"Benefice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told him more than once, and in plain English, that she planned to divide with him—not equally, but equitably. She had said that she would give him a third of her own inheritance. Hm ... a hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand, say. And what couldn't he do with such a benefice? Of course, he would have to profess some slight interest in the League for awhile, but gradually he could slide out of it—and he hoped that he could engineer Mirabelle out of it. Mirabelle made herself too conspicuous. But even if Mirabelle stuck to her colours, ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... hero of so perilous an escapade. Cornaro promised to secure his pardon, but eventually exchanged him for a bishopric. This remarkable proceeding illustrates the manners of the Papal Court. The cardinal wanted a benefice for one of his followers, and the Pope wished to get his son's enemy once more into his power. So the two ecclesiastics bargained together, and by mutual kind offices ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... not lettred that nowe is made a lorde, Nor eche a clerke that hath a benefice; They are not all lawyers that pleas do recorde, All that are promoted are not fully wise; On suche chaunce nowe fortune throwes her dice That though we knowe but the yrishe game, Yet would he have ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... admitted, was simoniacal; and by simony he raised the funds necessary for his campaign to reestablish and support the papal authority. This simony of his, says Dr. Jacob Burckhardt, "grew to unheard-of proportions, and extended from the appointment of cardinals down to the sale of the smallest benefice." ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... looks and knew how to interpret them, but it was his profession to know how to shut his eyes to things that were inconvenient—no clergyman could keep his benefice for a month if he could not do this; besides he had allowed himself for so many years to say things he ought not to have said, and not to say the things he ought to have said, that he was little likely to see anything that he thought it more convenient not ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... interesting of the pieces here printed, the Examination of William Thorpe before Archbishop Arundel, held at Saltwood Castle in Kent in 1407. 'I know none more covetous shrews,' said the Archbishop to Thorpe in his railing way, 'than ye are when that ye have a benefice. For, lo! I gave to John Purvey a benefice (that of West Hythe, which Purvey held for fourteen months from August 1401) but a mile out of this castle, and I heard more complaints about his covetousness for tithes and other misdoings than I did of all men that were advanced within ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... parishes, where the reputation of the curate in this respect stood higher than that of his rector, the relations between the two have been so strained in consequence that the bishop has had to translate the rector to another benefice. Again, Gascon peasants believe that to revenge themselves on their enemies bad men will sometimes induce a priest to say a mass called the Mass of Saint Scaire. Very few priests know this mass, and three-fourths of those who do know it would not say it for love or ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... great thing if your Majesty could entrust to some of these fathers the affair of these Indians against the fathers of the Society. They tell me even that one of the Jesuit fathers, who went from here as their procurator, is about to claim on their behalf, the donation of the benefice and doctrina of the said village of Quiapo. The name of this procurator is Father Chirinos. They do not make this claim for the sake of the mission or benefice, for it is a very small hamlet; but only because, if they hold the said village ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... welcomed at the consecration of Archbishop Parker, though he came in his black gown, for they could not well do that without him; but all Grindal's efforts failed to secure for him a Welsh bishopric, or even to get him left unmolested in the parochial benefice he ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... decay through his default and fall to ruin under him, and seeth that to the amendment thereof he leaveth his own duty undone; then would I in any wise advise him to leave off that thing—be it spiritual benefice that he have, parsonage or bishopric, or temporal office and authority—and rather give it over quite and draw himself aside and serve God, than to take the worldly worship and commodity for himself, with incommodity of those whom his duty ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... vacant vicarage before? Who wants a churchman that can service say, Read fast and fair his monthly homily? And wed and bury and make Christen-souls?[160] Come to the left-side alley of St. Paules. Thou servile fool, why could'st thou not repair To buy a benefice at Steeple-Fair? There moughtest thou, for but a slendid price, Advowson thee with some fat benefice: Or if thee list not wait for dead mens shoon, Nor pray each morn the incumbents days were doone: A thousand patrons thither ready bring, Their new-fall'n[161] churches, to the ...
