CANON, an ecclesiastical dignitary, so called as living under a rule, or as following the rule or canon of divine service. His otlice is of no great antiquity. According to Paschier, the name was not known before Charlemagne. This, however, is not precisely true, for the term C. was applied in the 4th c. to cenobites living under a common rule; but the office of C. is supposed to have been first instituted by Chrodegand or Clirodegang, bishop of Metz, in 763. It is at least certain that he was the author of the oldest canonical rule, which was simply an adaptation of the monastic rule (commonly but erroneously attributed to St. Augustine) to the priests and "clerks " specially attached to the service of a cathedral or other church. It enjoined on the canons manual labor, the practice of silence at certain times, confession twice a year, and other duties needless to specify. The canons formed the council of the bishop, and assisted him in the government of his diocese. They lived in a house called a monastery, slept in a common room, ate at the same table, and were originally supported out of the episcopal revenues. Iu 816, Louis le Debonnaire induced the council of Aix-la-Chapelle to draw up a general rule for the whole body of canons. Canons found their way not Ions afterwards into England, land, Scotland, and Ireland. Various reforms of C. were made in the 11th and beginnino- of
the 12th century. Gradually, however, many began to emancipate themselves from the restrictions of monastic life, and to live independent of any rule, which is not at all sur prising, for the canons were wont to keep apart from the "lower clergy," as they called parish priests and others who really labored to impart religious instruction. They were often of noble families, loved titles—at Lyon, they were called in general were men of the world rather than true churchmen. Sonic of these reformed or remodeled canons were called black canons, from wearing a black cassock; white canons, from wearing a white habit like the Pramonstratenses of Picardy in France. The class of secular canons, whose manner of life was not conventual, and who there fore escaped destruction in England when the monasteries were abolished by Henry VIII., probably originated in a tendency to relax the severity of rule enjoined on the regulars, which indeed was hardly less stringent than in the case of ordinary monks. Secular canons still exist in the Anglican church, and their duties—making allowance for the difference between the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions—are much the same in kind as they were before the reformation. See CATIIEDEAL.