There is, however, one important region common to both Seculars and Regulars, which must be treated here. The distinction between rector and vicar is so little clear, even to many well-informed readers of to-day, that it must be explained before we go farther. The rector is what his name implies, the spiritual “ruler” of the parish. His “benefice” is a freehold; he retains it for life, in default of the gravest causes for deprivation. He is the “parson”, the person par excellence, in his little domain. Originally, the man who did the spiritual work of the parish was always a rector. But in process of time, partly because the lay patrons so often abused their position to rob the presentees of a great portion of their tithes, and reduced them generally to such servile dependence, it was felt to be a pious act for the layman to give “his church” to some monastery. This was an improvement, so long as the monks either did the parish work themselves or chose their assistant priests with conscientious care. But Popes were soon compelled to forbid that first course, as prejudicial to the discipline of the monastery itself; and, under the second alternative, monks yielded increasingly to the temptation of taking just such toll from their presentees as the lay patrons had been wont to take.