in Roman Antiquity, denote soldiers who attended the chief officers of the army, being exempted from other duty. Beneficiari were also soldiers discharged from the military service, and provided with beneficia or pensions to subsist on. The latter were probably the same with the former, and both might therefore be comprised in the same definition. They were old experienced soldiers, who, having served during the legal period, or received a discharge as a particular mark of honour, were invited again to the service, in which they were held in Beneficiarii was also a term applied to those who had been raised to a higher rank by the favour of the tribunes or other magistrates. The word beneficiarius frequently occurs in the Roman inscriptions found in Britain, where consul is always joined with it; but besides beneficiarius consul, we find in Gruter beneficiarius tribuni, praetori, legati, prefecti, proconsulis, and such like expressions.

Beneficiary, Beneficiarius, is more particularly used for a beneficed person, or him who receives and enjoys one or more benefices. A beneficiary is not the proprietor of the revenues of his church; he has only the administration of them, though not accountable for his conduct therein to any but God and his superior.

Beneficiary is also used, by the writers of the middle ages, for a feudatory or vassal. The denomination was however applied to the clerks or officers who kept the accounts of the beneficia, and made the writings necessary thereto.

Beneficium, in Roman military matters, denoted a promotion to a higher rank by the favour of some person in authority.

Benefield, Sebastian, an eminent divine of the seventeenth century, was born in 1559, at Prestenbury in Gloucestershire, and educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1608 he took the degree of doctor in divinity, and five years afterwards was chosen Margaret professor in that university. Several years before, he had been presented to the rectory of Meysey-Hampton, in Gloucestershire. He published commentaries upon the first, second, and third chapters of Amos; a considerable number of sermons; and some Latin treatises. He died in 1639.

Benefit Societies. See Friendly Societies.