Talk:Collegiate church

Minster (cathedral) - Collegiate church - Merger
This was proposed over 10 months ago when I am sure everyone who saw it, as I did, also saw that the proposer had not seen fit to start the discussion and in any case no doubt, as I did, wondered why. Why merge? Is there any case for merger? Why did not the proposer say?

Now some mindless robot has set a clock running on the issue, and one wonders why. Why the clock? What will happen now it is being timed? Probably nothing.

Some thoughts on the proposal.

1. Relatively few Minsters are or were cathedrals and relatively few Minsters were collegiate. 2. Most Minsters were originally monastic and in Britain none are today. 3. Most monastic churches were called Abbeys not Minsters. 4. Relatively few Collegiate churches were called Minsters. 5. Collegiate churches were not monastic and today none, in the UK at least, have colleges. 6. Both Minsters and Collegiate churches were generally rather grand churches but that is not the meaning of the names.

The question remains. Why merge? Why indeed? The proposal does not have my support NoelWalley 13:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Nor mine. Some confusion between collegiate church and cathedral chapter? Or am I aiming too high in my cultural expectations once again? --Wetman 13:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

As many others articles, this one suffers from systemic bias. It should be made clear for non-American readers which cultures and confessions distinguish between collegiate churches, minsters, and cathedrals. In Russian Orthodoxy, for instance, "sobor" literally means "collegium", "collegiate church", although it is always translated as "cathedral" into foreign languages. -- Ghirla -трёп-  17:22, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Strong oppose Collegiate churches are non monastic canonical establishments essentially to offer prayers for the souls of the founding families, whereas the majority of minsters were originally monastic. In the UK the only Minsters to be found are in England, there are none of that name in Wales or Scotland, where the equivalent buildings are known as cathedrals or High Kirks. Brendandh 18:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Would you expand on this, perhaps with a source or so, and work it into the article, which needs just this kind of disambiguation?--Wetman 20:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose as above. Minster comes from Latin monasterium, as in Monastir, Münster et al. Renata (talk) 18:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Lack of "worldwide view"
A short trawl around Google gave me a list of CCs in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Brasil, Switzerland, as well as the various CCs in New York. Shall I add these to the article, or does someone else want to do it? Renata (talk) 18:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * add away by all means. TomHennell (talk) 23:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Doesn't seem to have been much 'adding' so let's get the ball rolling. Have just done a new article on Notre Dame de Mantes, one of the most important collegiate churches on the Continent (at least in architectural terms). The anglocentrism of the current article is particularly unfortunate since in the matter of collegiate churches, as in many matters of medieval eccesiastical governance and architecture, Britain was rather atypical.StuartLondon (talk) 13:02, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Brits should really learn to swim. It is incomprehensible that someone may have been able to find all that information for the present article, without having noticed other countries. Apart from the series already mentioned by Renata, also Belgium and the Netherlands had/have collegiate churches. Recent versions (a work in progress) of the article Brabantine Gothic list some of the major ecclesiastical buildings in the Low Countries and may indicate which were/are collegiate churches, be it not systematically. There may be more of these (in Dutch language collegiale kerken, also referred to as kapittelkerken, or singular ...kerk [=church], in French collégiales or singular collégiale) from the area's earlier Gothic period, see -if the articles would ever become created- Scheldt Gothic and Mosan Gothic. To find the history related to collegiate churches abroad, from the article here click on some of the 'language' links in the left column; even if the article on an other-language WP is short, there might be useful links, and especially categories at the bottom (e.g. de:Kategorie:Kollegiatstift), and at least one sees the proper corresponding term(s) in that language - finding something on the internet should then not be too hard. Kapittel in German and in Dutch, chapitre (de chanoines) in French, means 'chapter'. Strictly speaking, for instance the Dutch kapittelkerk may thus refer to a cathedral but most often the latter term will then be used.&#8203; ▲ SomeHuman 2011-07-23 15:45-20:01 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not intended to summarise information reported on the internet, but rather to summarise current published scholarship in the field. It may well be that there are few pubilshed scholarly studies of collegiate churches outside the UK readily accessible in UK libraries. I fully agree that the article needs expanding with scholarly input from non-UK sources; but having complained, may I suggest that you could consider undertaking the necessary research and drafting the resultant edits? TomHennell (talk) 19:25, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

