It’s been a while, because I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in a rabbit hole of online Ordnance Survey maps (thanks to Bing - how appropriate) and a digitised book from 1848* discussing the livings of practically every parish in the UK. So. Much. Data. There will be Graphs. There will be Statistics. on which saints the churches are named after.
From the Jane Austen novels, we remember that people like Mr Darcy and Lady Catherine have patronage over the livings in their gift. This is formally called advowson, the right to nominate someone for a vacant church living, a process known as presentation. The person to be presented had to be ordained by a Bishop, after attending a University and a (cursory) examination.
However, all clergymen and their livings are not created equal. To understand the difference we need to discuss tithes. The greater tithes were 10% of the cereal crop, wood and hay; lesser tithes were 10% over other crops, livestock and manufacturing profit. Initially this was paid in kind - think one of every ten chicks goes to the church - later a money equivalent was often used or a portion of land (or its profit) was allocated to the church.
If the living was a rectory, the incumbent received all tithes. If the living was a vicarage, the incumbent only received the lesser or vicarial tithes. The greater tithes went to the impropriator, who could be clergy or lay, and often but not always would also be the patron. A parish priest could choose to hire a curate if their income was sufficient (or if they had multiple parishes!).
How much income did a clergyman receive? It varies wildly between parishes, partly but not entirely on whether it's a rectory or vicarage. Rectories, vicarages and curacies were liable to pay the first year of income to the crown, but the poorer ones were often discharged (exempt) of this. As the exemption was based on the value of the living at a certain date, I have grouped them together in the graph.
Of the churches surveyed, 78 are rectories (18 of them discharged), 56 are vicarages (34 discharged) and 25 are perpetual curacies (3 discharged). Another 2 are listed as curacies, 10 are annexed to other churches, and 9 are listed as chapelries of another parish.
The lower end of the income scale doesn't vary much, with 40 pounds for the poorest curate, £42 for the vicarage and £59 for the lowest-income rectory. These people would all be poor, and not be able to have a full-time servant (for which the minimum income was £100-150 depending on sources). But the richest curate gets £258 pounds, which would support a lower genteel lifestyle. The richest vicarage at 1100 pounds is a bit of an outlier as the next one down is £800, but either would support a genteel lifestyle. The highest income for a rectory is nearly 1500 pounds - remember that several of Jane Austen's gentlemen of leisure get 2000 a year. You can certainly see why some clergymen would try and improve their income by marrying heiresses.
One caveat to this data is that it's under 200 churches, all in roughly the same area (I may expand the survey as the data is Right. There....). The other is that this is data from 1830-1848, so a bit later than Jane Austen's lifetime, but I think they are probably representative values, certainly the right order of magnitude. If anything, they might represent less buying power compared to similar numbers in 1800. An interesting tidbit to note is that a chapel was built in 1700 for £1000; compare that to Lady Catherine de Bourgh's £800 chimney-piece!
Who were the patrons of these livings? In other words, who are the useful people to cultivate acquantaince with to get these livings? In at least one-third of the churches surveyed, the lord of the manor is the patron, as Lady Catherine is of Hunsford and Colonel Brandon of Delaford. 20% of the advowsons belong to Bishops, Deans and similar high-up church functions (most of the local cathedral, Worcester), while another 12% belong to other clergymen, not including the 8% of livings where the current patron is also the incumbent. Another 10% of advowsons belong to various Oxford and Cambridge colleges - includes one belonging to Eton College. The Crown is the patron of 7.5% of these livings and the remaining 8% are other individuals (of which it was not obvious whether they are the lord of the manor, so these numbers may change) and occasional corporations or bodies of Trustees. In 13% of the livings the impropriator is different from the patron, i.e. someone else receives the tithes than nominates the clergyman. Several of the local landowners had 2 or 3 livings in their gift.
So when Jane Austen describes Mr. Collins as having "kept the necessary terms without making any useful acquaintance", she's saying he was very lucky in meeting with Lady Catherine, as otherwise he likely would have been a poor curate at best. Similarly, when Mr. Bennet's advises in a letter to Mr. Collins at the end of the novel, to "stick with the nephew, he has more to give" he may well refer to additional livings.
In "irrelevant asides" today I have statistics on the names of churches. The most popular by far (22 of the 185 churches surveyed) was St Peter, followed by St Mary and St John the Baptist. 20 have a name unique in the group surveyed, while 12 have a name used twice. Of 19 churches I have so far been unable to find the name. We've got three churches each for the local St Eadburgha, who had connections to Pershore; two for St Egwin of Evesham, who had been a Bishop of Worcester; and two for St Milburgha, a nun at Wenlock in Shropshire, as well as a single church dedicated to St Kenelme of Winchcombe.
Sources and further information:
*A Topographical Dictionary of England, ed. Samuel Lewis (London, 1848), British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/england [accessed 8 November 2020].
An excellent article about tithes in practice: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number16/sutherland.pdf
https://pemberley.com/?kbe_knowledgebase=servants-based-on-household-income - copied verbatim from Adams' "the Complete Servant", 1825.
