while, at the same time, other like bodies were formed, which, in the absence of a bishop, became, in the ecclesiastical sense, collegiate rather than cathedral. There is no doubt that the words canon and

regular," and "secular," were almost from the first used with some degree of looseness, but the above is, I think, a fair account of the earliest, the secular variety, of canon. But this "monster without a precedent," this "regular irregular," this "canonless canon," had not, for those troublous times, the elements of stability. We are accustomed, perhaps, to consider the monastic orders as self-refuting failures, but it is certain that they served their purpose better, and showed more vitality, than the apparently rational system of secular canons.1 The attempted reform of Nicholas II in the Council of 1059 indicates the decay of the canonical life. Official revenues, according to his plan, were to be held in common, while rights of private property were respected. The real regeneration, however, came from within, and was already begun. At the Church of St. Rufus, at Avignon, a body of clergy, renouncing all separate

1 From the days of Chrodegangus, Bishop of Metz, in the middle of the eighth century, there was clearly something not very unlike a urle" for the canons; and in 817 we find certain changes introduced, especially in a curious point as to inheritance by canons of their bishop's "movables."

property and reviving the rule which they found in the 109th Epistle of St. Augustine of Hippo, became in 1138 the first "Regular" or "Austin" Canons.1 We have thus advanced one step farther, to a point from which we are able to understand that a " Regular Canon" is, in reality, a mere tautology. He is a regular regular—a cleric bound by a rule milder, it is true, than even that of the unreformed Benedictine monks, but still strict enough for many, and for some even too exacting.

To Guyot de Provins-a writer of the thirteenth century who had rejected in turn the Cluniac, Cistercian, and Carthusian orders-the Austin Canons seem to have been especially congenial. "Among these," we find him saying, "one is well shod, well clothed, well fed." The date and place of the introduction of this order into England has been much disputed. The editor of the Monasticon inclines to Bishop Tanner's theory that the first foundation of Regular or Augustinian Canons was at Colchester, and gives 1105 as the probable date. But Mr. Freeman and Professor Stubbs tell us that Lanfranc introduced the order at Canterbury; and Lanfranc died in

1 At the Lateran Council, A. D. 1139, Pope Innocent II ordained that all Regular Canons should submit to the rule of St. Austin in his 109th Epistle. From this order afterwards proceeded both Peter Martyr and Martin Luther.

1089. Mr. Freeman's quotation from William of Malmesbury seems to be conclusive in favour of this view.1

I have alluded in the first paper of this series to the jealous antagonism which, even before the Conquest, existed between the monks and the secular clergy. It may, therefore, be interesting to notice that Lanfranc, the first to bring regular canons to England, was at the same time the constant champion of the monks against those who would have handed over all our cathedrals to the seculars. The see of Carlisle, founded by Henry I, seems to have been the first, and indeed the only, instance of the establishment in England of Regular Canons as a cathedral body; though the Scotch, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, set the example in not a few instances.

Meanwhile the war between monks and seculars ended in a partition of territory-Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, Coventry, Norwich, Rochester, Worcester, Ely, and Bath, falling to the monks; York, London, Exeter, Lichfield, Wells, Hereford, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Chichester, to the canons.2

1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 327; Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. iv. p. 363.

2 It must be remembered that Oxford, Peterborough, Chester, and Gloucester were not erected into bishoprics till Henry VIII. Westminster, which is Benedictine, was made cathedral by Henry, and "collegiate" by Elizabeth.