REGULAR CANONS
. When applied to a person, the term “canon” generally means a member of a group of
priests attached to a larger church, usually a cathedral; “regular canon” indicates a priest
living in a community in obedience to a rule. (Priests who did not live in a community
under a rule came to be called “secular” priests or canons.) During the 9th century in the
Carolingian empire and again during the 11th and 12th centuries in Europe generally,
there were attempts to organize clerics into communities governed by a rule, much like
monks. In the early 9th century, Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, composed for the clergy of
his cathedral a Rule that expected some elements of a common life but allowed private
property and private houses for the canons. This Rule was sanctioned by the Synod of
Aachen in 816.
In the mid-11th century, communities of regular canons began to appear in Italy and
southern France and then to spread throughout Europe in the 12th century. In some cases,
these groups were the result of stricter discipline for the clergy of a cathedral; other
instances represented the decision of a group of clergy to embrace a life of communal
discipline, even apart from an extant church. In contrast to their 9th-century counterparts,
these new groups of priests rejected all personal possessions and embraced a fully
common life, eating and sleeping in common, like monks. The rise of regular canons as a
form of religious life coincided with the general wave of ecclesiastical reform and
spiritual renewal that produced the Gregorian Reform movement associated with the
papacy, varied attempts by individuals and groups to chart new kinds of “apostolic life”
(vita apostolica) modeled on concepts associated with the “primitive church” (ecclesia
primitiva), and such monastic reforms as the founding of Cîteaux and the Cistercian
order.
Among significant independent foundations of communities of regular canons in
France were Prémontré (near Laon), Arrouaise, Saint-Victor (Paris), and Saint-Ruf
(Avignon). Each of these began as a distinctive new foundation, and each became the
mother house of an order. The intentions and purposes of these early foundations varied.
Prémontré was founded in a forest for purposes of discipline and prayer in a community
of priests; Saint-Victor, established just outside Paris by William of Champeaux when he
left the schools of Paris, was a center of liturgical piety, scholarly inquiry and instruction,
and ecstatic mystical experience; Saint-Ruf was begun by four priests who dedicated
themselves to a life of community and discipline in an abandoned church outside
Avignon. Arrouaise began with three hermits. By way of contrast, Ivo, bishop of Chartres
and himself formerly abbot of a house of regular canons in Beauvais, failed in his attempt
to reform his cathedral clergy in Chartres and had to be content with establishing a group
of regular canons in the parish church of Saint-André.
While looking to the early church for inspiration, and especially to the sharing of
possessions in the Jerusalem community as described in Acts 4:32ff., the regular canons
could also call upon Augustine of Hippo as a model and guide (parallel to the place of
Benedict of Nursia as the authority, via his Rule, for Benedictines and Cistercians). In his
episcopal household in Hippo, Augustine had required of his priests personal poverty and
a fully common life together. Moreover, he had written a letter (no. 211) instructing a
group of female ascetics. By the 12th century, there existed a Rule of St. Augustine that
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