List of collegiate churches in England

This is a list of Collegiate churches in England.

In Western Christianity, a collegiate church is one in which the daily office of worship is maintained collectively by a college of canons; consisting of a number of non-monastic or "secular clergy" commonly organised by foundation statutes into a self-governing corporate body or chapter, presided over by a dean, warden or provost. In its governance and religious observance a collegiate church is similar to a cathedral, although a collegiate church is not the seat of a bishop and has no diocesan responsibilities. As the primary function of collegiate canons was that of corporate worship, a collegiate church differed in principle from an ordinary parish church whose clergy (even when there might be several of them) had as their primary responsibility the parochial cure of souls. Nevertheless, most medieval collegiate churches also served as parish churches, with the parochial benefice commonly appropriated to the college.

All medieval collegiate churches or chapels would have been endowed at their foundation with income-yielding property, commonly rents or parochial tithes. Under their statutes, each canon would be provided with a distinct income for his personal subsistence; and in England this might be achieved in one of three ways; where the endowments were pooled and each canonry derived a fixed proportion of the annual income, they were termed 'portioners'; where each canonry had separate endowments these canonries were termed 'prebends'; and where each canonry was provided in the statutes with a fixed stipend income conditional on maintaining prayers and saying masses for the repose of the founder's family, they were classified as 'fellows' or 'chaplains' within a chantry college. In respect of prebends in particular, it became expected practice in the medieval period for canons to be non-resident, vicars being appointed to maintain corporate worship on their behalf, and these vicarages might be specified in the college statutes. Furthermore in the later medieval period, developing expectations of corporate worship led to collegiate foundations increasingly making provision for professional choirs of singing men (or clerks) and boy choristers. Where a collegiate foundation had appropriated a parish church, the statutes also commonly provided for a parochial vicar.

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