Sinecure

Sinecure (Lat. sine cura, 'without care'), in common language, an office which has revenue without employment. In the canon law a sinecure is an ecclesiastical benefice, such as a chaplainry, canonry, or chantry, to which no cure of souls is attached, and where residence is not required. The strictest kind of sinecure is where the benefice is a donative, and is conferred by the patron expressly without cure of souls, the cure either not existing, or being committed to a vicar. Sinecure rectories were abolished in 1840. Sinecure offices were formerly very numerous in the English public service. They were used to enrich ministers of state and their families; Sir R. Walpole, for example, presented his son Horace to three or four sinecure places which brought him in a large income. The number of such places has been greatly diminished by modern reforms; the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds (q.v.) and some other offices of merely nominal profit are retained, because by accepting one of them a member of the House of Commons is enabled to vacate his seat.