The seven collegiate churches of Liège (french: sept collégiales de Liège) were a group of 10th- and early-11th-century foundations in the city of

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

. Each of these

collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons: a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, which may be presided over by a ...

es was a privileged corporation within the city, with its own precincts and rights, while until the

Liège Revolution The Liège Revolution, sometimes known as the Happy Revolution (french: Heureuse Révolution; wa, Binamêye revolucion), against the reigning prince-bishop of Liège, started on 18 August 1789 and lasted until the destruction of the Republic ...

of 1789 the canons collectively had a key corporate status in the

First Estate The estates of the realm, or three estates, were the broad orders of social hierarchy used in Christendom (Christian Europe) from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe. Different systems for dividing society members into estates developed and ...

of the

prince-bishopric of Liège The Prince-Bishopric of Liège or Principality of Liège was an Hochstift, ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that was situated for the most part in present-day Belgium. It was an Imperial State, Imperial Estate, so the List of ...

as the "secondary clergy", alongside the "primary clergy" belonging to the chapter of Saint Lambert's Cathedral. By the 18th century, each of the collegiate chapters had 30 canons, all of whom were required to be graduates in Theology or Canon Law. Each chapter had its own provost,

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...

scholaster A scholaster, from the Latin ''scholasticus'' (schoolmaster), or magister scholarum, was the head of an ecclesiastical school, typically a cathedral school, monastic school, or the school of a collegiate church, in medieval and early-modern Europe ...

and

treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury o ...

.Charles Louis and Giraud Richard, ''Dictionnaire universel'', vol. 3 (Paris, 1760), p. 624. The seven churches were:

References

{{Catholic Church in Belgium History of Liège * Collegiate churches in Belgium Constitutional history