Definition
Pluralities refers to the practice — and, more often in legal usage, the prohibited practice — of a single clergyman holding two or more ecclesiastical benefices simultaneously. A benefice is a church office endowed with income; holding more than one at a time is holding them "in plurality." Statutes forbidding pluralities restrict or prohibit this accumulation, subject to defined exceptions and episcopal dispensation in qualifying cases.
The term operates almost exclusively in ecclesiastical law. In modern legal contexts outside church governance, the word appears rarely and typically only in its ordinary English sense (see COMMON LANGUAGE below).
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Simply the plural of "plurality" — multiple instances of plurality, whether in voting contexts, logic, or general use.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Plurality" meant the state of being plural, a majority short of absolute majority in voting, or the holding of multiple church benefices simultaneously.
The gap matters for researchers: when a 19th-century legal source uses "pluralities" as a standalone noun or refers to "acts against pluralities," it is invoking the ecclesiastical sense — the holding of multiple benefices — not a voting or numerical concept. A researcher unfamiliar with ecclesiastical law who reads "statutes forbidding pluralities" through a modern lens may entirely misread the subject matter.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
The practice of holding benefices in plurality admitted gradations recognized in English ecclesiastical law:
Simple Pluralities: Holding two or more benefices without special authorization — generally prohibited after the major reforming statutes.
Licensed or Dispensed Pluralities: Holding multiple benefices under a license or dispensation granted by the bishop, permitted within statutory limits in defined circumstances (typically proximity of livings, income thresholds, or population considerations).
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost entirely the province of English ecclesiastical law and its statutory reform history. Researchers will encounter it primarily in three contexts:
First, in pre-19th-century ecclesiastical sources, pluralities were a persistent abuse and a target of reform rhetoric stretching back through the Reformation. Sources from this period treat pluralities as a moral and canonical problem, not merely a statutory one. Canonical rules and parliamentary statutes coexisted and sometimes conflicted.
Second, the major Victorian reforming statutes — particularly the Pluralities Acts of the 1830s through 1850s — represent a decisive legislative moment. Rapalje & Lawrence cites the key statutes (1 & 2 Vict. c. 106; 13 & 14 Vict. c. 98; 4 & 5 Vict. c. 39). Researchers working with 19th-century English church records, clergy appointment disputes, or ecclesiastical court proceedings will need to understand which statutory regime applies to the period in question, as the rules shifted meaningfully across this span.
Third, the cross-reference to CESSION noted by Rapalje & Lawrence is important: cession of a benefice — the automatic vacation of one living upon acceptance of another — was the legal mechanism that pluralities law was designed to enforce or work around. Researchers following a legal dispute about whether a clergyman validly held a second benefice will almost always need to understand cession doctrine alongside the pluralities statutes.
For American legal researchers: this term has essentially no domestic application in U.S. law, which lacks an established church structure producing benefice-holding disputes. Encounters with "pluralities" in American legal sources almost certainly invoke the voting/majority sense, not the ecclesiastical one.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the sole historical dictionary source for this entry, and its treatment is tightly focused: pluralities are defined functionally through the statutes that forbid them, with a pointer to Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law (at page 1170) for fuller treatment and a cross-reference to CESSION. This approach — defining the abuse by the prohibition — is characteristic of how 19th-century legal dictionaries handled ecclesiastical terms, assuming reader familiarity with the underlying church structure and pointing to specialist treatises for depth.
What the historical dictionary does not address: the pre-statutory common law and canonical background, the specific exceptions recognized under each Act, or the administrative machinery (bishops' licenses, Queen Anne's Bounty, Ecclesiastical Commissioners) that surrounded pluralities regulation. Researchers needing that background will need to consult Phillimore directly or period-specific ecclesiastical law treatises.
Jurisdictional Note
This is a term of English ecclesiastical law with no direct American equivalent. Its relevance in research is almost entirely confined to England and Wales and to Commonwealth jurisdictions that inherited English church law. Researchers working in Scottish, Irish, or colonial ecclesiastical records should verify whether parallel statutory regimes applied, as the English Pluralities Acts did not automatically extend to all territories.