CANONS
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CANONS
Coventry, in his Chronicle, a. d. 620, tells us that
"Paulinus with twelve clerics was sent by the Pope
to help Augustine". In the North also the disciples
of St. Columba were preaching the Gospel and estab-
lishing the canonical order among the nation they
weie converting to Christ. The Roman and British
clergy amalgamated, and we learn from English histo-
rians that most if not all the cathedral and large
churches were served by regular clerics or canons
regular till the tenth century, when they were replaced
by Benedictine monks by royal authority, and some-
times by means even less lawful. Dr. Lingard clearly
states that: "in many of these religious establish-
ments the inmates had been Canons Regular from the
beginning. In many they had originally been monks
and had converted themselves into Canons, but all
considered themselves bound by their rule to reside
within the precincts of their monasteries, to meet
daily in the church for the performance of divine ser-
vice, to take their meals in the same hall, and to sleep
in the same dormitory". In fact, this same historian
is of opinion that St. Augustine and his companions
were clerics living in common. Writing of the clergy
in Anglo-Saxon times, Dr. Lingard says: "The chief
resource of the Bishop lay in the Cathedral monastery,
where the clergy were carefully instructed in their
duties and trained in the exercise of their holy profes-
sion. They were distinguished by the name of Can-
ons, because the rule which they observed had been
founded in accordance with the canons enacted in
different councils". And he adds this explanatory
note from the "Excerptiones" of Egbert: "Canones
dicimus regulas quas sancti Patres constituerunt in
quibus scriptum est quomodo canonici, id est clerici
regulares, vivere debeant" (By the term cations we
designate those rules winch the holy Fathers have
laid down, in which it has been written how canons
[canonici], i. e. regular clerics, ought to live). We
have also the fact that in the twelfth century many
churches served by secular canons, like Plympton,
Twynham, Taunton, Dunnow, Gisburn, were given to
canons regular, who, it would seem, were the original
owners. This view is confirmed by the authorities of
various historians. In his "History of the Arch-
bishops" (ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series, London, 1876),
Diceto tells us that at Dunstan's suggestion King
Edgar "drove the clerics out of most of the churches
of England and placed monks in their stead". In
" Liber de Hyda " we find that canons had been intro-
duced at Winchester by King Ethelred, and that
Bishop Grimbald, a zealous reformer of the clergy,
had established a community of clerics whose duty it
was to perform the Divine Office. Speaking of ^Elfric,
a monk who had been elected Archbishop of Canter-
bury, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a.d. 995, remarks
that when he came to his cathedral he was received
by a community of clerics, when he would have pre-
ferred monks.
It would seem, then, that writers like Tanner, the modern editors of Dugdale's "Monasticori", and others, who think that the canons regular were intro- duced into England after the year 1100, <>r after the coming of William the Conqueror, may have been misled by the fact that it was only after the eleventh century that the canons regular were so styled gener- ally; nevertheless these are the same ecclesiastics, until then commonly called religious, or regular, clerics. It is also true that, as elsewhere so in Eng- land, m Hie twelfth century then- was a great revival in the canonical order on account of various congrega- tions newly founded in France, Italy, and (he Low Countries, and il was some of these new canons that came with tin- Conqueror; but tin's docs not prove that tin' canonical life was unknown before. In Eng- land alone, from the Conquest t<> the death of Henry II, no fewer than fifty four houses were founded where the canons regular were established. Colches-
ter in 1096 was the first, followed ten years later by
Holy Trinity in London. In 1100 Ralph Mortimer,
by consent of Gerard, Bishop of Hereford, founded a
canonical house at Wigmore, and in 1110 another
house for Austin Canons was built at Haghmond.
At Taunton a colony of secular priests became a mon-
astery of canons regular. Secular canons were also
replaced by canons regular at Twynham, Plympton,
Waltham, and other places. In the period mentioned
there were, among others, the foundations of the Aus-
tin houses at Dunmow, Thremhall, Southampton, Gis-
burn, Newnham in Bedfordshire, Norton in Cheshire,
Stone in Staffordshire, Anglesey and Barnwell in Cam-
bridgeshire, Berden in Essex. This was, no doubt, a
period of great prosperity for the canonical order in Eng-
land. But soon evil days came. There was first the
Black Plague, and, like every other ecclesiastical insti-
tution, the canons regular were fairly decimated, and
wemaysay that theyneverquiterecovered. Toremedy
the evil Cardinal Wolsey thought it expedient to intro-
duce a general reform of the whole canonical order in
England. In the capacity of papal delegate, on 19
March, 1519, he issued the "Statuta", which were
to be observed by all the Austin Canons. These
ordinances, as Abbot Gasquet observes, are valuable
evidence as to the state of the great Augustinian Or-
der at that time in England. The statutes provide
for the union of all the Austin Canons; for the assem-
bly of a general chapter every three years ; for various
matters concerning obedience, poverty, and the gen-
eral discipline of the cloister. Special regulations are
given for the daily recitation of the Divine Office and
singing of Masses. Directions are laid down for the
reception and profession of novices, for uniformity in
the religious habit, and sending young students to
Oxford University. But troubled days soon came
over the land, and these statutes, good though they
were, could not keep off the evil times. The canoni-
cal houses were suppressed, and the religious dis->
persed, persecuted, little by little disappeared from
the land altogether. Yet, in spite of the previous
disasters, by Abbot Gasquet's computation ninety-
one houses belonging to the canons regular were sup-
pressed or surrendered at the time of the Reformation
between 1538 and 1540, with one thousand and eighty-
three inmates — namely, Austin Canons, fifty-nine
houses and seven hundred and seventy-three canons;
Premonstratensians, nineteen houses and one hundred
and fifty-nine canons; Gilbertines, twenty houses and
one hundred and fifty-one religious. This number of
houses and religious does not include the lesser monas-
teries, with an aggregate of one house and five hundred
monks and canons, nor the nuns of the various orders
estimated at one thousand five hundred and sixty.
The best known canonical houses were: Walsing- ham, Waltham, St. Mary's Overy, Bolton, St. Bar- tholomew's Smithfield, Nostall, Bridlington, Bristol, Carlisle, Newbury, Hexham, Lanereost, Bodmin, Col- chester, Dunstable, Merton, Kertmele. Llanthony, Plympton, St. Frideswide's at Oxford, Osney.
At Walsingham there was a famous shrine of Our Lady, a model of the Holy House of Nazareth, found- ed two hundred years before the miraculous removal to Loretto. Erasmus, writing in the sixteenth cen- tury, gives a vivid description of the shrine and the canons, its custodians. At Sempringham lived in the fourteenth century Robert de Brunne, a canon regular who has been styled the "Father of the English lan- guage ". In his monastic seclusion he welded together thi' diverse dialects, which then divided shire from shire, into the grammatical structure which the lan- guage has since retained. Bridlington I'riory. where
William de Newbridge and several other historians lived, was a bo sanctified by the life, virtues, and mira- cles of its holy prior, John de Tweng, i lie last English
saint to be canonized prior to the Reformation. He died iti 1379. In 1386 a mandate was issued to col-
