Dear Mary…
Q. In the 28 May edition of The Spectator you state that ‘a rector enjoys superior rank to a vicar’. While this may be true in popular mythology, it is quite wrong as far as the Church of England is concerned. The different titles merely reflect the source of an incumbent’s income in the Middle Ages. A rector held glebe land sufficient to provide an independent income. A vicar was paid a stipend by someone else — most commonly a monastic foundation. A wealthy religious house might pay a vicar more than a rector could scrape together from personal farming or rents. Since the Reformation, there has been no difference between rectors and vicars except the history of their benefices. Nor is it true that ‘a rectory is bigger and grander than a vicarage’. The size of the parsonage often reflected the personal wealth of one or more of the previous incumbents, or sometimes of the patron.
Revd Canon R.G., Wakefield, West Yorks
Q. There is no difference in ‘rank’ between a vicar and a rector; they are both incumbents of a parish and therefore parish priests of the Church of England. The difference is that a rector keeps or is in charge of the appropriation of the tithes of his parish, while the vicar has the tithes impropriated to the bishop or other authority and is then remunerated from the tithing by that authority. In other words a vicar is paid a salary by way of stipend, a rector is as well off as the tithing of his parish. In poorer parts of the country (i.e., the West Country) a vicar would be much better off than a rector because he would be given an excellent living even though his tithes be impropriated.
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