c.1300, from Old French vicaire, from Latin vicarius "substitute, deputy," noun use of adj. vicarius "substituting," from vicis "change, turn, office" (see vicarious). The original notion is of "earthly representative of God or Christ;" but also used in sense of "person acting as parish priest in place of a real parson" (early 14c.).
The original Vicar of Bray (in figurative use from 1660s) seems to have been Simon Allen, who held the benefice from c.1540 to 1588, thus serving from the time of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, and was twice a Catholic and twice a Protestant, but always vicar of Bray. The village is near Maidenhead in Berkshire.
(from Latin vicarius, "substitute"), an official acting in some special way for a superior, primarily an ecclesiastical title in the Christian Church. In the Roman Empire as reorganized by Emperor Diocletian (reigned 284-305), the vicarius was an important official, and the title remained in use for secular officials in the Middle Ages. In the Roman Catholic Church, "vicar of Christ" became the special designation of the popes starting in the 8th century, and eventually it replaced the older title of "vicar of St. Peter."