A rector, in traditional Church of England usage, was the incumbent of a parish entitled to receive its full tithes, the traditional tenth of parish produce and income owed to support the local church, in contrast to a vicar, whose benefice historically carried only a portion of those tithes, the remainder, called the great tithes, having been appropriated to a monastery, cathedral or other institution before the Reformation and, after the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, often passing into lay hands as a form of property right entirely separate from the parish clergy's own income.
Tithe payment in this historical form was abolished in England by legislation completed in the 1930s, and modern Church of England clergy of both titles, rector and vicar, are supported through the Church's own centralized stipend system rather than through parish tithes at all, leaving the rector-vicar distinction today a matter of historical and ceremonial usage, still recorded in a parish's official name and its incumbent's formal title, rather than one carrying any remaining practical difference in income, authority or duties between the two.
A small number of parishes retain the title rectory rather than vicarage for their incumbent's residence and the parish's formal designation, a naming choice generally reflecting the historical pre-Reformation arrangement of that specific benefice rather than any current difference in the priest's duties, stipend or standing; both rectors and vicars today hold the same legal and canonical status as parish incumbents within the Church of England.