Vicar is the title given to certain parish priests in the Church of England. It has played a significant role in Anglican Church organisation in ways that are different from other Christian denominations. The title is very old and arises from the medieval situation where priests were appointed either by a secular lord, by a bishop or by a religious foundation. Wherever there is a vicar he shares the benefice with a rector (usually non-resident) to whom the great tithes were paid. "Vicar" derives from the Latin "vicarius" meaning a substitute.
Historically, Anglican parish priests were divided into rectors, vicars and (rarely) perpetual curates. These were distinguished according to the way in which they were appointed and remunerated. The church was supported by tithes: taxes (traditionally, as the etymology of tithe suggests, of ten percent) levied on the personal as well as agricultural output of the parish.
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These were divided into greater tithes levied on wheat, hay and wood, and lesser tithes levied on the remainder. A rector received both greater and lesser tithes, a vicar the lesser tithes only. This latter was because the parish had been attached to a monastery, which was the rector, to which the vicar acted as deputy (following seizing of monastic lands during the Reformation, the right to the greater tithes and to appoint a vicar generally passed into the hands of the new lay owners, known as the improprietor). A perpetual curate received no tithe income, and was supported by the diocese. A perpetual curate was usually in charge of a newly created Parish carved out of a larger rectoral or vicarial parish.
In some cases a portion of the tithe income was given to support the priest. The adjective perpetual emphasises that such a clergyman enjoyed the same security of tenure as his more affluent peers. As all rectors, vicars and perpetual curates were personal representatives of the authority of the church in their parishes they were generally styled parsons. However, this title was used most often by perpetual curates more easily to distinguish them from assistant curates, who were not legally parsons.
An Act of Parliament of 1868 permitted perpetual curates to style themselves vicars and the term parson rapidly lost popularity. The conjunction of this change with near-contemporaneous church reforms aimed at reducing the disparities of income among clergy meant that the distinction between the grades of clergy became progressively less relevant and remarked upon. Popularly, any members of the clergy are often referred to as a vicar, even when they do not legally hold such a post. In the past a similar situation led to all clergy being popularly referred to as parsons.
Most parishes in England and Wales retain the historical title for their parish priest—rector or vicar—with vicar being more common in the urban areas, due to the fact of an expansion of new Parishes being created in the Victorian years, and the incumbents being styled 'vicar' after 1868. The distinctions between the titles is now only historical. In the late twentieth century, a shortage of clergy and the disparity of workload between parish clergy led to the development of a number of new forms of parish ministry. One of these, which has proved relatively effective, is the Team ministry or benefice.
It might be that a number of parishes join together to form the Team, and each parish retains its legal definition and independence. Rather than having clergy licensed to the individual parishes, a team of clergy are licensed to the entire benefice. Alternatively, a large parish with daughter churches in addition to a parish church, may be created as a Team Ministry.
In these examples, the more senior priest takes the title Team Rector and serves as parish priest in the main parish, and one or more stipendiary, experienced priests serve as Team Vicars (often installed into the other parishes, or Churches). Non-stipendiary clergy and assistant curates take other titles, often Team Curate.
Team Rectors and Team Vicars are not perpetual parish priests, and as such do not possess the 'freehold' but are licensed for a fixed term, known as 'leasehold', usually seven years for a Team Rector, and five years for a Team Vicar.
In many other Anglican provinces, the distinction between a vicar and a rector is different. In the Church of Ireland and the Scottish Episcopal Church, most parish priests are rectors. In the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, a vicar is a priest in charge of a mission, meaning a congregation supported by its diocese instead of being a self-sustaining parish which is headed by a rector.
In early 17th century Ulster every church had a vicar and a parson instead of a co-arb and an erenagh. The vicar, like the co-arb, was always in orders. He said the mass (‘serveth the cure’) and received a share of the tithes. The parson, like the erenagh, had a major portion of the tithes, maintained the church and provided hospitality.
As he was not usually in clerical orders, his responsibilities were mainly temporal. However, there were differences in the divisions of the tithes between various dioceses in Tyrone. In the Diocese of Clogher, the vicar and the parson shared the tithes equally between them; in the Diocese of Derry, church income came from both tithes and the rental of church lands (‘temporalities’). The vicar and the parson each received one third of the tithes and paid an annual tribute to the bishop.
In places where there was no parson, the erenagh continued to receive two thirds of the income in kind from the church lands, and delivered the balance, after defraying maintenance, to the bishop in cash as a yearly rental. In other places, the parson, the vicar and the erenagh shared the costs of church repairs equally between them. In the Diocese of Armagh the parson received two-thirds of the tithes and the vicar one third. The archbishop and the erenagh impropriated no part thereof, presumably because they received the entire income from the termon lands. The division of responsibilities between vicar and parson seems to derive from a much earlier precedent established in the old Celtic Church of St Columcille.
A popular British television series on BBC depicts a fictional woman vicar humorously in The Vicar of Dibley, and the story of The Vicar of Bray appears as a song and otherwise.