Legal Definitions - appropriator

In historical ecclesiastical (church) law, an appropriator was a religious institution, such as a monastery, abbey, or cathedral chapter, that held permanent ownership of the income and rights associated with a specific church office or parish. This meant the institution, rather than an individual priest, received the revenues (like tithes or land rents) from that office, often in exchange for providing a vicar to perform the spiritual duties.

Here are some examples illustrating the role of an appropriator:

• Imagine a powerful Benedictine abbey in medieval England. The King, or a wealthy noble, might grant the abbey the perpetual right to all the tithes and land rents from a nearby village parish. In this scenario, the abbey becomes the appropriator of that parish's benefice. The abbey would then appoint a vicar (a priest with a smaller stipend) to minister to the villagers, while the bulk of the parish's income would go directly to the abbey to support its monastic community and operations.

• Consider a large cathedral chapter (a body of clergy responsible for governing a cathedral) in 14th-century France. To ensure a stable income for the cathedral's maintenance and the common fund of its canons, the chapter might have been granted the permanent revenues from a specific prebend (an income-generating church endowment). Here, the cathedral chapter itself would be the appropriator, collecting the income from that prebend to fund its collective activities, rather than the income being assigned to a single individual canon.

• Picture a small nunnery in medieval Germany struggling to maintain its buildings and support its sisters. A local bishop might "appropriate" the revenues of a nearby rural chapel to the nunnery. This means the nunnery would permanently receive the offerings, small tithes, and any other income generated by that chapel and its associated lands. The nunnery, as the appropriator, would then be responsible for ensuring a chaplain was provided to serve the local community, using the appropriated funds to secure its own financial stability.