Regular CANONS, are canons that still live in community; and who, like religious, have, in process of time, to the practice of their rules, added the solemn profession of vows. They are called regulars, to distinguish them from those secular canons who abandon living in community, and at the same time the observance of the canons made as the rule of the clergy, for the maintenance of the ancient discipline. The canons subsisted in their simplicity till the eleventh, some say the twelfth century, when some of them, separating from the community, took with them the name of canons, or acephalous priests, because they declined to live in community with the bishop; and those who were left thenceforth acquired the denomination of canons regular, and adopted most of the pro-
essions of the rule of St Augustine. This order of regular canons of St Augustine was brought into England by Adelwald, confessor to Henry I. who erected a priory at Nostel in Yorkshire; and obtained for them the church of Carlisle as an episcopal see, with the privilege of choosing their own bishop. They were singularly protected and encouraged by Henry I. who gave them the priory of Dunstable in 1107, and by Queen Maud, who, in the following year, gave them the priory of the Holy Trinity in London. It appears, that under the reign of Edward I. they had fifty-three priories.