The lawyer writes the gentleman’s will while the curate acts as a witness.
My editor questioned a couple of terms in my book Jackie’s Climb, because she’d seen them in a different context. Here’s my answer, written into the author’s notes, in case other people have the same concerns. The question? Did the Anglican church at the time have curates? And what did they do? And should I have said attorney instead of solicitor?
In the Regency era Anglican church, a curate was an ordained minister of any age who was paid by the vicar to assist him in the parish.
A post as vicar of a parish was called a living, because it guaranteed a fixed amount of property or income (which the vicar would live on). This income came from tithes paid to the holder of the living, either great tithes or small tithes. A great tithe was 10% of all cereal grown or all wool shorn in the parish, and a small tithe was 10% of all other agricultural produce.
A vicar with a big parish, or one who simply didn’t want to do the work, could employ a curate to help him out.
In England, to this day, practitioners of law are either solicitors or barristers. A solicitor is a legal practitioner who undertakes a variety of legal work, and also prepares cases for a barrister. A barrister is a legal practitioner who pleads cases in court. In New Zealand, where I live, most lawyers are both.
In England prior to the 19th century, the term solicitor was used only for those who prepared cases for Chancery. A legal practitioner who prepared other cases was an attorney at law, or public attorney. This is the term that has prevailed in the United States, but in England during the 19th century it fell into disrepute because of the behaviour of private attorneys. A private attorney was anyone with the power to act on behalf of another person–to this day, we talk about “power of attorney”.
I could have chosen the term lawyer, which simply meant (and means) one whose profession is suits in court or client advice on legal rights. Solicitor is more specific.
Thank you for the clarifications!
There were three types of lawyers practicing what those now usually called solicitors did. Whether they were attorneys, solicitors, or proctors depended on the court and the pleader they usually worked with. The Proctor and the Advocate only practiced in church courts, in England. The title referred to different practitioners in Scotland. The probate of wills was handled by the church courts so a proctor would often be the one to draw it up as well as handling probate. Solicitors usually worked the Court of Chancery and sent briefs to barristers. Attorneys worked the common law courts and dealt with all the mundane legal business such as contracts. They sent briefs to Serjeants. Most people only dealt with an attorney even for writing wills. Some men on both the attorney and barrister level trained to practice in Chancery and Common law courts or Chancery and Church courts. They had to follow the rules of the judges for those on the attorney level and of the Inns of Court of the pleader level. The church courts were done away with, for the most part, in the 1850s.
This is rather complicated and I think most authors use solicitors and barristers to make it easier for modern readers. As you say, somehow the division among solicitors, attorneys, and proctors were blurred. Americans call all lawyers attorneys while the British still keep the division between solicitors and barristers. The Regency period has been made to appear more modern than it was. The Reforms from 1827 on through the 19th century changed many things.
Thanks, Nancy. Yes, the law passed in the 1870s simplified matters by making the term solicitor apply in the common law courts and the term attorney is not much used (except in the term power of attorney, to mean person authorised to make decisions and sign on behalf of another). And yes, I have decided to stick to solicitor and barrister to simplify things, even though I know it was more complicated than that.