Over the years I have asked questions and been asked questions by those who those who progress past names and who begin to wonder about words they see 'benefice' 'in fee' 'rectory' vicarage'. I always thought that Civil Parishes were there before religious parishes. We're always told that the Churhc of Ireland Parishes pretty much follow the boundaries of the Civil parishes and yet, as we read through lewis Topogaphical Directory of Ireland we find that this is not necessarily so. This is being posted to the Donegaleire list because it specifically mentions the Diocese of Raphoe. This will be continued............. Extracted from: RECTORY VICARAGE AND PARISH IN THE WESTERN IRISH DIOCESES K. W. Nicholis Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, "In most areas of western Europe the parochial system (whose essential feature was that a particular church was entitled to the tithes and the profits arising from spiritual minstration within a given area, the parish) was in general a creation of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. In England the system was already fully established by the time of King Edgar (959-63). In the Celtic countries, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, the introduction of the system was of much later date, and followed on the Hildebrandine reformation and in the wake of Norman conquest and penetration. For Ireland, outside the towns of the Ostmen, there is no evidence whatsoever that the formation of parishes had even commenced before the arrival of the Normans. The Norman invaders of Ireland consequently found a land yet undivided into parishes, with the result that for some time after the conquest we find the lay lords exercising 'the right of conferring tithes at will on anyone in orders or [on] any religious corporation [which] preceded the more rigid rule that tithes should be paid to the local parish priest'. This is in contrast to the situation in contemporary England, where grants of portions of the ecclesiastical revenues of a parish 'were always of pensions charged on the parish church, never of pieces of land'. In Ireland, however, even after the establishment of the parochial system and down to the end of the mediaeval period we find in the Munster dioceses the peculiar ecclesiastical benefices called 'particles' (particulae), composed of the tithes of particular lands within a parish and which for purposes other than the payment of tithe continued to form part of that parish.The formation of parishes in the eastern and southern parts of Ireland which were occupied soon after the Norman invasion seems to date from the period of their settlement, the last quarter of the twelfth and the opening years of the thirteenth century, and the parishes in these regions, usually small and often very small, corresponded in general, as was the case in some regions of South Wales, with the holdings of the military tenants of the area. Professor J. Otway-Ruthven, in a paper published in 1965, has traced the development of the parochial system in the rural deanery of Skreen in Meath, one of the most thoroughly settled and Anglicised areas of mediaeval Ireland, and a similar pattern of parishes, reflecting in their boundaries those of the secular manors or fees, is characteristic of most of southern Leinster and of Munster. As a contrast to such parishes, Professor Otway-Ruthyen cites the case of such an enormous parish as Ardnurcher, in Cos. Westmeath and Offaly, which extended over a heavily wooded and boggy region in which Norman penetration had been very slight. In the regions mentioned, as in England, there was no regular system for the partition of the parochial tithes. Originally, of course, the rector or parson had been the parish priest and had received the entire tithe; however, with the coming of the custom of impropriation, by which the parochial revenues were vested in a religious house, and with the increase of the practice of granting rectories as benefices for the support of clerks who were actively engaged elsewhere, in study or in official work, it became necessary to provide vicars who would perform the actual duties of the cure. By the end of the twelfth century the vicarage was becoming a benefice in its own right, in which the holder had a right of freehold, rather than a mere perpetual curacy, and was acquiring its own endowment, consisting of a portion of the tithes of the parish. There was no specific rule, however, for this vicarial remuneration; the vicar might receive a half, a third, or only a quarter of the total tithes, or he might receive the 'small tithes' of the parish, while the rector received the 'great tithes' (those of corn, hay and wood) or again the vicar might receive the tithes of some particular lands within the parish. In other cases the rectory remained 'entire', the rector continuing to exercise the cure and receiving the entire tithe of the parish, and no vicar existed. In the purely Irish dioceses of Ulster, however- Clogher, Derry and Raphoe - we find, in contrast to the haphazard arrangements already described, a system of quite extraordinary regularity. In these dioceses, as throughout the ecclesiastical province of Tuam and in the dioceses of Sodor (Isles) and Argyle in Scotland, the archaic custom of the tripartition or quadripartition of tithes, otherwise unknown in the British Isles although common elsewhere in Europe, and under which the bishop received a third or a quarter (respectively) of all tithes within the diocese, was in force, and in every parish there existed both a sinecure rector and a vicar, who received fixed shares of tithe under the system of tripartition or quadripartition. The system is best described in the words of Bishop George Montgomery, writing about 1609 : ". . . The Byshop of Clogher hath besyde his lands the fourth part of all tythes throughout his Dyoces, which is called quarter episcopalis. The Byshops of Derry and Rapho have the third part, and it is called tertia episcopalis." "The rest of the tythes are devyded betwene the Parson and Vicar. In Clougher the Parson hath two fourth parts, the Vicar hath one. In Derry and Rapho the Parson and Vicar have each of them one third part." "The parsonages were usually bestowed upon students that intended to take orders, towards their mayntenance at schoole, and were enioyned within few yeares after they accepted the parsonage to enter into orders, but hold not themselves bound to execute devyne service. "The Vicars are tyed to perpetuall residence and service of the cure, and besyde their portion of tythes, have the benefit of all oblations and other small ducties at buryals and christenings to themselves alone for attendance of the service ...." "The parsonages and vicarages through all theise three Dyoceses have byn ever collated by the Byshops of theise Sees, without contradiction or challenge of any person" Bishop Montgomery's statement as to all livings being in the collation of the bishops seems not to have been true for an earlier period, as in the fifteenth century several lay advowsons, probably relies of the Norman settlement, occur in the diocese of Derry, and a single doubtful example occurs at that period in the diocese of Clogher. Impropriations were very rare in the three dioceses mentioned. The coexistence in each parish of a sinecure person or rector and a serving vicar was the almost universal practice in the Gaelic parts of Ireland. In the three dioceses mentioned only a single parish of Derry formed an exception to this rule; the '1306' Taxation of Raphoe Diocese shows it already fully established there, and by the beginning of the fifteenth century it was here and elsewhere referred to as the immemorial custom.The rule of tripartition or quadripartion of tithes may possibly have led to the conclusion that the shares other than the bishop's should each go to different persons, but it is perhaps significant that in a number of places the parson or rector was the direct successor of the ancient comharba and in fact bore that title."