Prebendary

A member of the clergy who held a prebend, an endowment providing income from the revenues of a cathedral or collegiate church. Prebendaries were usually members of the cathedral chapter and received income in return for specified duties, although they were sometimes non-resident. The system was an important feature of the established Church of England until nineteenth-century reforms reduced the number and value of prebends. The title survives in some cathedrals as an honorary distinction.