We must leave here the subject of the establishment of university colleges and pass to consider the colleges of secular canons which were rapidly founded in all parts of the country. The _Monasticon_[636] gives a list of twenty-six establishments, described as collegiate churches, and of one hundred and sixty-five, which are described simply as colleges, exclusive of the cathedral churches. We are underestimating the number when we state that, outside the universities, there were two hundred colleges or collegiate churches in this country. The term "college" or "collegiate church" may be used indifferently; both imply an organisation of secular priests or of secular priests and scholars founded for the purpose "ad orandum et studiendum."
One of the first of the collegiate churches to be established subsequent to the Conquest was that of Howden in Yorkshire. The church was intended at one time to form the endowment of a monastery,[637] but in 1266 Bishop Robert of Durham caused it to become a college of secular priests.[638] The remaining records of this church are meagre and relate mainly to the endowments which it gradually received.
Howden Collegiate Church serves to illustrate the difficulties in connection with tracing the educational history of this country, and also the educational significance of the collegiate churches. As we have just remarked, the records of this church are extremely meagre, and if we were dependent upon them alone we would naturally conclude that no educational interest was attached to this institution. A different interpretation is put upon the matter when we examine a Durham register of the period.[639] Here we find records of scholastic appointments to this church, _e.g._ to a song school in 1393, to a grammar school in the same year, to a reading and song school in 1394, to a reading and song school in 1401, to a reading and song school in 1402, to a grammar school in 1403, to a grammar and reading school in 1409, to a song and reading school in 1412, separate appointments for reading and song in 1426, whilst the last record is that of J. Armandson, B.A., who was appointed "ad informandum pueros in lectura et grammatica" during the good pleasure of the prior.