— English Satires • Various
... bestoweth his paines & charges gratis: of the rich he taketh moderately, but leaues the one halfe behind, in gift amongst the houshould, if he be called abroad to visit any: The rest together with the profits of his benefice (rather charitably accepted then strictly exacted from his Parishioners) he powreth out with both hands in pios vsus, and will hardly suffer a penny to sleepe, but neuer ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... the first disengaged person he could find, but it was only the young Abbe de Mericour, who had been newly brought up from Dauphine by his elder brother to solicit a benefice, and who knew nobody. To him ladies were only bright phantoms such as his books had taught him to regard like the temptations of St. Anthony, but whom he actually saw treated with as free admiration by the ecclesiastic as ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he came abroad into the World, a good benefice befel him, added unto the estate of a Gentleman, left him by his Father; whom he succeeded in his Ministry, at the place of his Nativity: Which one would imagine Temptations enough to keep ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... or his aunt on the father's side, without royal licence. The reform of clerical abuses was advanced by an act to prevent non-residence, and by another to obviate the delay in instituting to benefices practised by bishops with a view to (p. 349) keeping the tithes of the vacant benefice in their own hands. The breach with Rome was widened still further by a statute, declaring all who extolled the Pope's authority to be guilty of praemunire, imposing an oath of renunciation on all lay and clerical officers, and making the refusal of that oath high treason. ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... still living in Mrs. Lightfoot's lodgings, at the sign of the Wheatsheaf, or more properly starving, for he had only ten pounds a year paid to him out of the benefice that had been taken away from him; and though that went farther then than it would do now, it would not have maintained him, but that his good hostess charged him as little as she could afford, and he also had a few ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not indeed deny that the dispensing power now claimed by the crown was inconsistent with the fundamental principles of the constitution. But he might perhaps be excused if he asked, What was the constitution to him? The Act of Uniformity had ejected him, in spite of royal promises, from a benefice which was his freehold, and had reduced him to beggary and dependence. The Five Mile Act had banished him from his dwelling, from his relations, from his friends, from almost all places of public resort. Under the Conventicle Act ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... stand banished from Tuscany for two years; and for perpetual memory of their misdeeds their names were to be inscribed in the Statutes of the People, and as swindlers and barrators they were never to hold office or benefice within the city or district ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... nature are unintelligible, therefore, be not afraid if revealed truths be likewise beyond the compass of the understanding"; but this seems to me a meagre meaning.' Such considerations could hold him no longer, and Manning executed the resignation of his office and benefice before a public notary. Soon afterwards, in the little Chapel off Buckingham Palace Road, kneeling beside Mr. Gladstone, he worshipped for the last time as an Anglican. Thirty years later the Cardinal told how, just before the Communion service commenced, he turned to his friends ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... abjuring the lawfulness of resistance and the Solemn League and Covenant, was imposed upon every holder of a benefice, or of an office in a University. This created bitter opposition when the Bill was sent back to the Lords, and the discussion mainly turned upon the express repudiation of the Covenant, to which many laymen had already sworn. These, while they consented ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... call in Scripture and tradition to prove that cutting down one's enemy from behind, and in an ambush is a treacherous murder? Or that giving a present of money to secure an ecclesiastical benefice is to purchase it? Of course, there are teachings which deserve our contempt, and can only be dealt with by mockery. Are you, fathers, to be permitted to teach that it is lawful to slay in order to avoid a blow and an affront, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... it was with difficulty they could engage him to relate them, it being with much seeming reluctance that he acquainted them with his having exercised for many years the sacred office of a clergyman at Aberistwith, a parish in Wales; but that the government changing, he had preferred quitting his benefice, to taking an oath contrary to his principles and conscience. This relation he accompanied with frequent sighs, deep marks of adoration of the ways of Providence, and warm expressions of his firm trust and reliance in its goodness and ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... the extreme of audacity. Yet