Minster (church)

In English usage a Minster is a grand type of church; the term may be extended to apply to a cathedral, such as York Minster. However, when the term is used less vaguely, it is a collegiate church.

The word is Old English, mynster or monastery^[1], derived from Latin ministerium, the “office or “service”, such as was said at set hours in the minster. Thus minster originally applied to the church of a monastery or a chapter: it was an abbot who presided in the minster, rather than a bishop, as at a cathedral. Westminster Abbey is not the seat of the Bishop of London, whose seat is St Paul's Cathedral.

In the United Kingdom aside from these there are Beverley Minster, Southwell Minster, Wimborne Minster, Peterborough Minster, Reading Minster, Sunderland Minster, Iwerne Minster, Stow Minster, Dewsbury Minster, Berkeley Minster, Tewkesbury Minster, South Elmham Minster, Howden Minster, St. Botolf's Minster (Iken, Suffolk), Rotherham Minster, Preston Minster, Ripon Minster^[2], Lincoln Minster^[3], Hemingbrough Minster, and Stonegrave Minster by no means all seats of bishops.

The title of 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. [4]

In the case of the Ulm Münster in Germany, the term was used for a particularly prosperous parish church boasting a plethora 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, Essen, Freiburg, Aachen, Hamelin, Doberan (all Germany).

See also

• Munster (disambiguation) for many related place names (includes Minster, Münster).