Note 334 — LLANTHONY ABBEY, Monmouthshire.

These Canons were to live in common; to have but one table, one purse, one dormitory. But as many of them had begun to abate somewhat of the strictness of their first rules, a new set sprang up that pretended to reform upon the rest; and these, from their more pointed observance of the vow, were styled Regular Canons; whereas those who had fallen from the original purity of the Order were called, by way of reproach, Secular Canons. In this manner the monks of New Llanthony, who affected a more exemplary life, called themselves Regulars—which they did not permit those of the parent Abbey, in Wales, to assume, but addressed them only as Canons or Seculars. It was by this distinction—“I am holier than thou”—that they endeavoured to justify their “unfilial conduct,” and promote their own ascendancy, in their connection with Old Llanthony. [But in the Charters they are often called Regulars.]

It seems uncertain at what precise period the title or designation of Canons was assumed in the church; but the first Regulars we read of were those employed by Pope Alexander II., in his mission to St. John Lateran. But so irregular, says a historian, were those Regulars, and so addicted to crimes, that even Pope Boniface VIII. was forced to drive them away, and placed Secular Canons in their room.

They were introduced into England about the middle of the seventh century.