BENEFICIARY, Beneficiarius, is more particularly used for a benefited person, or him who receives and enjoys one or more benefits. A beneficiary is not the proprietor of the revenues of his church; he has only the administration of them, though unaccountable for the same to any but God.
BENEFICIARY is also used, in middle-age writers, for a feudatory or vassal. The denomination was also given to the clerks or officers who kept the accounts of the beneficia, and made the writings necessary thereto.