medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: Diana Wright <[log in to unmask]>
> What do you mean by "collegiale church"? This is a phrase used
frequently here & I realized I don't understand it.
simply put, a collegial (or, alternatively, collegiate) church is one served
by a "college" of canons.
the exception is cathedrals which were --at least in most of Europe-- served
by canons but were not collegials.
in northern France (at least) collegial churches were also sometimes referred
to as "abbeys" or even "monasteries" --its canons sometimes styled "monachi"
as well as "canonici."
but most were, before the 12th c. (and sometimes long after), "secular"
churches, the canons living a more or less informal life, without being
subject to a "rule" (_regula_) --which would have made them "regular."
a movement of "reform" picked up steam in the closing years of the 11th c.,
aiming to impose a "rule" on the life of these "secular" canons, both in
collegial abbeys and in cathedral chapters.
St. Ivo was one of the major figures in this movement, first as reforming
abbot of the collegial of St. Quentin at Beauvais, then (after 1090) as Bishop
of Chartres, where he imposed a rule on the ancient collegial abbey of St.
John ("en vallée") and attempted to do the same in the collegial of St. Mary
Magdelene in Chateaudun, about 25 miles south of Chartres and other collegials
in his diocese.
Paris became another center for the reform of secular collegials with the
establishment of the abbey of St. Victor's, on the right bank, just south of
the Cité (more famous, to us, for its theological school).
this provided a vehicle for the possible reform ("regulation", if you will) of
secular ecclesiastical institutions all over the King's lands and beyond --a
prebend in all the major cathedrals and collegials within the King's Gift was
given to St. Victor's, a kind of "foot in the door."
but, the Victorine reform was a very mixed sucess, since there was a
tremendous resistance to reform in these ancient institutions --which had been
sources of lay patronage for generations-- and this resistance reached a peak
in the 1120s and '30s, especially in Paris and Orleans, where prominent
reformers were actually murdered and the Capetian dynasty itself was, for a
time, threatened with a kind of civil war in which the resistance to reform
was a significant element.
prying collegial institutions from the hands of laymen --the descendants of
their founders, usually-- and "regularlising" them was a long, hard slog and
many were still unreformed late in the 12th c.
c
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