Lay Impropriators - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition lay-impropriators

Definition :

Lay impropriators, lay persons to whose use ecclesiastical benefices have been annexed. At the dissolution of the monasteries by stat. 27 Hen. 8, c. 28, and 31 Hen. 8, c. 13, the appropriations of the several parsonages which belonged to them were given to the king. The same had been done in former reigns when the alien priories were dissolved and given to the Crown. From these two roots have sprung all the lay impropriations or secular parsonages, they having been afterwards granted out from time to time by the Crown to laymen. See APPROPRIATION AND LAY RECTOR.