Anglicanism
William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England says that a parson is a parish priest with the fullest legal rights to the parish properties:
- A parson, persona ecclesiae, is one that has full possession of all the rights of a parochial church. He is called parson, persona, because by his person the church, which is an invisible body, is represented; and he is in himself a body corporate, in order to protect and defend the rights of the church (which he personates) by a perpetual succession. He is sometimes called the rector, or governor, of the church: but the appellation of parson, (however it may be depreciated by familiar, clownish, and indiscriminate use) is the most legal, most beneficial, and most honorable title that a parish priest can enjoy; because such a one, (Sir Edward Coke observes) and he only, is said vicem seu personam ecclesiae gerere ("to carry out the business of the church in person")
- — Bl. Comm. I.11.V, p. *372
Legally, parish priests are separately given spiritual and temporal jurisdiction (they are instituted and inducted). The spiritual responsibility is termed the cure of souls, and one holding such a cure is a curate, which was also given to parish assistants, or assistant curates. The title parson, however, refers to the temporal jurisdiction over the churches and glebe. Depending on how the tithes were apportioned, a parson may be a rector or a vicar. A parish priest who received no tithes was legally a perpetual curate (to distinguish him from assistant curates). However, historically, many perpetual curates, as they were technically parsons (having temporal jurisdiction), preferred to use this latter title. This led to the term parson having three senses. It could refer to any clergyman who was in charge of the parish church (rectors, vicars or perpetual curates) without distinction; it could, through actual use, refer simply to perpetual curates, or it could, through popular use, refer to any member of the clergy, even assistant curates. An Act of Parliament in 1868, changed the way that parochial clergy were paid, and permitted perpetual curates to be called vicars. This led to the rapid abandonment of the title parson in favour of vicar, to the extent that now, as previously for parson, the term vicar is often used for any cleric of the Church of England.
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