Augustinian Canons - The Concept of "canon"

The Concept of "canon"

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, a canon regular is essentially a religious cleric; "The Order of Canons Regular is necessarily constituted by religious clerics, because they are essentially destined to those works which relate to the Divine mysteries, whereas it is not so with the monastic Orders." (II-II:189:8 ad 2 um, and II-II:184:8). This is what constitutes a canon regular and what distinguishes him from a monk. The clerical state is essential to the Order of Canons Regular, whereas it is only accidental to the Monastic Order.

Erasmus, himself a canon regular, declared that the canons regular are a "median point" between the monks and the secular clergy. And for the same reason Nigellus Vireker, a Benedictine monk of Canterbury in the twelfth century, contrasts the life of canons regular with that of his own fellow-monks and the Cistercians, pointing out the advantages of the former. The canons, he tells us, were spared the long choral duties, the sharp reproofs, the stern discipline of the Black Monks, and were not bound to the Spartan simplicity of clothing and diet of the field-working Cistercians. The "Llanthony Chronicler" relates how the first founders of his famous abbey, having consulted among themselves, decided to become canons regular, first, because on account of the charity they were well liked by all, and then because they were satisfied with a modest manner of living, their habit, though clean, being decent, neither too coarse, nor too rich. In this moderation of life we may say that canons regular follow the example of their lawgiver, St. Augustine, of whom St. Possidius, his biographer, relates that his habit, his furniture, his clothes were always decent, neither too showy nor too humble and shabby. The spirit of the canonical order is also explained in the "Observances in Use at the Augustinian Priory at Barnwell, Cambridge."

According to St. Augustine, a canon regular professes two things, "sanctitatem et clericatum". He lives in community, he leads the life of a religious, he sings the praises of God by the daily recitation of the Divine Office in choir; but at the same time, at the bidding of his superiors, he is prepared to follow the example of the Apostles by preaching, teaching, and the administration of the sacraments, or by giving hospitality to pilgrims and travellers, and tending the sick.

But the canons regular do not confine themselves exclusively to canonical functions. They also give hospitality to pilgrims and travelers on the Great St. Bernard and on the Simplon, and in former times the hospitals of St. Bartholomew's Smithfield, in London, of S. Spirito, in Rome, of Lochleven, Monymusk and St. Andrew's, in Scotland, and others like them, were all served by canons regular. Many congregations of canons worked among the poor, the lepers, and the infirm. The clerics established by St. Patrick in Ireland had a Guest House for pilgrims and the sick whom they tended by day and by night. And the rule given by Chrodegang to this canons enjoined that a hospital should be near their house that they might tend the sick. The Council of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) also ordains the erection of a hospital for pilgrims over which a canon regular is to preside.