nothing worse came to Knox than questions, by the Council, as to his refusal of a benefice, and his declining, as he still did, to kneel at the Communion (April 14, 1553). His answers prove that he was out of harmony with the fluctuating Anglicanism of the hour. Northumberland could not then resent the audacities of pulpiteers, because the Protestants were the only party who might stand ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... His clever satire on the Tulchan bishops has never been forgotten—'There are three sorts of bishops: my Lord Bishop—he is in the Roman Church; my Lord's Bishop (the Tulchan), who while my Lord gets the benefice, serves for nothing but to make his title good; and the Lord's Bishop, who is the true minister ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... of King Henry touching religion shall be put in force. No Sacramentary shall be admitted to any benefice; all married priests shall be deprived, but more lenity shall be shown to them whose wives be dead (to wit, I take it, they shall not be divorced from their dead wives). If they shall part by consent, and shall promise to commit the crime of matrimony ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... himself As leane was his horse as is a rake, And he was not right fat, I undertake; But looked hollow*, and thereto soberly**. *thin; **poorly Full threadbare was his *overest courtepy*, *uppermost short cloak* For he had gotten him yet no benefice, Ne was not worldly, to have an office. For him was lever* have at his bed's head *rather Twenty bookes, clothed in black or red, Of Aristotle, and his philosophy, Than robes rich, or fiddle, or psalt'ry. But all be that he was a philosopher, Yet hadde he but little gold in coffer, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... of the king's own subdevils soon fell under the notice of his Majesty, who asked George one day if he would like to have an easy benefice in the church where he could meditate on his past and ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... yet it is all but fastidious, unless their Parents can leave or give them some considerable means; or that they through their brave behaviours, perfections, and sweet discourses, can inveagle themselves in to a rich match. For many years are spent before they can get a Parsonage or Benefice, and when it doth happen in some Country Town, the means will ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... was made Poet Laureate. His acceptance of this benefice from the government incensed his more radical friends. Robert Browning then wrote the famous invective lines entitled ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... carpers may contrayre reveale; For each thing fained ought more warie bee. There thou must walke in sober gravitee, And seeme as Saintlike as Sainte Radegund: Fast much, pray oft, looke lowly on the ground, And unto everie one doo curtesie meeke: These lookes (nought saying) doo a benefice seeke, And be thou sure one not to ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... dispute was softened by the arts of private and personal negotiation. The patriarch Joseph had sunk under the weight of age and infirmities; his dying voice breathed the counsels of charity and concord, and his vacant benefice might tempt the hopes of the ambitious clergy. The ready and active obedience of the archbishops of Russia and Nice, of Isidore and Bessarion, was prompted and recompensed by their speedy promotion to the dignity of cardinals. Bessarion, in the first debates, had stood forth the most strenuous ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... by the broadside literature were naturally directed against the simony and benefice-grabbing of the clergy, a characteristic of the priestly office that has always powerfully appealed to the popular mind. Thus the "Courtisan and Benefice-eater" attacks the parasite of the Roman Court, who absorbs ecclesiastical revenues wholesale, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... Magus, Acts VIII. The crime of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferment or the corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice for ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... said spiritual ordinaries do daily confer and give sundry benefices unto certain young folks, calling them their nephews or kinsfolk, being in their minority and within age, not apt ne able to serve the cure of any such benefice: whereby the said ordinaries do keep and detain the fruits and profits of the same benefices in their own hands, and thereby accumulate to themselves right great and large sums of money and yearly profits, to the most pernicious example of your said lay subjects—and so the cures and promotions ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... consequently much distress beyond the suffering of the fever itself. The parson and his wife went about from morning to night among the cottagers, helping everybody that needed help. They had no private fortune, but the small blanket of the benefice they spread freely over as many as it could be stretched to cover, depriving themselves of a good part of the food to which they had been accustomed, and of several degrees of necessary warmth. When at last the strength of the parson gave way, and the fever laid