benefice

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Related to Benefices: beneficed, ecclesiastical benefice, Clerical pluralism

benefice

benefice (bĕnˈəfĭs), in canon law, a position in the church that has attached to it a source of income; also, more narrowly, that income itself. The occupant of a benefice receives its revenue (temporalities) for the performance of stipulated duties (spiritualities), e.g., the celebration of Mass. He receives the free use of such revenue but is expected to convert into good works any income in excess of his personal needs. Benefices are normally bestowed for life. Canon law forbids plurality of benefices, i.e., the holding of more than one benefice, but papal dispensations have made many exceptions to this rule. Benefices were originally in the form of land donations made to the church by wealthy laymen. Today the revenue of a benefice may come also from government salaries, investments, or the offerings of the faithful. Benefices are common in Europe but are practically unknown in the United States. The Church of England makes extensive use of the beneficiary system; the benefice in England is also called a living. The value of benefices led to many abuses (see simony) and frequent conflict between secular and ecclesiastical authorities in the Middle Ages.

benefice

(in contemporary usage) a living from a church office or the property attached to a church.
(historically, and in sociology) the institution in Western European feudalism whereby a vassal was given land or a position by an overlord from which the vassal could gain an income. Especially where land was involved, more commonly this was known as a fief. See FEUDALISM AND FEUDAL SOCIETY.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Benefice

(1) In ancient Rome, some kind of privilege, as for example, one granted to a debtor and, during the empire period, also various tax exemptions, grants bestowed by emperors, and so forth.

(2) In Western Europe in the early Middle Ages, the benefice in its classical form was a temporary grant, usually of land, in return for performance of administrative or military service. The classical benefice came into use in the Frankish kingdom after the benefice reform of Charles Mar-tel in the 730’s. According to this reform, gifts of land, which were earlier considered the unconditional property of great lords or vassals, were replaced by grants bestowed only as a benefice for lifelong use, primarily in return for military service. This formalized the territorial relations within the emerging feudal landlord class. As the practice of granting benefices, which came with the peasants dwelling on that land, became widespread, it led to increased dependence of the peasants upon the landholders and to a concentration of military and political power in the hands of the ruling class. Benefices served as the economic base underlying feudalism’s hierarchy. Owners of benefices gradually succeeded in turning their lifelong grants into hereditary feudal property, or fiefs. There was a certain similarity to the West European benefice in the milost’ (favor) and later the po-mest’e (estate) in Russia and, in the Arab countries, in the ikta (before they acquired a hereditary character).

(3) The ecclesiastical benefice, in the Catholic church, is the awarding of a profitable post to a clergyman. During the Middle Ages there was a struggle between the clerical and secular authorities over the right to dispose of ecclesiastical benefices, which included tracts of land. For example, such a struggle occurred between the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy over the question of investiture in the 11th and 12th centuries.

A. IA. SHEVELENKO

benefice

1. Christianity an endowed Church office yielding an income to its holder; a Church living

2. the property or revenue attached to such an office

3. (in feudal society) a tenement (piece of land) held by a vassal from a landowner on easy terms or free, esp in return for military support

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

References in periodicals archive ?

"This follows the medieval tradition of the parish benefice, or one in which a parish produces a good to support the parish."

A parish turns to manufacturing

La troisieme section presente le lissage des benefices comme une strategie privilegiee par les societes d'Etat.

Les caracteristiques du conseil d'administration et la gestion strategique des resultats: une etude menee aupres des societes d'Etat du Canada

We can evaluate the overall importance of Palmer's book: for explicating in fine detail the management of benefice income in the later Middle Ages, not least the marvelous information about leasing; for elucidating the program of parochial reform embarked on from 1529; for reintroducing us to the wonderful material in the plea rolls, some of it presented in the voluminous appendices; but most of all for suggesting another route to religious reform alongside Shagan's interpretation, but crucially from different evidence.

Selling the Church. The English Parish in Law, Commerce, and Religion, 1350-1550

Bien que seulement trois cas aient ete poursuivi jusqu'a l'etape de la publication d'un etat de faits, sans sanctions, Kirton estime que les cas ont donne lieu a un nombre de benefices environnementaux concrets.

Introduction

Cette hausse des benefices du groupe Attijariwafa Bank s'explique, entre autres, par la baisse de 20,5% du cout du risque a 1,7 milliard de DH, qui a permis de degager un resultat d'exploitation en hausse de 4,6% a 9,9 milliards de DH sur la meme periode de reference.

Attijariwafa Bank: les benefices portes par l'activite domestique

Le benefice net total s'eleve a 27,3 millions de dollars, soit une augmentation de 51,8% en comparaison avec les 18,0 millions de dollars pour la meme periode en 2013.

Tunisiana augmente son benefice net de 51,8%

Sfondrati nuns acted as "family treasurers," holding onto and disbursing large sums of money in the administration of family benefices--a telling reminder that Trent was unable to dismantle the lucrative system of multiple benefices that formed a sizeable portion of aristocratic income.

A Convent Tale: A Century of Sisterhood in Spanish Milan

Next the author illustrates how the new pope consolidated his position in the face of several crises not only by attempting to transform the college of cardinals through his appointments to that body, but also by setting new accents to the papacy's role in the reservation and provisions of benefices, prebends, and expectancies.

Urban V (1362-1370): Kirchenreform zwischen Kardinalkollegium, Kurie und Klientel. (Book Reviews and Notes)

But by the eleventh century, many princes had become used to appointing (investing) bishops, abbots and priests to clerical benefices. Thus they robbed and enslaved the Church, with moral degradation as a consequence.

Priestly celibacy

Et de souligner que[beaucoup moins que]la politique de plafonnement n'a aucun sens car elle legitime, en fin de compte, des benefices excessives voire illegitimes[beaucoup plus grand que].

Samir: Les salaries menacent d'evacuer les lieux de l'entreprise

La baisse des benefices est le resultat de la chute des revenus estimes a 359 millions de couronnes au premier trimestre 2013, a 178 millions de couronnes cette annee.