Collegiate church

Interior of Collegiate Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Mary Magdalene in Poznań, Poland.

In the early medieval period, before the development of the parish 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 termed minsters, from the Latin monasterium,[1] although confusingly only a few were strictly monastic. In the 9th and 10th centuries many such churches adopted formal rules of governance, commonly derived from those composed by Chrodegang 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 termed portioners; but from the 11th century onwards, the richer collegiate churches tended to be provided with new statutes establishing the priests of the college as canons within a formal chapter such that each canon was supported by a separate endowment, or prebend; such canons being termed prebendaries. A few major collegiate bodies remained portionary; such as Beverley Minster and the cathedral chapters of Utrecht and Exeter; and otherwise, 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 the Augustinian rule, and become fully monastic, as for example at Dorchester Abbey and Christchurch Priory.

Because each prebend or portion provided a discrete source of income as a separate benefice, in the later medieval period canons increasingly tended to be non-resident, paying a vicar 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 attracted chantry endowments, usually a legacy in a will providing for masses 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 the rectory 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 fixed stipend conditional on being personally resident, such canons being termed fellows, or chaplains led by a warden or master. In this arrangement, only the office of warden constituted a separate benefice; appointment to the individual canonries being at the discretion of the chapter. Chantry colleges still maintained the daily divine office with the additional prime function of offering masses in intercession for departed members of the founder's family; but also typically served charitable or educational purposes, such as providing hospitals or schools. 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 in university 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 of New 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 the Reformation in England in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge; as also did the associated collegiate schools and chapels of Eton College and Winchester College.

In a collegiate church or chapel, as in a cathedral, the canons or fellows are typically seated separately from any provision for a lay congregation, in quire 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 from Parliament's use of the collegiate St Stephen's Chapel Westminster for its sittings, until Westminster Palace burned down in 1834.

The chapel at St Paul's Collegiate Church at Storrs

Three traditional collegiate churches have survived in England since the Middle Ages: at Westminster Abbey in London, St George's Chapel of Windsor Castle and Church of St Endelienta, St Endellion, Cornwall.

The idea of a "collegiate church" has continued to develop a contemporary equivalent. Many contemporary Collegiate Churches draw on the idea that collegiate means a "church with more than one minister", often understood as reflected in the "priesthood of all believers" and local, congregational governance.

Two different examples of contemporary collegiate churches in America today are The Collegiate Church of New York City,[2] and St. Paul's Collegiate Church at Storrs, Connecticut.[3] The churches of the former include the Marble Collegiate Church, founded in 1628, and the Middle Collegiate, Fort Washington Collegiate and West End Collegiate churches, affiliated with the Reformed Church in America.

St. Paul's Collegiate Church at Storrs features contemporary architecture reflecting traditional collegiate church architecture (pictured). Unlike most historical collegiate churches, this is a non-denominational, evangelical church. According to church leaders, they chose the name "collegiate" to emphasize "the priesthood of all believers" and that "every member of the Body of Christ is a minister." While collegiate churches typically have its seating arranged parallel with the south and north walls, facing inwards rather than towards the altar at the eastern end, St. Paul's Collegiate Church has adapted this by creating a chapel fully in the round, with the altar/communion station in the center.

In the Catholic Church, most cathedrals possess a cathedral chapter and are thus collegiate churches. The number of collegiate chapters other than those of cathedrals has been greatly reduced compared to times past. Three of them are in Rome: the two papal basilicas (other than the Lateran as cathedral and St. Paul's as a monastery) of St. Peter and St. Mary Major, together with the Basilica St. Maria ad Martyres. Elsewhere, three can be found in Germany, to wit, St. Martin's Church, Landshut (chapter of Sts. Martin and Kastulus), Sts. Philipp and James in Altötting (chapter of St. Rupert) and St. Remigius in Borken. 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 of Nossa Senhora da Oliveira in Guimarães. One collegiate church can be found in the Czech Republic: Sts. Peter and Paul in Prague-Vyšehrad.

• List of collegiate churches in England
• List of collegiate churches in Scotland
• Chapter
• Collegiate Church of Notre Dame de Mantes, France

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Collegiate churches.

• G.H. Cook English Collegiate Churches of the Middle Ages (Phoenix House, 1959)
• P.N. Jeffery The Collegiate Churches of England and Wales (Robert Hale, 2004)