Canon of Windsor

The Dean and Canons of Windsor are the ecclesiastical body of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

The college of Canons was established in 1348 by Letters Patent of King Edward III. It was formally constituted on the Feast of St Andrew the Apostle, 30 November 1352, when the statutes drawn up by William Edington, Bishop of Winchester, as Papal Delegate, were solemnly delivered to William Mugge, the Warden of the College.

Accepting that the process of foundation took several years to complete, the college takes the year 1348 as its formal date of foundation.

Three ancient monumental brasses survive depicting Canons of Windsor, wearing the mantle of the Order of the Garter, purple in colour, with a circular badge on the left shoulder, displaying: Argent, a cross gules (a Cross of St George):

The long cords which fasten the mantle are well represented at North Stoke and Magdalen College. In the two later examples it is gathered. On the Eton brass the mantle is fastened at the neck. The lost effigy of John Robyns, d. 1558, of which the inscription remains in St. George's Chapel, may have shown him wearing the mantle. (See: "Brasses of Canons of Windsor," by the Rev. J. E. Field, The Antiquaryy Vol. XV., 1887; For military examples, see Ch. III). Brasses of Canons of Windsor are found showing them vested in copes, without the Garter badge, as at Thurcaston, Leicestershire. (John Mershdcn, 1425), and at Harrow (Simon Marcheford, 1442). A brass was discovered in 1890 at Bennington, near Stevenage, Hertfordshire, showing a small mutilated effigy of a priest in a cope with a round badge (possibly a rose) on the left shoulder. The cope has an orphrey. This has been supposed to represent a Canon of Windsor. (See Transactions of the Cambridge University Association of Brass Collectors, Vol. II, p. 24).

Section 9 of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1840 provided for the suspension of eight of the canonries at St George's. It required that the first two vacant canonries should be suspended, the next filled, the next two suspended, the next filled, the next two suspended, the next filled, and the next two suspended.

See List of Deans of Windsor for chronological list.

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