§ 16.
The monastic movement was not in the
first instance a clerical movement, nor can the earliest
founders have contemplated that their convents would
include more than a few priests for the ministration
of the Sacraments. But the ideal of the regular life
as pursued in the monasteries attracted clergy as well
as laymen. As early as 391, St Augustine established
communities of regular clergy in Africa. In the later
years of the eighth century, Chrodegand, bishop of
Metz, introduced a rule of life, founded upon that of
St Benedict, among the clergy of his cathedral, which
was copied by other similar congregations of clergy.
From this adoption of a rule (
canon, κάνων) the
members of such bodies became known as canons,
and the bodies themselves, meeting in chapter-houses,
where, as in monasteries, a chapter (
capitulum) of
the rule was read daily, took the name of chapters
(
capitula). The main object of the movement was
the daily recitation of the canonical hours: the
canons had their meals in common, and in some cases
had a common dorter or dormitory. The tendency
during the ninth and tenth centuries seems to have
been for canons to establish their separate households
in the neighbourhood of the church which they served.
A marked distinction arose between the monks of
cathedral priories such as Canterbury and the secular
canons who served such churches as the cathedral of
York. In the secular chapters the recitation of the
hours was maintained and certain common funds
were administered; but each canon had his own
separate estate, a church or manor known as a
prebend (
prebenda), and the richer prebends became
the perquisites of clerks in constant attendance upon
the king or upon some bishop or nobleman. The
number of resident canons was very small, and the
duties of absentees were taken by their vicars (
vicarii)
or deputies. Colleges of chantry-priests, usually of
late foundation, were organised as similar associations
of secular clergy, who were bound, however, from the
nature of their duties to continual residence. The
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge had a similar basis.
They were associations of clergy for teaching and
study, with a common hall and church, and are therefore
derived from a source distinct from the monastic
movement.
