Collegiate church
The church building commonly provides both distinct spaces for congregational worship and for the choir offices of the canons.
Jus novum (c. 1140-1563) Jus novissimum (c. 1563-1918) Jus codicis (1918-present) Other Sacraments Sacramentals Sacred places Sacred times Supra-diocesan/eparchal structures Particular churches Juridic persons Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law Clerics Office Juridic and physical persons Associations of the faithful Pars dynamica (trial procedure) Canonization Election of the Roman Pontiff Academic degrees Journals and Professional Societies Faculties of canon law Canonists Institute of consecrated life Society of apostolic life 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.
A few major collegiate bodies remained portionary – such as Beverley Minster and the cathedral chapters of Utrecht and Exeter – 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.
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.
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.
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.
They were mostly abolished during the reign of Edward VI in 1547, as part of the Reformation, by the Act for the Dissolution of Collegiate Churches and Chantries.
Hence, at the beginning the 20th century, the royal peculiars of Westminster and Windsor alone survived with a functioning non-cathedral and non-academic collegiate body.
For the most part, they had already ceased to undertake collegiate worship in their appropriated churches, which reverted to normal parish status.
Unlike at Manchester, Ripon and Southwell, these churches did not continue to maintain regular collegiate worship, but their prebends or portioners persisted as non-resident sinecures, and as such were mostly dissolved by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1840 (3 & 4 Vict.
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 of Saint 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.
St Mary's Collegiate Church (in Youghal founded 1220,[3] County Cork, a building of very remote antiquity, home to a fine choir, The Clerks Choral.
Monastic life at Llanbadarn Fawr was short-lived for the Welsh drove the English monks away when they re-conquered Cardigan.
In 1974 the old episcopal palace was purchased by Carmarthenshire 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.
