Definition
In English ecclesiastical and common law, plenarty is the condition of a church living or benefice that is occupied — that is, held by an appointed incumbent. It is the opposite of avoidance or vacancy, which describes a benefice without a holder. A benefice in a state of plenarty is legally "full," meaning the right of presentation has been exercised and a qualified clerk has been inducted into the living.
The term has practical legal significance in the context of the writ of quare impedit, an action by which a patron asserted the right to present a clerk to a vacant benefice. If a defendant could demonstrate plenarty — that the benefice was already full by virtue of a prior presentation and institution — that fact operated as a bar to the action, at least within a defined period.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "The state of a benefice when occupied."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The state of a benefice when occupied." (citing Blackstone)
Editorial note: Here common and legal usage are essentially identical, because the term has never circulated beyond ecclesiastical and legal contexts. The word carries no lay meaning independent of church law. Researchers should note, however, that the deceptively simple phrase "state of being full" conceals a technical legal consequence: plenarty was not merely a descriptive status but a procedural defense capable of defeating a patron's claim in quare impedit proceedings.
Core Elements
Plenarty as a legal condition required:
1. A valid presentation — a patron's nomination of a clerk to the ordinary.
2. Institution — formal acceptance and admission of the clerk by the bishop or other ordinary.
3. Induction — installation of the clerk into the temporal possession of the benefice.
All three steps were generally required before a benefice could be considered legally full for purposes of pleading plenarty as a defense.
Why It Matters in Research
Plenarty is a narrow term but an important one for researchers working in English ecclesiastical law, medieval and early modern land law, or the history of advowsons and rights of patronage. Several navigational points:
First, plenarty appears almost exclusively in the context of quare impedit litigation. Researchers tracing disputes over advowsons — the right to appoint clergy to a living — will encounter plenarty as a formal plea rather than merely a descriptive state. Rapalje & Lawrence makes this procedural dimension explicit where the other dictionaries treat it as definition only.
Second, the temporal element matters. Even a fully occupied benefice did not permanently bar a patron's claim: under the six-months rule of English ecclesiastical practice, if the ordinary failed to institute a presented clerk within six months, the right of presentation lapsed to the bishop. Conversely, once plenarty was established within the six-month window, it could defeat a competing patron's action. Researchers reading older reports must be attentive to timing.
Third, the term interacts closely with avoidance (or vacation), its direct opposite. Many historical sources discuss plenarty only in passing, treating avoidance as the primary term of interest. This means plenarty may be indexed under avoidance or vacancy in older digests rather than under its own head.
Fourth, plenarty is essentially a historical term. It has no meaningful modern application in U.S. law and limited application in contemporary English law following the transformation of ecclesiastical livings through 19th- and 20th-century Church of England reforms. Researchers encountering the term in American sources are almost certainly reading historical reprints or treatises derived from English ecclesiastical authorities.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition: plenarty means the fullness or occupied state of a benefice, as opposed to vacancy. Black's (both editions) and Burrill trace the concept through Cowell's legal dictionary; Bouvier offers only a cross-reference. All sources treat the term as English ecclesiastical law, with no suggestion of American application.
The most substantively useful entry is Rapalje & Lawrence, which alone captures the procedural dimension — that plenarty was actually pleaded as a defense in quare impedit — with a reference to Coke's Institutes (2 Inst. 360). This is the entry that moves the term from definition to legal utility. Researchers relying solely on Black's would miss the procedural context that gives the term its operational meaning in case law.
No source provides significant discussion of how plenarty interacted with lapse, usurpation, or the bishop's own right of collation — topics a thorough researcher may need to pursue in Blackstone's Commentaries (Book II, Chapter 22) or Burn's Ecclesiastical Law.
Jurisdictional Note
Plenarty is a term of English ecclesiastical law with no direct American equivalent. U.S. courts, lacking established church structures and state-administered benefices, have had no occasion to apply the doctrine. The term appears in American legal dictionaries solely by inheritance from English sources.