Abstract
The article briefly recapitulates the development of the institution of canons in the church from its beginnings, which are often associated with St. Augustine and his "monastery of clerics" in Hippo Regius, until its legal establishment in the Assembly of Trent.
It seeks to find the conceptual (essential) features of this institution that distinguish it from other forms of clergy associations in the Catholic Church. On this journey, the rule (Regula canonicorum), whose originator - the bishop of the northern French Met.
Chrodegang - is often considered the founder of the institution of canons in the narrower sense of the word. The acceptance or non-acceptance of this order, which in a modified form was proclaimed in a modified form by the Frankish monarch Ludvík Zbožný in Aachen in 816 as the Reich Act (hence Institutiones Aquisgranenses) for the imperial cathedral and other important churches, foreshadowed the later definitive division of canons into canonici regulares and canonici saeculares), resp. to the canonical religious society (regularly with the Order of St.
Augustine) and to the secular chapters of the canons.