hold of ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... shall have.' So saying, he retired, leaving Mr. Jenkins incapable of uttering one syllable, so powerfully was he struck with this unexpected turn of good fortune. The presentation was immediately made out, and in a few days Mr. Jenkins was put in possession of his benefice, to the inexpressible joy of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... character, since too common, the gentleman in search of a sensation, seeking a solitude at Vaucluse because it made him more likely to be in demand at Avignon, praising philosophic poverty with a sharp eye to the next rich benefice in the gift of his patron, commending a good life but careful first of a good living, happy only in seclusion but making a dangerous journey to enjoy the theatrical show of a coronation in the Capitol, cherishing a fruitless passion which ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... rebuked by the duc de Montausier, when he retired for some time to the provinces, using his disguise to assist his numerous intrigues. He had been made an abbe in his childhood, and poverty, induced by his extravagance, drove him to live on his benefice at Sainte-Seine in Burgundy, where he found among his neighbours a kindred spirit in Bussy-Rabutin. He visited Rome in the suite of the cardinal de Bouillon in 1676, and shortly afterwards a serious illness brought about a sudden and rather frivolous conversion to religion. In 1685 he accompanied ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... been made, the motion was unnecessary: it was withdrawn. The want of churches, which it was the object of this motion to supply, was connected with the administration of the fund formed of the first-fruits of all ecclesiastical benefices. These revenues, or the first year's income of every benefice, had been originally payable to the pope; but on the Reformation they were vested in the crown, and they had been appropriated by an act of Queen Anne, in part at least, to the building of churches. Sir John Newport brought the management of this fund, and the insufficiency of the system ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... mentioned that Clement VI. had made Petrarch Canon of Modena, which benefice he resigned in favour of his friend, Luca Christino, and that this year his Holiness had also conferred upon him the prebend of Parma. This preferment excited the envy of some persons, who endeavoured to prejudice Ugolino de' Rossi, the bishop of the diocese, against him. Ugolino was of that ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... and the texture of his breeches, and the warmth of his body inside them. Therefore he never could hold aloof from the Free and Frisky gatherings, and accepted the chair upon Bumper-nights, when it was a sinecure benefice. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... are. Sometime she gallops ore a Courtiers nose, & then dreames he of smelling out a sute: & somtime comes she with Tith pigs tale, tickling a Parsons nose as a lies asleepe, then he dreames of another Benefice. Sometime she driueth ore a Souldiers necke, & then dreames he of cutting Forraine throats, of Breaches, Ambuscados, Spanish Blades: Of Healths fiue Fadome deepe, and then anon drums in his eares, at which he startes and wakes; and being thus frighted, sweares a prayer or two & sleepes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... said the curate, some simple benefice or cure, or some place as sacristan which brings them a good fixed income, not counting the altar fees, which may be reckoned ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... hour Gerard was in love with Margaret, and now began a pretty trouble. For at Rotterdam, thanks to a letter from Margaret Van Eyck, Gerard won the favour of the Princess Marie, who, hearing that he was to be a priest, promised him a benefice. And yet no sooner was Gerard returned home to Tergon than he must needs go seeking Margaret, who lived alone with her father, old Peter Brandt, at Sevenbergen. Ghysbrecht's one fear was that if Gerard married Margaret the youth would sooner or later get to hear about certain documents ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... tyrants who have been the scourges of mankind" (p. 221). Such is the verdict passed on Christian rule by a Christian historian. In the East we see such men as Theophylact; "this exemplary prelate, who sold every ecclesiastical benefice as soon as it became vacant, had in his stable above 2000 hunting horses, which he fed with pignuts, pistachios, dates, dried grapes, figs steeped in the most exquisite wines, to all which he added the richest perfumes. One Holy Thursday, as he was celebrating high-mass, his groom brought ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... questions addressed to him "as representing the CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER," bristles with minute information respecting number of livings in gift of the Duchy in West Riding of Yorkshire, together with amount of income of each benefice and nature of the security. Equally master of intricate case of the calamity overshadowing the Pontefract Cricket Club whose playing pitch has been damaged through subsidence caused ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... an authority of an indefinite kind, which it was presumed that his sacred office would forbid him to abuse, but which, however, if he so unfortunately pleased, he might abuse at his discretion. He had absolute power over every nomination to an English benefice; he might refuse his consent till such adequate reasons, material or spiritual, as he considered sufficient to induce him to acquiesce, had been submitted to his consideration. In the case of nominations to the religious houses, the superiors ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... maltraite, il trouve dans elle une protection assuree et gratuite.