Bible Encyclopedias
Usurpation of a Benefice

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

is the act (by a stranger who has no right to do so) of presenting a clerk, who is thereupon admitted to, and instituted in, a Church benefice. Anciently such an act deprived the legal patron of his advowson; but now no usurpation call displace the estate or interest of the patron, but the true patron may present upon the next avoidance, as if no such usurpation had occurred.