benefice

Some tycoons have crafted named benefices: the Broad and David Geffen foundations, for example.

The church, she says, is one of 15 in the benefice.

In 1449, the city council of Toledo, Spain, passed an ordinance decreeing “that no converso of Jewish descent may have or hold any office or benefice in the said city of Toledo.”

The idea of a paid vicar in every single church on a Sunday - certainly in the benefice here - is long gone.

Most important of these was the appropriation of benefices to their use.