A minor canon is a member of staff on the establishment of a cathedral or a collegiate church. In at least one foundation the post may be known as "priest-vicar". [1]
Minor canons are clergy and take part in the daily services but are not part of the formal chapter. [2] They are sometimes, but not exclusively, more junior clergy, often chosen for their singing ability, who have already served a curacy, normally in a church. [3]
A cathedral is a church that contains the cathedra of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches. Church buildings embodying the functions of a cathedral first appeared in Italy, Gaul, Spain, and North Africa in the 4th century, but cathedrals did not become universal within the Western Catholic Church until the 12th century, by which time they had developed architectural forms, institutional structures, and legal identities distinct from parish churches, monastic churches, and episcopal residences. The cathedral is more important in the hierarchy than the church because it is from the cathedral that the bishop governs the area under his or her administrative authority.
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense, curate means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term curate is commonly used to describe clergy who are assistants to the parish priest. The duties or office of a curate are called a curacy.
Gerard was Archbishop of York between 1100 and 1108 and Lord Chancellor of England from 1085 until 1092. A Norman, he was a member of the cathedral clergy at Rouen before becoming a royal clerk under King William I of England and subsequently his son King William II Rufus. Gerard was appointed Lord Chancellor by William I, and he continued in that office under Rufus, who rewarded him with the Bishopric of Hereford in 1096. Gerard may have been with the king's hunting party when William II was killed, as he is known to have witnessed the first charter issued by the new king, Henry I of England, within days of William's death.
An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that of most clergy and below a bishop. In the High Middle Ages it was the most senior diocesan position below a bishop in the Catholic Church. An archdeacon is often responsible for administration within an archdeaconry, which is the principal subdivision of the diocese. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church has defined an archdeacon as "A cleric having a defined administrative authority delegated to him by the bishop in the whole or part of the diocese." The office has often been described metaphorically as oculus episcopi, the "bishop's eye".
A prebendary is a member of the Catholic or Anglican clergy, a form of canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in particular seats, usually at the back of the choir stalls, known as prebendal stalls.
Canon is a Christian title usually used to refer to a member of certain bodies in subject to an ecclesiastical rule.
A precentor is a person who helps facilitate worship. The details vary depending on the religion, denomination, and era in question. The Latin derivation is præcentor, from cantor, meaning "the one who sings before".
Choir dress is the traditional vesture of the clerics, seminarians and religious of Christian churches worn for public prayer and the administration of the sacraments except when celebrating or concelebrating the Eucharist. It differs from the vestments worn by the celebrants of the Eucharist, being normally made of fabrics such as wool, cotton or silk, as opposed to the fine brocades used in vestments. It may also be worn by lay assistants such as acolytes and choirs. It was abandoned by most of the Protestant churches that developed from the sixteenth-century Reformation.
A chapter is one of several bodies of clergy in Catholic, Old Catholic, Anglican, and Nordic Lutheran churches or their gatherings.
A tippet is a piece of clothing worn over the shoulders in the shape of a scarf or cape. Tippets evolved in the fourteenth century from long sleeves and typically had one end hanging down to the knees. A tippet could also be the long, narrow, streamer-like strips of fabric - attached with an armband just above the elbow - that hung gracefully to the knee or even to the ground. In later fashion, a tippet is often any scarf-like wrap, usually made of fur, such as the sixteenth-century zibellino or the fur-lined capelets worn in the mid-18th century.
A choir, also sometimes called quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel, between the nave and the sanctuary, which houses the altar and Church tabernacle. In larger medieval churches it contained choir-stalls, seating aligned with the side of the church, so at right-angles to the seating for the congregation in the nave. Smaller medieval churches may not have a choir in the architectural sense at all, and they are often lacking in churches built by all denominations after the Protestant Reformation, though the Gothic Revival revived them as a distinct feature.
The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. Ministry commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. More accurately, Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves to the ministry of the church, either individually or in lower/assisting offices such as lector, acolyte, sub-deacon, Eucharistic minister, cantor, musicians, parish secretary or assistant, warden, vestry member, etc. Ultimately, all baptized members of the church are considered to partake in the ministry of the Body of Christ.
The Minor Canons of St Paul's Cathedral, London, whose origins predate the Norman conquest of England, unusually were independent of the senior canons and, as priests, of higher status than the lay vicars choral. Medieval Hereford furnishes the only other example of such a structure.
According to both Catholic and Anglican canon law, a cathedral chapter is a college of clerics (chapter) formed to advise a bishop and, in the case of a vacancy of the episcopal see in some countries, to govern the diocese during the vacancy. In the Catholic Church their creation is the purview of the Pope. They can be numbered, in which case they are provided with a fixed prebend, or unnumbered, in which case the bishop indicates the number of canons according to the rents. These chapters are made up of canons and other officers, while in the Church of England chapters now include a number of lay appointees.
Hilary was a medieval bishop of Chichester in England. English by birth, he studied canon law and worked in Rome as a papal clerk. During his time there, he became acquainted with a number of ecclesiastics, including the future Pope Adrian IV, and the writer John of Salisbury. In England, he served as a clerk for Henry of Blois, who was the bishop of Winchester and brother of King Stephen of England. After Hilary's unsuccessful nomination to become Archbishop of York, Pope Eugene III compensated him by promoting him to the bishopric of Chichester in 1147.
Peter Quinel was a medieval Bishop of Exeter. He became a canon of Exeter Cathedral in 1276 and his episcopate began in 1280 and continued until he died in 1291. He issued a set of rules governing the clergy in his diocese and the required furnishing of churches and continued the rebuilding efforts at Exeter Cathedral.
Lucy Clare Winkett is a British Anglican priest, who since 2010 has been the Rector of St James's Church, Piccadilly. Her early ordained ministry was spent at St Paul's Cathedral, London, where she was a minor canon and chaplain from 1997 to 2003, and the canon precentor from 2003 to 2010. She was the first female priest to join the clergy of St Paul's Cathedral.
A rector is, in an ecclesiastical sense, a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations. In contrast, a vicar is also a cleric but functions as an assistant and representative of an administrative leader.
Samuel Stanfield Singer was a Scottish episcopal clergyman who was Dean of Glasgow and Galloway from 1974 to 1987.
Janet Elizabeth "Jan" McFarlane is a British Church of England bishop and former speech and language therapist. She has been Dean of Lichfield, the primus inter pares of the clergy at Lichfield Cathedral — the mother church of the Diocese of Lichfield — since 2024; she has also been an honorary assistant bishop of the Diocese since 2020. She has previously served as a Canon of Lichfield; as Bishop of Repton ; and as Acting Bishop of Derby.
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