—Un autre a fini son temps, et est toujours detenu; elle reclame ses droits.—Des etrangers amenent des noirs, et ne satisfont pas a la loi; la societe en procure le benefice a ces malheureux negres.—Un des plus celebres avocats de Philadelphie, dont j'aime a vanter les talents et l'amitie qui nous unit, M. Myers Fisher, lui prete son ministere, presque toujours avec succes, et tojours avec desinteressement. Cette societe s'est appercue que de nombreuses ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... Almond for a Parrot, or Cuthbert Curryknaves alms. Fit for the knave Martin, and the rest of those impudent beggars that cannot be content to stay their stomachs with a benefice, but they will needs break their fasts with our bishops. Rimarum sum plenus. Therefore beware, gentle reader, you catch not the hicket with laughing. Imprinted at a place, not far from a place, by the assigns of Signior Somebody, and are to be sold ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... holds the benefice of Tanai—a venerable and meritorious man, as your Reverence well knows—went in person to the island of Bohol, twelve leguas away, to beseech Father Alonso de Umanes, our superior, to send, for ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... equally interested in the successful prosecution of a warfare carried on, so far as the French were concerned, in a strictly defensive manner. The Papal treasury, under guise of annats, laid claim to the entire income of the bishopric or other benefice for the first year after each new appointment. It seized upon the revenues of vacant ecclesiastical offices, which the king specially affected. Every bull or brief needed to secure induction into office—and the number of these articles was almost unlimited—was procured at ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... was decided, in reference to ecclesiastical lands applied to the military service: 1st, that the churches having the ownership of those lands should share the revenue with the lay holder; 2d, that on the death of a warrior in enjoyment of an ecclesiastical benefice, the benefice should revert to the Church; 3d, that every benefice by deprivation whereof any church would be reduced to poverty should be at once restored to her. That this capitular was carried out, or even capable of being carried out, is very doubtful; but the less Carloman ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Bishop Peter and the legate to join together against the justiciar and the archbishop. Finding that the legate was too strong for him, Langton betook himself to Rome, and remained there nearly a year. Before he went home he persuaded Honorius to promise not to confer the same benefice twice by papal provision, and to send no further legate to England during his lifetime. Pandulf was at once recalled, and left England in July, 1221, a month before his rival's return. He was compensated for the slight put upon him by receiving his long-deferred consecration ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Costentin to the church of (Potter) Hanworth, was admitted and canonically instituted in it as parson, on condition that he comes to the next orders to be ordained subdeacon. But on account of the insufficiency of his grammar, the lord bishop ordered him on pain of loss of his benefice to attend school. And the Dean of Wyville was ordered to induct him into corporal possession of the said church in form aforesaid, and to inform the lord bishop if he does not ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... who had a vote in the county, where he proposed to offer himself a candidate at the next general election. He now remembered nothing of Eastgate, but the freedoms he had used to take with him, while Tom had quietly stood his butt, with an eye to the benefice; and those freedoms he began to repeat in common-place sarcasms on his person and his cloth, which he uttered in the public coffeehouse, for the entertainment of the company. But he was egregiously mistaken in giving his own wit credit for that tameness of Eastgate, which had been entirely owing ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... disturb the current of my ideas. The postulate was, in Scottish phrase, the candidate for some benefice which he had not yet attained. George Douglas, who stabbed Rizzio, was the postulate for the temporal possessions of the rich abbey ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... lord, it may well be, that it shall soon be your lordship's duty to take due and legal steps for depriving me of my benefice at Hogglestock;—nay, probably, for silencing me altogether as to the exercise of ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope |
