hedge priest

English

Etymology

From hedge (“third-rate”) + priest. To imply such a priest "plying one's trade under a hedge." Compare hedge alehouse, hedge whore.

Noun

hedge priest (plural hedge priests)

1. (Christianity, historical) An ignorant itinerant priest.
   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598, →OCLC; republished as Shakspere’s Loves Labours Lost (Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles; no. 5), London: W[illiam] Griggs, […], [1880], →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], lines 545–547:

     The Pedant, the Bragart, the Hedge-Prieſt, the Foole, and the Boy. / Abate throw at Nouum, and the whole world againe, / Cannot picke out fiue ſuch, take each one in his vaine.

   • [1785, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue‎^[1]:

     HEDGEPRIEST, an illiterate unbenificed curate, a patrico.]

   • 1819, Walter Scott, chapter 33, in Ivanhoe: A Romance‎^[2]:

     The yeomen separated the incensed priests, who continued to raise their voices, vituperating each other in bad Latin, which the Prior delivered the more fluently, and the Hermit with the greater vehemence. The Prior at length recollected himself sufficiently to be aware that he was compromising his dignity, by squabbling with such a hedge-priest as the Outlaw’s chaplain, and being joined by his attendants, rode off with considerably less pomp, and in a much more apostolical condition, so far as worldly matters were concerned, than he had exhibited before this rencounter.

Related terms

• hedge parson
• hedge sermon