&#8203; ▲ SomeHuman 2011-08-17 20:29-21:04 (UTC)
 * Your reaction is bizarre: I showed where to start from WPs, which in other languages have the same purpose as this one. If it were reasonable to assume that there could be "few pub[li]shed scholarly studies of collegiate churches outside the UK readily accessible in UK libraries", then UK libraries are extremely pitiful. Please, accept my apologies in case you must depend solely on the mobile library arriving at the Red Lion Inn in Llanfihangel Nant Melan, or so. But that is where the internet comes in handy — or do you think I travel to the UK each time I refer to an English language source? The internet is still a bit more than a collection of blogs: its origin was purely scholarly. When I work at an article about a topic that might be more related to my own place of origin, I nevertheless search for what has been published elsewhere, and more often than not, I can find some fairly good sources in English. Rarely or never nothing at all. Btw, WP does allow more than only scholarly studies as sources. I'm not inclined to follow your suggestion of doing the job myself, I assume this to be one of the responsibilities of who wrote/writes the article: I merely showed the by WP standards unadmissible single POV, and pointed out how one might proceed in order to achieve WP:NPOV.

Cathedral and Collegiate Church
Can someone take a view on why there is no mention of the designation "Cathedral and Collegiate Church" which is used by some English cathedrals, for example St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark. Is the double designation actually meaningful, i.e. would these churches remain collegiate by default even if they ceased to be cathedrals, or is it an affectation?Oinky (talk) 08:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I think the point of the designation for Southwark, was that when create a cathedral in 1905, it still remained a parish church (as it had been since the Dissolution). Same, of course, with other parish churches raised to cathedral status in the 19th and 20th centuries (e.g. Manchester, Ripon). In so far as this status ought to be noted within Wikipedia; it would rather be appropriate to an article on the peculiarities of English Cathedrals, rather than to one on collegiate churches.  In my view. TomHennell (talk) 19:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not because it was a parish church raised to the status of a cathedral, it's because it was a collegiate parish church raised to the status of a cathedral. Anyhow, my question stands, if it were reduced to a parish church again, would it still be collegiate? If so, that's a peculiarity of collegiate churches, not of cathedrals, so the point would belong in this article in my opinion. Need to find out the answer to the question first thoughOinky (talk) 17:22, 1 February 2014 (UTC).


 * I don't think there is a hard and fast rule one way or another; if Southwark ceased to be a cathedral, I imagine the full-time college/chapter would be discontinued on financial grounds; but that would not necesarily preclude the ongoing parish continuing to describe itself as collegiate. St John the Baptist, Chester retains the title and dignity of 'Cathedral and Collegiate Church' even though neither chapter nor college has been resident for many centuries. Technically, I suppose, Southwark in 1897 counted as an additional post-reformation collegiate foundation, unique in that it was not a refoundation of a former medieval college, or a current cathedral.  On the other hand, it was already then designated as pro-cathedral for the new diocese; so whether this is worth including in the article is moot. TomHennell (talk) 18:13, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

St John the Baptist, Chester retains the title and dignity of 'Cathedral and Collegiate Church'  -  Does it now? That's another interesting point then, apart from what would appear to be the obvious nonsense of a church which is not collegiate being called a Collegiate Church! By what authority do former cathedrals continue to be called cathedrals, after they have ceased to be the seat of a bishopric? Another example would be Glasgow Cathedral. Any ideas who decides these things? Oinky (talk) 14:05, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * There were three churches with the dignity of cathedrals in the Lichfield diocese; Lichfield Cathedral, St Mary, St Peter and St Osburg Coventry, and St John the Baptist Chester. In effect, when in 1102 Coventry became a cathedral priory, Chester ceased to have cathedral status but was specifically allowed to retain the name of 'cathedral'.  Which they have kept ever since, even after St Werburgh up the road muscled in on the act in 1541. TomHennell (talk) 17:14, 8 February 2014 (UTC)