InChristianity, acollegiate church is a church where thedaily office of worship is maintained by acollege ofcanons, a non-monastic or"secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, headed by a dignitary bearing a title which may vary, such asdean orprovost.
In its governance and religious observance, a collegiate church is similar in some respects to acathedral, but a collegiate church is not the seat of abishop and has nodiocesan responsibilities.
Collegiate churches have often been supported by endowments, including lands, or bytithe income fromappropriatedbenefices.
Thechurch building commonly provides both distinct spaces for congregational worship and for the choir offices of the canons.
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In the early medieval period, before the development of theparish system in Western Christianity, many new church foundations were staffed by groups of secular priests, living a communal life and serving an extensive territory. In England these churches were termedminsters, from the Latinmonasterium,[1] although only a few were truly houses of monks. In the 9th and 10th centuries many such churches adopted formal rules of governance, commonly derived from those composed byChrodegang of Metz for Metz cathedral, and thenceforth came to be described as "collegiate"; and there were also new foundations of this type.
Originally, the endowments of these foundations were held in a common treasury from which each canon received a proportion for their subsistence, such canons being termedportioners; but from the 11th century onwards, the richer collegiate churches tended to be provided with new statutes establishing the priests of the college ascanons within a formalchapter such that each canon was supported by a separate endowment, orprebend; such canons being termedprebendaries. A few major collegiate bodies remained portionary – such asBeverley Minster and the cathedral chapters ofUtrecht andExeter – but in less affluent foundations, the pooled endowments of the community continued to be apportioned between the canons. Both prebendaries and portioners tended in this period to abandon communal living, each canon establishing his own house within the precinct of the church. In response to which, and generally on account of widespread concern that the religious life of collegiate communities might be insufficiently rigorous, many collegiate foundations in the 12th century adopted theAugustinian rule, and become fully monastic, as for example atDorchester Abbey andChristchurch Priory.
Because each prebend or portion provided a discrete source of income as a separatebenefice, in the later medieval period canons increasingly tended to be non-resident, paying avicar to undertake divine service in their place. Kings and bishops came to regard prebends as useful sources of income for favoured servants and supporters, and it was not uncommon for a bishop or archbishop also to hold half a dozen or more collegiate prebends or deaneries.
From the 13th century onwards, existing collegiate foundations (like monasteries) also attractedchantry endowments, usually alegacy in a will providing formasses to be sung for the repose of the souls of the testator and their families by the collegiate clergy or their vicars. The same impetus to establish endowed prayer also led to many new collegiate foundations in this later period; under which an existing parish church would be rebuilt to accommodate a new chantry college; commonly with the intention that therectory of the parish should be appropriated to support the new foundation. A new organisational structure was developed for these bodies, by which endowment income was held collectively, and each canon received a fixedstipend conditional on being personally resident, such canons being termedfellows, orchaplains led by awarden ormaster. In this arrangement, only the office of warden constituted a separatebenefice; appointment to the individual canonries being at the discretion of thechapter. Chantry colleges still maintained the daily divine office with the additional prime function of offeringmasses in intercession for departed members of the founder's family; but also typically served charitable or educational purposes, such as providinghospitals orschools. For founders, this presented the added advantage that masses for the repose of themselves and their families endowed in a chantry would be supported by a guaranteed congregation of grateful and virtuous recipients of charity, which conferred a perceived advantage in endowing such a chantry in a parish church over doing so in a monastery. Consequently, in the later medieval period, testators consistently tended to favour chantries linked to parochial charitable endowments.
One particular development of the chantry college principle was the establishment inuniversity cities of collegiate foundations in which the fellows were graduate academics and university teachers. Local parish churches were appropriated to these foundations, thereby initially acquiring collegiate status. However, this form of college developed radically in the later Middle Ages after the pattern ofNew College, Oxford, where for the first time college residence was extended to include undergraduate students. Thereafter, university collegiate bodies developed into a distinct type of religious establishment whose regular worship took place in dedicated college chapels rather than in collegiate churches; and in this form they survived theReformation in England in the universities ofOxford andCambridge; as also did the associated collegiate schools and chapels ofEton College andWinchester College.
