…(in the Church of England) an incumbent of a parish where tithes formerly passed to a chapter or religious house or layman…
…an Anglican official serving as a deputy or assistant to a bishop or archbishop…
…the protagonist of an 18th-century song who kept his benefice from Charles II’s reign to George I’s by changing his beliefs to suit the times. The song is apparently based on an anecdote about an unidentified vicar of Bray, Berkshire, in Thomas Fuller’s Worthies of England (1662)…
