Canon regular
member of Ordre of canons regular
The Canons Regular are Catholic priests and religious brothers (canons) who live in community under a rule (Latin: regula and κανών, kanon, in Greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerics regular, designated by a partly similar terminology. As religious communities, they have lay brothers as part of the community. Canons regular generally follow the Rule of Saint Augustine.
At times, the life of canons regular has been very popular. In 12th-century England, there were more houses of canons (often referred to as an abbey or canonry) than monasteries of monks.
Preliminary distinctions
All canons regular are to be distinguished from secular canons who belong to a resident group of priests but who do not take public vows and are not governed in whatever elements of life they lead in common by a historical rule. One obvious place where such groups of priests are required is at a cathedral, where there were many Masses to celebrate and the Divine Office to be prayed together in community. Other groups were established at other churches which at some period in their history had been considered major churches, and (often thanks to particular benefactions) also in smaller centres.
As a norm, canons regular live together in communities that take public vows. Their early communities took vows of common property and stability.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Canon regular” as member of Ordre of canons regular. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as member of Ordre of canons regular. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q89566537. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Canon regular” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.