Institutional Terms

Question 1

benefice

Answer 1

a permanent Church appointment, typically that of a rector or vicar, for which property and income are provided in respect of pastoral duties.

Middle English: via Old French from Latin beneficium ‘favor, support’, from bene ‘well’ + facere ‘do’.

Question 2

advowson

Answer 2

(in English ecclesiastical law) the right to recommend a member of the Anglican clergy for a vacant benefice, or to make such an appointment.

Middle English (in the sense ‘patronage of a religious house or benefice’, with the obligation to defend it and speak for it): from Old French avoeson, from Latin advocatio(n-), from advocare ‘summon’ (see advocate).

Question 3

chantry

Answer 3

an endowment for a priest or priests to celebrate masses for the founder’s soul.
* a chapel, altar, or other part of a church endowed for priests to celebrate masses for the founder’s soul.

late Middle English: from Old French chanterie, from chanter ‘to sing’.

Question 4

chaplain

Answer 4

a member of the clergy attached to a private chapel, institution, ship, branch of the armed forces, etc.

Middle English: from Old French chapelain, from medieval Latin cappellanus, originally denoting a custodian of the cloak of St Martin, from cappella, originally ‘little cloak’

Question 5

chapel

Answer 5

a small building for Christian worship, typically one attached to an institution or private house: a service in the chapel | attendance at chapel was compulsory.
* a part of a large church or cathedral with its own altar and dedication.
* British a place of worship for certain Protestant denominations.
* a room or building in which funeral services are held.

Question 6

gentry

Answer 6

people of good social position, specifically (in the UK) the class of people next below the nobility in position and birth: a member of the landed gentry.

Question 7

burgess

Answer 7

• an inhabitant of a town or borough with full rights of citizenship.
• a Member of Parliament for a borough, corporate town, or university.
  of colonial Maryland or Virginia.

Question 8

guild

Answer 8

a medieval association of craftsmen or merchants, often having considerable power.

Question 9

parish

Answer 9

• a small administrative district typically having its own church and a priest or pastor:
  a parish church.
• (also civil parish) British the smallest unit of local government, constituted only in rural areas: [as modifier] : a parish councillor.

Question 10

yeoman

Answer 10

a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate; a freeholder.
* a person qualified for certain duties and rights, such as to serve on juries and vote for the knight of the shire, by virtue of possessing free land of an annual value of 40 shillings.

Question 11

Lollard

Answer 11

The Lollards believed that the Church should help people to live a life of evangelical poverty and imitate Christ. Their ideas influenced the thought of John Huss, who in turn influenced Martin Luther.

Question 12

heresy

Answer 12

whatever the church defined it to be, so anyone who willfully defied church teachings c. 1429 could be condemned as a heretic

Question 13

sacerdotal

Answer 13

relating to or denoting a doctrine which ascribes sacrificial functions and spiritual or supernatural powers to ordained priests.

late Middle English: from Old French, or from Latin sacerdotalis, from sacerdos, sacerdot- ‘priest’.