In a collegiate church or chapel, as in acathedral, the canons or fellows are typically seated separately from any provision for a lay congregation, inquire stalls parallel with the south and north walls facing inwards, rather than towards the altar at the eastern end. This has influenced the design of other churches in that the singing choir is seen as representing the idea of a college. The Westminster model of parliamentary seating arrangement arose fromParliament's use of the collegiateSt Stephen's Chapel Westminster for its sittings, untilWestminster Palace burned down in 1834.
Three traditional collegiate churches have survived in England since theMiddle Ages: atWestminster Abbey in London,St George's Chapel ofWindsor Castle andChurch of St Endelienta, St Endellion,Cornwall.
The idea of a "collegiate church" has continued to develop a contemporary equivalent.
Examples of contemporary collegiate churches in America today are The Collegiate Church ofNew York City.[2] These include theMarble Collegiate Church, founded in 1628, and theMiddle Collegiate,Fort Washington Collegiate andWest End Collegiate churches, affiliated with theReformed Church in America.
In theCatholic Church, most cathedrals possess acathedral chapter and are thus collegiate churches. The number of collegiate chaptersother than those of cathedrals has been greatly reduced compared to times past. Three of them are inRome: the two papal basilicas (other than the Lateran as cathedral and St. Paul's as a monastery) ofSt. Peter andSt. Mary Major, together with theBasilica St. Maria ad Martyres. Elsewhere, three can be found in Germany, to wit,St. Martin's Church, Landshut (chapter of Sts.Martin andKastulus), theChurch of Sts. Philipp and James inAltötting (chapter of St.Rupert) andSt. Remigius inBorken. In Portugal the one example (abolished in 1869, restored in 1891 abolished again in 1910 and restored in 1967 – minus its Royal prerogative, the monarchy itself having been abolished in the intervening period) that survives is that of the ancient Real Colegiada ofNossa Senhora da Oliveira inGuimarães. One collegiate church can be found in the Czech Republic:Sts. Peter and Paul Basilica inPrague-Vyšehrad.
Historical Collegiate Churches include:
In pre-Reformation England there were usually a number of collegiate churches in eachdiocese, with over a hundred in total. They were mostly abolished during the reign of Edward VI in 1547, as part of theReformation, by the Act for the Dissolution of Collegiate Churches andChantries (Dissolution of Colleges Act 1547). Almost all continue to serve asparish churches with a residentrector,vicar orcurate (although the appointment of a vicar in succession to the priestly services of the Augustinian priory atSt Paul's Church, Bedford predates this by nineteen years). Two major collegiate churches, however,Manchester andSouthwell, were refounded with a collegiate body after the Reformation; and these were joined by the revived college atRipon in 1604, all three churches maintaining choral foundations for daily worship. These three churches became cathedrals in the 19th century. Hence, at the beginning the 20th century, theroyal peculiars ofWestminster andWindsor alone survived with a functioning non-cathedral and non-academic collegiate body.
The colleges ofOxford andCambridge universities, and the schools ofEton andWinchester, successfully resisted dissolution at the Reformation, arguing that their chantry origins had effectively been subsumed within their continuing academic and religious functions; and pleading that they be permitted simply to cease maintaining their chantries andobituaries. For the most part, they had already ceased to undertake collegiate worship in their appropriated churches, which reverted to normal parish status. The chapel ofMerton College, Oxford, however, continued to serve as a collegiate church until 1891; just as the chapel ofChrist Church, Oxford doubles as thecathedral of Oxford; while the chapel ofEton College serves as the parish church of Eton to this day. TheChurch of St Mary Magdalene, Newark-on-Trent, though never collegiate in the medieval period, maintained a choral foundation for collegiate worship after the Reformation in association with theMagnus Bequest, an arrangement that continued till 1901.
