Minster (church)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In English usage, a Minster is a particular type of church. The term can refer to a cathedral, such as York Minster and Southwell Minster; and conversely Lincoln Cathedral and Ripon Cathedral are also sometimes referred to as minsters.[1][2] However, the term normally refers to a collegiate church.
The word is from the Old English "mynster", meaning "monastery", "nunnery", "mother church" or "cathedral", itself derived from the Latin "ministerium", meaning “service, assistance”. It refers to the "canonical hours", sung at set hours in a minster.[3] Thus, "minster" originally applied to the church of a monastery or a chapter: historically, a minster was ruled by an abbot, except when it had cathedral status, when it would be ruled by a bishop. Westminster Abbey, in the city of Westminster, is not a cathedral, nor is it under the jurisdiction of a bishop, since it is a royal peculiar. Nevertheless, in pre-Reformation England, some cathedrals, such as Worcester, were also monastic.
In England, in addition to the cathedrals mentioned previously, the following are large churches, which may have been collegiate before the reformation but are not the seat of a diocesan bishop: Beverley Minster, Wimborne Minster, Reading Minster, Doncaster Minster, Sunderland Minster, Iwerne Minster, Stow Minster, Dewsbury Minster, Berkeley Minster, Tewkesbury Minster, Howden Minster, St. Botolf's Minster (Iken, Suffolk), South Elmham Minster, Rotherham Minster, Preston Minster, Hemingbrough Minster, and Stonegrave Minster. The name "Peterborough Minster" is now applied to a district of Peterborough, but not to Peterborough Cathedral.
The title "Stoke Minster" was conferred on the parish church of St. Peter ad Vincula in Stoke-upon-Trent by The Rt. Revd. Jonathan Gledhill, Bishop of Lichfield, at a ceremony on May 17, 2005, and St Thomas's in Newport, Isle of Wight, was granted a similar title in 2008.[4]
In the case of the Ulm Minster in Germany, the term was used for a particularly prosperous parish church boasting a large number of clergy.
In other places in Europe, “minster” has become simply a historical term for a particular church, e.g. the minsters of Strasbourg (France); Basel and Bern (Switzerland); Bonn Minster, Essen, Freiburg, Aachen, Hamelin, Doberan (all Germany).
[edit] See also
- Munster (disambiguation) for many related place names (includes Minster, Münster).
