimes by exonerating the lands of prebends from paying tithes to the ministers of the parishes where they lay.— Nicholls.