Otherwise, twelve colleges survived the Reformation in England and Wales in nominal form. In some cases these were refoundations underQueen Mary (as for instance the college ofWolverhampton); in other cases, they may simply have been overlooked by the suppression commissioners. Unlike at Manchester, Ripon and Southwell, these churches did not continue to maintain regular collegiate worship, but their prebends or portioners persisted as non-residentsinecures, and as such were mostly dissolved by theEcclesiastical Commissioners Act 1840 (3 & 4 Vict. c. 113). However, the Victorian legislators themselves overlooked two churches of portioners in Shropshire –St Mary's, Burford and St George's,Pontesbury; and also the college ofSaint Endellion in Cornwall, which uniquely continues collegiate to this day, having in 1929 been provided with new statutes that re-established non-resident unpaid prebends and an annual chapter.
InIreland, there are a number of ancient churches still in regular use that are collegiate churches. Most notably the church known asSt Patrick's Cathedral inDublin, is a collegiate church.St Mary's Collegiate Church (inYoughal founded 1220,[3]County Cork, a building of very remote antiquity, home to a fine choir, The Clerks Choral.St Nicholas' Collegiate Church inGalway, founded in 1320 and granted collegiate status in 1484, is another fine example of a pre-reformation Collegiate Church. TheCollegiate Church of St Peter and St Paul is located inKilmallock; founded by 1241, it was dedicated as a collegiate church in 1410.
The church now referred to as 'St Giles Cathedral', inEdinburgh, became a collegiate church in 1466, less than a century before theScottish Reformation.
St Peter's Collegiate Church, Ruthin, was built by John de Grey in 1310, following the erection of Ruthin Castle by his father, Reginald de Grey in 1277. For some time before this, Ruthin had been the home of a nunnery and a prior. From 1310 to 1536 St Peter's was a Collegiate Church served by a Warden and seven priests. Following the dissolution of the college its work was restored on a new pattern by Gabriel Goodman (1528–1601), a Ruthin man who became Dean of Westminster in 1561. Goodman re-established Ruthin school in 1574 and refounded the Almshouses of Christ's Hospital, together with the Wardenship of Ruthin in 1590. Since then, St Peter's has continued as a Parochial and Collegiate Church with its Warden, Churchwardens and Parochial Church Council. A close relationship is maintained between the Church, Ruthin School and the Almshouses of Christ's Hospital.
St Padarn's Church, Llanbadarn Fawr was a collegiate church, having originally been founded as aclas church bySaint Padarn, after whom it was named, in the early sixth century.[4] The church had been the seat of abishop during the years immediately following St Padarn, who was its first bishop. The church was re-founded as a cell ofSt Peter's, Gloucester (aBenedictine abbey), byGilbert fitzRichard. Monastic life at Llanbadarn Fawr was short-lived for the Welsh drove the English monks away when they re-conqueredCardigan. Thepriory later became acollege ofpriests.Thomas Bradwardine, later brieflyArchbishop of Canterbury, wasRector of Llanbadarn Fawr 1347–1349, and thereafter theAbbot of the CistercianVale Royal Abbey,Chester, was ex officioRector 1360–1538.
The old Bishop's Palace atAbergwili, home to theBishop of St David's since 1542, when BishopWilliam Barlow transferred his palace fromSt David's to Abergwili, re-using the premises of an oldercollege of priests. The building is believed to have been built between 1283 and 1291, whenThomas Bek was made bishop of St Davids. It was known as a college until it was amalgamated with theDominican friary now known asChrist College Brecon, refounded as apublic school in 1541. It was almost completely rebuilt in 1903 following a disastrous fire. It contains thechapel originally added byArchbishop Laud in 1625, when he wasBishop of St David's. In 1974 the oldepiscopal palace was purchased byCarmarthenshire County Council for use as a museum, whilst a new residence for the bishops, "Llys Esgob", was built in part of the grounds, together with Diocesan Offices – thereby continuing a connection with Abergwili which has now lasted for well over 400 years.[5]
St. Cybi's Collegiate and Parish Church,Holyhead, was another collegiate church, as is theCollegiate and Parish Church of St Mary, St Mary's Square,Swansea, along with St Beuno's Church,Clynnog Fawr.
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