Definition of "benefice" [ben•e•fice]

• Ecclesiastical A church office endowed with fixed capital assets that provide a living. (noun)
• Ecclesiastical The revenue from such assets. (noun)
• A landed estate granted in feudal tenure. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Huity to J.S. until he be promoted to a competent benefice, and 251. at the time of the grant he was but a mean perfon, and afterward is made an arch-deacon, yet if 1 offer him a competent benefice* according to his eftate at the time of the grant, the annuity doth ceafe."
• "Popularly the term benefice is often understood to denote either certain property destined for the support of ministers of religion, or a spiritual office or function, such as the care of souls, but in the strict sense it signifies a right, i.e. the right given permanently by the Church to a cleric to receive ecclesiastical revenues on account of the performance of some spiritual service."
• "Since the usufruct allowed to clerics resembled the grants of land which sovereigns were accustomed to make to subjects who had distinguished themselves by military or political service, and which the Church was at times compelled to concede to powerful lay lords in order to secure necessary protection in troubled times, it was natural that the term benefice, which had been applied to these grants, should be employed to denote the similar practice in regard to ecclesiastics."