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.