Speaking as a Rector...
Apr. 25th, 2012 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmThe house I live in is only six years old, but it was built in an area that was once, before the Reformation, monastic land. After the Dissolution, that land was sold on to private owners, of whom I'm the latest in a long line. But it did not come stringlessly. The monasteries had acquired rectorships to one or more churches, meaning that they were entitled to tithes from the church's parishioners, but also that they were liable to keep the chancel of the church in good repair. (Why just the chancel? I've no idea.) When the land was sold, those rights and liabilities were sold with it.
The right to tithes has long since ceased, but the liability to repair chancels continues, and will do so in perpetuity (or until some future government decides otherwise). In practice, churches seldom call on hapless householders to repair their chancels, but it does happen, and can be ruinously expensive. For this reason, most people (me included) take out a once-and-for-all insurance against that contingency when they buy the property. From memory, it cost me about £120, which seems quite a lot now, but against the background of the many apparently arbitrary sums large and small that one gets stuck with in the course of buying a house, appeared trifling at the time.
Still, it tickles me to think that I'm a rector (even if a lay one). I didn't choose the role - which means I suppose that it must be a vocation - but I'd like to make the most of it now I've got it. What can I do with this title? Will it get me a better seat in a restaurant? Can I administer extreme unction to small mammals? What are the possibilities?
The right to tithes has long since ceased, but the liability to repair chancels continues, and will do so in perpetuity (or until some future government decides otherwise). In practice, churches seldom call on hapless householders to repair their chancels, but it does happen, and can be ruinously expensive. For this reason, most people (me included) take out a once-and-for-all insurance against that contingency when they buy the property. From memory, it cost me about £120, which seems quite a lot now, but against the background of the many apparently arbitrary sums large and small that one gets stuck with in the course of buying a house, appeared trifling at the time.
Still, it tickles me to think that I'm a rector (even if a lay one). I didn't choose the role - which means I suppose that it must be a vocation - but I'd like to make the most of it now I've got it. What can I do with this title? Will it get me a better seat in a restaurant? Can I administer extreme unction to small mammals? What are the possibilities?
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-26 07:23 am (UTC)Tithing isn't quite dead yet btw- the last rites are still being played out to this day!
According to Catholic friends, anyone of any faith can administer the last rites if the need is pressing and no priest is available. I read of a Rabbi doing this for dying Catholic soldiers during WW2 after their own priest had been seriously wounded. Such skills a military chaplain of whatever faith plainly needs!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-26 07:27 am (UTC)You mean, if they ask me to repair their chancel I can put in a counterclaim for back-payment of tithes? Cool!