Vicar As The Ordinary Parish Incumbent

A vicar, historically the incumbent of a parish whose benefice carried only the lesser tithes rather than a rector's full entitlement, has become in modern Church of England usage simply the standard title for a parish's incumbent priest in the great majority of English parishes, since most benefices today are technically styled vicarages regardless of their specific historical tithe arrangement; the term has consequently lost most of its original technical meaning for ordinary churchgoers, functioning as the everyday English word for a parish priest more broadly, including in wide popular usage well beyond specifically Anglican or even specifically Christian contexts.

A vicar is licensed to a parish by the diocesan bishop following the same appointment processes used across Church of England parish ministry, typically involving the parish's own patron, historically often a landowner, cathedral or Oxbridge college holding the right of presentation, the advowson, working together with the diocese to propose and confirm a candidate, an arrangement of historical patronage rights that, though considerably reformed since the nineteenth century, has not been entirely abolished in the Church of England's modern appointment procedures.