Rector
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
In ecclesiastical law, the incumbent in full possession of the rights of a parochial church. Rectory: the house and grounds belonging to the parish church, and appropriated to the residence of the incumbent. As opposed to a vicar, a rector is an incumbent of an unappropriated church. A rector (or parson) has for the most part the whole right to all the ecclesiastical dues in his parish; whereas, in theory of law, a vicar has an appropriator over him, entitled to the best part of the profits, to whom the vicar is, as it were, a perpetual curate, with a standing salary.
Cowel; 1 Bl. Com. 384-886; 2 Steph. Com. 677-683.